Tosh Lupoi isn’t pretending Gio Lopez is just another quarterback on the schedule.
The Cal coach has spent the week chasing answers for No. 21 Wake Forest’s dangerous dual-threat star, who brings the Demon Deacons to Memorial Stadium on Saturday night. And if Lopez is hard to catch on the field, he’s just as hard to pin down on film.
“It’s no secret I don’t sleep a lot,” Lupoi said, “and now it’s less.”
That’s because Lopez has been everywhere for Wake Forest through six games, piling up 19 touchdowns overall. He’s thrown 13 scores with only one interception and added six more on the ground, giving Cal a quarterback who can beat a defense in more than one way.
“He’s the best quarterback we’ve faced yet,” Lupoi said, adding that he expects Lopez to climb higher in the NFL draft than many people think. “They’re obviously running on all cylinders and it starts with him.”
Wake Forest arrives in Berkeley at 5-1 overall and 3-1 in the ACC, sitting in second place in the league. The Deacons have rolled since their 33-20 loss to Miami, winning three straight with a road victory over then-No. 16 Louisville, a 57-3 blowout of Stanford and a 38-14 win at North Carolina State.
Cal, meanwhile, is coming off a 25-20 win over Virginia Tech and Ethan Grunkemeyer, a passing test the Bears passed without having to deal with a quarterback who can hurt them with his legs. Lopez is a different kind of problem. Across four seasons at South Alabama, North Carolina and Wake Forest, he has run for 952 yards and 18 touchdowns.
Two weeks ago, Stanford found out exactly what that can look like. Lopez completed 20 of 27 passes for 265 yards and two touchdowns, then rushed 12 times for 88 yards and three more scores in Wake Forest’s most lopsided victory since 1941.
That kind of production lands squarely in the crosshairs of a Cal defense that has had real trouble stopping the run. The Bears are 122nd nationally against it, giving up 187.4 yards per game, and they’ve also been exposed by quarterbacks who can turn open space into damage.
Wagner’s Benjamin Newman broke loose for a 23-yard run against them. Clemson freshman Tait Reynolds had a 20-yard run.
And UNLV’s Jackson Arnold delivered the kind of day Lupoi keeps replaying in his head: 110 rushing yards and two touchdowns in a 39-31 Rebels win, including a 55-yard scoring run and a 42-yard burst that helped set up the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter.
Lupoi said he has studied Lopez at each of his three college stops and still hasn’t found anything that gives him much comfort.
“There’s not a whole lot of evidence of that,” he said.
Cal has had some success lately by bringing pressure from different angles, but Lupoi made it clear that a heavy dose of blitzing won’t be the answer here.
“If you see people going all out, the risk-reward of that is very costly,” Lupoi said. “That approach, you see some people do it and it doesn’t look very good.
“You can’t wholesale anything against this guy. He’s intelligent, he’s lethally accurate, he’s producing at a high level for a reason.”
Outside linebacker Solomon Williams said the Bears know their discipline has to hold up if Lopez starts breaking structure. His job, in part, is to keep the edge secure so Lopez can’t slip outside.
“You’ve just got to be really disciplined in your rush lanes, understanding you can’t do more than your job, your 1 in 11,” Williams said. “We’ve definitely got to show him different looks. A guy like that, very explosive with his feet and his arm you’ve got to give him different looks.
“We have to collapse the pocket and contain the guy.”
Lupoi said Cal’s heavy rotation on defense could help by keeping fresh players on the field and making it harder for Lopez to get comfortable.
“The most important part is cycling through,” he said. “It’s no secret we have a high-volume defense to hopefully put him in position to not know what we’re in all the time.”
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Cal Defense Faces Its Toughest Test Yet Against Wake Forest
Wake Forests staff is already treating Cals defense like the standard it will have to measure itself against this week, with head coach Jake Dickert praising the Bears before the matchup and framing the unit as the toughest one the Demon Deacons have seen since Miami. That kind of respect fits the way Cal has played on that side of the ball, where Tosh Lupois group has shown real bite in pass coverage and a knack for attacking the football while making opposing quarterbacks uncomfortable.
The challenge now is less about recognition and more about matchups, because Wake Forest brings a mobile quarterback in Gio Lopez who can change the geometry of a play when the pocket breaks down. Lupoi has acknowledged that the Bears have been strong against dropback passers, but the moving parts that come with scrambling quarterbacks create a different test, and one Cal will have to handle better if it wants its defense to keep the same edge it has shown so far. [Read more 🡒]
Cal Faces A Telling Test Against One Of The ACC's Hottest Teams
Wake Forest arrives in Berkeley riding a three-game winning streak and carrying the kind of profile that makes this a useful measuring stick for California. The No. 21 Demon Deacons sit near the top of the Atlantic Coast Conference, so Saturday night gives Cal a chance to see how its recent win stacks up against one of the leagues hottest teams.
For California, the matchup comes with some extra moving parts after injuries have forced adjustments on the offensive side. The Bears will have to sort through those changes against a Wake Forest team that has been in good form and has already shown it can make opponents pay when things get rolling, which is exactly what makes this one worth watching in Berkeley. [Read more 🡒]
Cal's QB Debate Just Got More Complicated Before Wake Forest
Jackson Brousseau gave Cal another reason to feel better about its quarterback room Saturday, earning Manning Star of the Week honors after a sharp showing in the win over Virginia Tech. The Bears now have two quarterbacks this season recognized by the award, with Brousseau following Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, whose early-season play helped set the tone before his recent concussion put the position back under a microscope.
The timing only makes the situation more interesting heading into Wake Forest. Sagapoluteles status remains unsettled, and Cal is still waiting to see whether he can return in time for Saturday night, while the Demon Deacons bring their own buzz with Gio Lopez also coming off a Manning Star of the Week performance in a win over North Carolina State. For a Bears team trying to steady itself, the matchup may hinge as much on who lines up under center as anything else. [Read more 🡒]