Berkeley, Calif. ? Just in case his teammates hadn’t looked at the scoreboard recently, Ryan Riddle stepped into California’s defensive huddle and reminded them of their big zero.

“Keep it going, keep it going!” the defensive end shouted.

The seventh-ranked Golden Bears hung on for a historic shutout, beating No. 20 Arizona State, 27-0, early Sunday morning.

Cal (6-1, 4-1 Pac-10) forced five turnovers — including Tim Mixon’s 58-yard interception return for a score — and held Andrew Walter without a touchdown pass while posting consecutive goose eggs for the first time since 1968.

To the coaching staff, zero is just another number — but not to the Cal defenders accustomed to playing in the offense’s shadow.

“I was definitely aware of it,” said Riddle, who had one of the Bears’ five sacks.

“I was getting everybody aware that we had to keep it going on that last drive,” he said. “That means a lot to us. I didn’t know if you could do that in the Pac-10, but we did.”

J.J. Arrington rushed for 188 yards and a score, but the Bears won with defense. Cal blanked Arizona, 38-0, last week before shutting down Walter and the Sun Devils’ high-powered offense.

Arizona State failed to score inside the 10 in the closing minutes, and Cal ran out the clock on the Sun Devils’ first shutout loss since Sept. 30, 1995.

After losses by No. 3 Miami and fifth-ranked Florida State this weekend, the Bears were ranked fourth in Sunday’s AP poll, the first time they’ve been in the top five since 1952.

“Everything is going well,” Arrington said. “I’m in awe of everything. We’re having a lot of great things happen to us this year.”

Freshman Robert Jordan caught seven passes for 116 yards and a touchdown in his second collegiate game, but Aaron Rodgers struggled to connect with his injury-plagued receiving corps.

So Cal relied on Arrington, who had another impressive performance. He reached 1,000 yards faster than any player in Cal history with his school-record seventh straight 100-yard game, and his one-yard TD dive in the fourth quarter put it away.

Walter passed for 238 yards for the Sun Devils (6-2, 3-2), who got their second blowout loss in three games after starting the season with five straight wins. Walter also failed to throw a touchdown pass, leaving him one TD throw behind John Elway’s Pac-10 career record of 77.

“Our defense was by far the bright spot of the game,” Arizona State coach Dirk Koetter said. “They did a great job with some excellent individual efforts, but we gave them no help. Cal’s a very good football team, but we did that to ourselves.”

The latest-starting game in Memorial Stadium’s history was played under four stanchions of temporary lights. Cal’s 52,652 chilled fans still packed the house for Berkeley’s first meeting of ranked teams since 1993.