Cal’s season has gone from promising to precarious, and a new report from The Athletic poured gasoline on the conversation around first-year coach Tosh Lupoi. The piece, headlined “Inside Cal’s messy first year under Tosh Lupoi: How a season that began with hope spiraled,” says the Bears’ program “has been mired in chaos” and that “there is a rift is a rift between Lupoi and [GM Ron] Rivera.”
That report also said there was a meeting this week involving chancellor Rich Lyons, Lupoi and Rivera, which immediately set off speculation. The Athletic later reported that everyone involved said Lupoi’s job is not in jeopardy right now.
Still, the optics are rough. Cal came into the 2026 season with real buzz after hiring Lupoi, and the belief around the program was that the Bears could finally be turning a corner.
Instead, the year has unraveled. Cal is 3-6 after losing its last three games by lopsided margins to Wake Forest, SMU and North Carolina State, and the Bears now need to win their final three just to become bowl-eligible for the fourth straight year.
The offense has been a major part of the disappointment. Lupoi brought in two young coordinators who had never held coordinator jobs at any level, and while Michael Hunthings has been doing acceptable work on defense, the offensive side has been a problem. Lupoi replaced offensive coordinator and play-caller Jordan Somerville with Pat McCann at halftime of the UNLV game, but the unit has continued to sputter.
Cal had hoped the offense would be a strength with quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele back after last season and with several key skill-position additions. Instead, Sagapolutele has not matched his freshman-year production, and the Bears are averaging 21.9 points per game, which ranks 15th in the ACC.
One of Lupoi’s most debated decisions came against Wake Forest, when he started Jackson Brousseau at quarterback even though Sagapolutele was available. Lupoi pointed to Brousseau’s efficient play in the previous week’s 25-20 upset of Virginia Tech, when Sagapolutele was still in the concussion protocol. But Brousseau struggled badly in a 41-7 loss, and when Sagapolutele entered in the third quarter with Cal down 41-0 and put up strong numbers in what was essentially mop-up time, the choice to start Brousseau drew heavy criticism.
The Athletic also reported this about Sagapolutele’s future: “It’s considered unlikely that he returns to Berkeley in 2027.”
Injuries have made the job even harder. Every team deals with them, but Cal has been without a number of key players, and that has only added to the challenge for a first-year head coach trying to steady the program.
The Bears’ struggles look even sharper when compared with UCLA, which beat Cal 45-24 in the opener and is now ranked No. 5 in the country under first-year coach Bob Chesney.
Rivera’s weekly radio appearance on KNBR added another layer to the story. He said of Lupoi:
“He has bumped his head a lot. We have talked a lot, tried to give him a lot of advice, point him in the right direction.
Some of it, he’s been very receptive, and other portions of it, he hasn’t. And it’s those things that sometimes you’ve gotta learn for yourself before you think, ‘Oh wow, this is it.’
But I’d like to continue to stress that this is a guy that’s learning, growing. But now it’s time.
These last three games, hopefully four, the trajectory has to be going north. We have to show that we are growing, there has been some growth and development of our players, our team, and the culture is getting stronger.
Those are all things that you have to have going forward.”
Lupoi signed a five-year deal that reportedly pays him $4 million this season and rises to $5 million by his fifth year at Cal. His biggest selling point when he was hired was his recruiting ability, and he has a top-30 class expected to sign with Cal in December. That could matter down the road, but it has not changed the way this season looks right now.
The Athletic’s report captured the tone around the program in blunt terms: “As bad as the on-field product has been, behind the scenes, first-year head coach Tosh Lupoi’s program has been mired in chaos, multiple program sources told The Athletic. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity to protect relationships and offer honest insight.”
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