I’m continuing my tour of college football with a look at the California Golden Bears, which still looks strange every time I type it next to the ACC.
Cal’s second year in the league was not a disaster. The Bears went 7-6 and 4-4 in ACC play, won at Louisville and got to a bowl game.
But it still wasn’t enough to keep Justin Wilcox around.
Now, Cal turns to a Bay Area guy and former Golden Bear in Tosh Lupoi. And while Cal might not be a national title contender, the Bears are one of the more interesting teams in the ACC because they have a quarterback, a new coach, a brutal travel reality and a schedule that could either give them early momentum or expose the holes quickly. Could they – at bare minimum – play spoiler to playoff contenders in the ACC?
HEAD COACH
- Tosh Lupoi, entering year one at California
- Lupoi is a former Cal player and assistant who comes back to Berkeley after serving as Oregon’s defensive coordinator.
- Last year, Cal went 7-6 and 4-4 in the ACC.
- Cal has not had a winning record in conference play since 2009, obviously going back to its Pac 12 days.
This is a homecoming, but it’s also a gamble.
Lupoi has coached in big-time programs. He has been at Oregon. He has been at Alabama. He has NFL experience. He can recruit. He knows the school. He knows the Bay Area.
But this is also his first head coaching job, and Cal is not an easy place to win big.
The good news? He doesn’t walk into the job without a quarterback. That’s a rare reality for a first time head coach.
QUARTERBACK
Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele is the reason Cal is interesting.
Usually with a coaching change, the first question is whether the new coach has a quarterback. Cal does.
Sagapolutele threw for 3,454 yards, 18 touchdowns and 9 interceptions last season while completing 64.2% of his passes. For a freshman quarterback in a new conference, that is a real foundation. He threw the ball deep 71 times last year, ninth most in the entire country. That’s a stat I love for QBs. The kid is not afraid to let it fly.
He wasn’t perfect. Cal still had too many games where the offense felt like it was asking him to do everything. He also took too many sacks (30), which is what happens when a team cannot consistently run the ball and opponents know the quarterback has to carry the offense.
But there is a major difference between “we need to find a quarterback” and “we need our talented young quarterback to take the next step.”
Cal is in the second category.
Sagapolutele had enough flashes to make you believe he can be one of the better quarterbacks in the ACC. Now the question is whether Lupoi and the offensive staff can build an actual offense around him instead of asking him to survive every Saturday.
THE REST OF THE OFFENSE
Cal returns six starters on offense: Sagapolutele, wide receiver Mark Hamper, tight end Mason Mini and offensive linemen Tyson Ruffins, Sioape Vatikani and Frederick Williams III.
That sounds decent on paper.
But the run game has to be fixed immediately.
Cal ran for just 1,062 yards last season, averaging 81.7 rushing yards per game and 2.8 yards per carry. That is not just bad. That is the kind of number that makes every third down feel like third-and-forever.
The Bears also return almost nothing at running back, which means Washington transfer Adam Mohammed may have a chance to become the starter right away. Mohammed had 523 rushing yards and five touchdowns with the Huskies last season, while also catching 17 passes.
That is useful production, but Cal is likely asking him to be more than a rotation piece.
And they have completely reloaded at wide receiver.
Mark Hamper, a returner, is also interesting. He only had 17 catches last year, but he had 49 catches for 961 yards and six touchdowns at Idaho in 2024 before eventually landing at Cal. If he is healthy and takes a step forward, he could become a much bigger part of this offense.
Tight End Mason Mini should help, too. He had 35 catches and four touchdowns last season and gives Sagapolutele a reliable tight end target.
But the reinforcements at WR mean everything. Chase Hendricks, who comes in from Ohio, caught 71 passes last year. And many might say, “well, it was Ohio.” Think again. In the Bobcats’ first three games last year – all against Power 4 competition (Rutgers, West Virginia and Ohio State) – Hendricks caught 20 passes. And he had a huge TD against Ohio State that made it a 13-9 game early in the third quarter. It wasn’t garbage time, as the outcome was still in doubt.
At TE, Dorian Thomas also transfers in from New Mexico. He had 56 catches, 560 yards and four touchdowns last year. And like Hendricks, he showed big game potential, catching 10 passes and two touchdowns against Michigan in the Lobos opener.
Cooper Perry, an Oregon transfer, also comes in at wide receiver.
Ultimately, offense comes down to two things:
Can Cal protect Sagapolutele?
And can Cal run the ball well enough to keep defenses honest?
If the answer to both is no, the Bears may have a good quarterback and still be stuck in a frustrating offense.
DEFENSE
This is where Lupoi’s background makes things interesting.
He is a defensive coach, and Cal needs defensive improvement.
The Bears return only three defensive starters: defensive backs Aiden Manutai and Cam Sidney, and linebacker Jayden Wayne. None of Cal’s All-ACC players return.
That is a lot of turnover.
And the defense was not disruptive enough last year. Cal had 21 sacks as a team, forced eight interceptions and allowed opponents to average 4.7 yards per rush. If you can’t pressure the quarterback, force turnovers or stop the run, you are never going to get off the field on defense.
That is not how a Lupoi defense wants to live.
If you cannot sack the quarterback and cannot consistently stop the run, you are reacting instead of dictating. That is a dangerous way to play in this version of the ACC, especially when you are dealing with teams like Clemson, Virginia Tech, SMU, NC State and Pitt.
Cam Sidney and Aiden Manutai give Cal some experience in the secondary. Jayden Wayne had 25 tackles and two sacks last season, and he feels like the kind of player Lupoi needs to unlock.
But Cal needs more than a couple of returning names. It needs a defensive identity.
That is probably Lupoi’s biggest year-one job.
SCHEDULE
There is some good news for Cal.
The Bears play five of their first seven games at home, and some of those ACC teams have to deal with the long trip west.
Cal opens with UCLA at home, then goes to Syracuse before returning home for Wagner and Clemson. After a trip to UNLV, the Bears host Virginia Tech and Wake Forest, meaning three east coast to pacific times trips in the first 7 games for Cal opponents.
That stretch matters a lot.
If Cal is 5-2 or even 4-3 after those first seven, you can talk yourself into the Bears being a bowl team again. But if they stumble early, the middle of the schedule gets dangerous fast.
After Wake Forest on Oct. 17, Cal does not play another home game until Nov. 21. The Bears go to SMU, NC State and Virginia with a bye mixed in.
That is the Cal-in-the-ACC experience.
Three true Eastern Time Zone road trips. Another long trip to SMU. Then the season ends at home with Stanford and Pittsburgh.
The Big Game being at home matters after Stanford ate their lunch last year. The Pitt game could matter, too, especially if Cal is sitting around five or six wins.
But the schedule feels like one where Cal needs to take advantage of the early home games, because the middle of the season could get rough.
OUTLOOK
Sagapolutele gives the Bears a chance. Lupoi should bring energy, recruiting juice and defensive credibility. The offense should be explosive with JKS at QB and all of the weapons at wide receiver.
And you bring in a defensive guy to fix the defense right? That should help.
Cal has pieces. The cupboard is far from bare.
But in the ACC, especially for a West Coast team living in an East Coast league, pieces are not enough. Lupoi has to turn those pieces into a real identity quickly.
I think Cal could be a sneaky contender in a wide open ACC after Miami. And guess who isn’t on the Bears’ schedule? Yeah, Miami.
The first seven games feel gigantic. Can Cal get off to a good enough start for conference games to matter in October and November? I think it can.
Full disclosure: I use AI tools to format my research into an article encompassing all of the information.
