Adam Mohammed’s Cal debut already stood out on the field. Turns out it also belongs in the record book.
The junior transfer from Washington rushed for 120 yards in Cal’s 45-24 loss to UCLA on Saturday night at Memorial Stadium, making his first game with the Bears the most productive debut by a Cal running back in at least 50 years. That total pushed past the previous benchmark of 111 yards, set by Lindsey Chapman against Pacific in the 1991 season opener.
Mohammed, a 6-foot, 220-pound back from Glendale, Ariz., got most of his damage on one bruising third-quarter march. Cal put together a 14-play, 85-yard drive to tie the game at 24-all, and Mohammed finished it by punching in a 1-yard touchdown.
On that possession alone, he carried 10 times for 54 yards and kept the chains moving with runs of 8, 10 and 20 yards. He also converted four first downs on the drive, including one on a 7-yard catch.
“He kept the chains moving. He was running hard for us,” quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele said in the video above.
“I’m grateful to have him. I’m proud of him.
I love the guy.”
Mohammed finished with 28 carries, both career highs, and his 120 yards were also a personal best. He had already shown his ceiling at Washington late last season, putting up 108 yards and a touchdown in a 48-14 win at UCLA and 105 yards with two touchdowns in a 26-14 loss to Oregon.
The list of Cal backs to top 100 rushing yards in their first game with the program over the last half-century is short, and it includes some heavy hitters. Chapman’s debut came on Sept. 7, 1991, when he ran for 111 yards on 16 attempts, including a 35-yard burst on his first college carry, as Cal rolled Pacific 86-24. He added two touchdowns and finished that season with 675 rushing yards before going on to total 2,076 yards in three years with the Bears.
In 2022, Jaydn Ott made his entrance with 104 yards on 17 carries and an 8-yard touchdown reception from Jack Plummer in a 34-13 win over UC Davis. Three weeks later, he exploded for 274 yards and three scores against Arizona, then finished his Cal career with 2,597 rushing yards and 24 touchdowns before transferring to Oklahoma before the 2025 season.
Jamar Vereen also joined the club in 2008, going for 104 yards on just nine carries in a 38-31 win over Michigan State. That was his only 100-yard game as a freshman behind Jahvid Best, but it was a sign of what was coming.
Vereen went on to finish with 2,834 yards and 29 touchdowns in three seasons, including 11 100-yard games, and later became a second-round pick of the New England Patriots in 2011. He won a Super Bowl with the franchise after the 2014 season.
Another name on the list is Russell White, who opened his Cal career with 101 yards in a 50-18 loss at Washington on Oct. 4, 1986, after transferring from Oklahoma. White became a fixture for Bruce Snyder, piling up 1,397 yards and 13 touchdowns over the next two seasons.
There are also a couple of Cal backs who made noise in their first outings without quite getting to the century mark. Marshawn Lynch ran for 92 yards on seven carries in a 56-14 win over Air Force on Sept. 9, 2004, then hit 100 yards in back-to-back wins later that season with 121 against Washington and 122 against Stanford.
He left Cal with 3,230 rushing yards and 29 touchdowns, second in program history in rushing yards. Russell White’s debut as a sophomore in 1990 produced 78 yards in a 28-12 win at Wisconsin, before he went on to compile the program’s career rushing record of 3,246 yards and 39 total touchdowns.
And then there’s Chuck Muncie, who finished his Cal career with 3,052 rushing yards and was second in the Heisman Trophy voting as a senior in 1975. He had 801 yards as a sophomore in 1973 after transferring from junior college, but game-by-game totals from that season are unavailable, so his debut remains unclear. Cal opened that 1973 season with a brutal trip to sixth-ranked Alabama and lost 66-0.
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Pro Football Focus review of Cals performance after the loss to UCLA surfaced an interesting mix of familiar and unexpected names near the top of the grade sheet. Running back Adam Mohammed was heavily involved offensively, piling up 120 rushing yards and adding seven catches, but his overall mark came in at 68.3 because of a low pass protection grade. Even so, he was part of a group of five Cal players who finished above 70 in PFFs evaluation, a list that also included safety Kingston Lopa and offensive tackles Frederick Williams III and Jimothy Lewis.
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Cal Faces An Early ACC Test After That UCLA Letdown
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Cal will also be leaning on some of the early-season production that has given its offense a steadier feel. Running back Adam Mohammed has flashed career-best form, while quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele has already been stringing together big passing afternoons at a remarkable rate. The challenge now is whether that momentum travels cleanly into a first conference test that could say plenty about how quickly the Bears can settle in after an uneven start. [Read more 🡒]