Cal has made a midseason switch at the top of its offense, with offensive coordinator Jordan Somerville losing playcalling duties to pass game coordinator Pat McCann.
Tosh Lupoi confirmed the change, and it appears to have happened at halftime of the UNLV game, when Cal was down 24-7 and Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele had been concussed. McCann handled the calls in the second half and helped steer backup quarterback Jackson Brousseau and a mix of first-, second- and third-string offensive players back into the game.
Cal briefly grabbed a 25-24 lead before UNLV answered with two late touchdowns to win it.
McCann is hardly new to the role. Though he has spent much of his career coaching receivers at places like UC Davis, Eastern Washington, Fresno State and Oregon State, he also has several years of playcalling experience going back to Stonehill College. His most notable run as an offensive coordinator came at Fresno State under Jeff Tedford.
Athletic director Ron Rivera later said the move came after the offense failed to meet expectations in the first half.
The shift also reflects how much pressure had been building around Cal’s offense. The unit had been struggling for weeks, and the move to McCann came after what had been a rocky run for Somerville in his first season calling plays at the collegiate level.
That inexperience showed up when the offense got beyond the opening script. Once the initial 15 to 20 plays were over - and again after halftime adjustments - Cal had been slow to react to new looks from defenses.
The source of the problem, as described, was not a lack of collaboration; Somerville had been working more closely with the offensive staff, including former playcallers Nick Rolovich and McCann. The issue was adaptation.
The result was an offense that fell behind badly against what was described as an average UNLV team, forcing the Bears to make a change before things got even worse.
There is, though, a clear upside to the switch. Cal has now pivoted to someone with more experience, and the move was framed as the program being willing to act rather than wait for the season to collapse further. In that view, the change gives the Bears a chance to salvage the rest of 2026.
Somerville’s demotion after five games is still a rough outcome, and it is hard not to see the human side of it. He was handed a major opportunity early in his career, and the situation clearly became too much. The offense had drifted into “worst in Power 4” territory, and the ripple effects were being felt by the quarterback, the transfers, and the rest of the roster.
McCann’s first half in charge offered something Cal had not been getting much of lately: sustained offense. With Brousseau, a rotating cast of backs and receivers, and a more functional rhythm, the Bears put together multiple scoring drives and looked more comfortable getting the ball out.
That is not a cure-all, but it was enough to leave room for hope once Sagapolutele and Adam Mohammed return from injury. Cal entered the year with high expectations for 2026, and now the program is banking on McCann being ready for what comes next with the season hanging in the balance.
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Cals offense looked a lot different in the second half against UNLV, when Tosh Lupoi handed the play-calling duties to Pat McCann and the unit responded with 24 points after halftime. The switch gave Cal a needed spark and, just as important, it introduced a new layer of uncertainty heading into a tougher matchup with Virginia Tech, where the Bears are still searching for the right rhythm and identity on that side of the ball.
Virginia Tech coach James Franklin acknowledged the uncertainty around what Cal might do next, pointing both to the change in who is calling the plays and to the absence of several key players from the Bears roster. For Cal, the question is no longer whether the offense can look more productive than it did early against UNLV. It is whether that second-half burst was a one-game adjustment or the start of something more stable when the Bears take the field again. [Read more 🡒]
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For Cal, the timing of its next test matters almost as much as the opponent. The Bears have one victory over an FBS team, so there is little margin for error if they want to keep their path toward the upper tier of the ACC alive. In a league where the standings can flip quickly and the championship picture is still wide open, this stretch may tell a lot about whether Cal can turn itself into more than a spoiler. [Read more 🡒]