Tosh Lupoi has not been shy about getting creative when Cal needs a fix.
He switched offensive play-callers at halftime of the UNLV game when the Bears’ offense was going nowhere. He even sent several defensive players, including standout safety Kingston Lopa, onto offense for a few plays against SMU when Cal was short at running back and wide receiver. Now he has taken aim at the Bears’ penalty issues with a practice tweak that is hard to miss.
“We’ve had a lot of defensive pass interferences, so do we just talk about it or have a course of action,” Lupoi said Tuesday. “And literally our DBs are wearing oven mitts at every single practice to not grab. So maybe we’ve got to go boxing gloves at times.”
So yes, Cal defensive backs are wearing oven mitts in practice.
The joke writes itself, but the numbers behind the move are no laughing matter. Cal has been flagged 73 times, most in the country, and those calls have cost the Bears 682 penalty yards, also the most nationally.
That total is even higher than Cal’s rushing yardage for the season, which sits at 672. Only the accepted penalties count in that figure.
Still, the idea that penalties alone explain Cal’s 3-5 record is not so simple heading into Saturday’s game at North Carolina State, which is also 3-5.
The nine teams just ahead of Cal in total penalty yards have put together a combined 43-25 record. Four of those teams - Wake Forest, Liberty, James Madison and Texas-San Antonio - have only one loss each.
And Cal’s own results don’t cleanly match up with the penalty totals. The Bears have averaged more penalty yards in their three wins, 88.7, than in their five losses, 83.2. Their cleanest game came against Wake Forest, when they were penalized just five times for 37 yards, and they still lost 41-7.
The SMU game offered another wrinkle. Cal was assessed 107 yards in penalties Saturday, but 76 of those came in the first half, when the Bears carried a 20-17 lead into the break. The final 31 penalty yards came after halftime, when SMU outscored Cal 42-0.
That leaves the bigger question: do penalties reveal a team that is aggressive, or one that is undisciplined?
Either way, Lupoi is trying to cut down the self-inflicted damage. Defensive lineman Derek Wilkins said the staff has been working on it from a few different angles.
“Yeah, the DBs, they’ve been wearing oven mitts,” Wilkins said. “We have a thing where if a guy jumps offsides or false starts [in practice] he gets pulled and has to run and touch the pole . . . He’s getting tired an he’s got to come back after running 80 yards to touch the pole.
“For hands to the face [penalties], on our sled for the D-linemen, we’ve actually lowered the sled, so we put it at the lowest possible level to work on our pad level and getting our hands under. If the hands slip up, we’re taking another rep.
“Us as a defense when we don’t get in our own way, we play really good ball.”
Even so, the oven mitts are the item that stands out. The image of Cal’s defensive backs trying to work with giant kitchen gloves is enough to make you wonder how a player like Kingston Lopa would handle it. Lopa was named Monday as one of 15 semifinalists for the Jim Thorpe Award, given to the nation’s top defensive back, and he is tied for the national lead with five interceptions.
He probably could snag a pass with boxing gloves on, let alone oven mitts. There might even be an endorsement angle in there somewhere.
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For Madsen, the first real test is less about the opponent than the chemistry. An early-season game like this offers a chance to build rhythm, settle roles and start turning optimism into something more tangible, especially with a roster that is still getting used to playing together. Cal does not need a finished product in November, but it does need signs that the new-look group is beginning to move in the same direction. [Read more 🡒]