Cal sophomore quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele stepped into the ACC Kickoff spotlight on Friday with a very different kind of weight on his shoulders than the one he carried a year ago.
Back then, he was an incoming freshman fighting for a job. This time, he’s the guy. And he knows it.
“I know I was here last year,” Sagapolutele said in Charlotte, North Carolina, “but I was in a little bit of a situation battling for the quarterback spot. Now being here being allowed to be the quarterback for the team, it’s so fun, it’s such a blessing.”
That change has reshaped everything around him. On July 17, 2025, Sagapolutele was still battling Oho State transfer Devin Brown for Cal’s starting quarterback role, and Brown - a fourth-year junior - was widely seen as the favorite. Instead, Sagapolutele won the job a week before the 2025 opener, handled moderate expectations and then put together an outstanding season without the usual freshman growing pains.
Now the Bears are asking him to carry a much bigger load. He’s the face of the program, the player tied to Cal’s 2026 hopes, and in some preseason projections, even a Heisman candidate. The ACC panel wasn’t buying the full Heisman buzz, though, pointing out that Cal would probably need 10 or 11 wins for that conversation to really stick.
Sagapolutele’s own focus was more practical. He pointed to two major differences from last year’s 7-6 team: a new offensive setup and a deeper backfield.
The offense, installed by new coordinator Jordan Somerville, is built in a pro-style mold that Sagapolutele believes will help him long term, especially with the NFL likely waiting after the 2027 season.
“We’ve had some carryover from last year but a lot of NFL integration into it,” Sagapolutele said, “and I think it’s very important for me to learn this now than later. Especially if I want to go on to the next level, I’m going to have to learn to play under center, play action, just learn all the intricacies of being in a pro-style offense, and I’m just blessed that we get to add that in as well.”
That means more than just lining up under center and using play-action. It also puts more on his plate before the snap, from run checks to pass checks to protection calls. Sagapolutele said that responsibility is part of the job, and he sounded comfortable with it.
But when the conversation turned to why Cal could climb from seven wins to nine or 10, he kept coming back to the run game.
“If you see the talent acquisitions we got in the portal, if you look at our running backs, they’re crazy,” he said. “ We got [Washington transfer] Adam Mohammed, [UC Davis] Carter Vargas, [UTEP transfer] Ashten Emory.
Even the guys we kept from last year. We’ve got such great running backs at our helm.
“Our tight ends and O-line, they’re been putting in the work this offseason day in and day out just to open up those holes and I see it at practice. And it’s going to be great for us, Running the ball is also going to open up the pass game for sure.”
That emphasis makes sense given how last season played out. Cal finished 133rd out of 134 FBS teams in rushing offense, ahead of only New Mexico State and behind teams like Massachusetts, Kent State and Stanford. More than 77 percent of the Bears’ offensive yardage came through the air, a lopsided split that made life harder on the offense as a whole and on Sagapolutele in particular.
He’s no longer the surprise freshman trying to win a job. He’s the quarterback Cal is building around now, and everything about this season looks different because of it.
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