Tosh Lupoi is already sounding like a man who wants California Memorial Stadium to shake on Sept. 5.
Cal’s new head coach spent Monday making a direct, almost old-school appeal for a packed house when the Bears open against UCLA, and the school is projecting that he just might get what he’s asking for. Officials are expecting all 52,428 seats to be filled for the Saturday night matchup, which would give Cal its first sellout since the Oct. 5, 2024 game against eighth-ranked Miami. That one brought in 52,428 as well, with ESPN’s GameDay on campus earlier in the day, before Cal dropped a 39-38 heartbreaker.
A full stadium would also mark Cal’s biggest home crowd for a season opener since 2015, when 60,606 showed up for Grambling State. That game drew plenty of attention for reasons beyond the scoreboard, with Grambling’s band becoming a bigger attraction than the teams themselves and prompting Cal to remove the tarp in the south end zone to create more seats.
Lupoi didn’t exactly hide what he wants from the fan base.
“September 5th, bring everybody with you,” he said. “Let’s get some buses loaded up, that’s middle schools, that’s of course high schools, team-bonding events of all sports, men and women.
“We want to pack this thing and make this an unbelievable environment, a tough environment on our opponent coming in, where we can really lock these gates in here and cause some chaos for them. So [I] want everybody here in the entire Bay Area, 7:30, see you there, go Bears.”
He punctuated the plea by slapping the table and leaving the press conference, a flourish that fit the moment. Coaches ask for loud crowds all the time. Lupoi, though, seemed to be pushing the idea with extra force.
That makes sense given where he’s been. His last two college stops were Alabama and Oregon, two places where the buildings are full and the home losses are rare. Cal has not lived in that world very often, but the early returns suggest the Bears could be heading toward a better turnout than usual.
The school said in early July that more than half the tickets for the opener had already been sold through season tickets and mini-plans alone. With kickoff set for 7:30 p.m., it would not be surprising if the rest are gone by game day.
There are a few obvious reasons for the buzz. Lupoi’s arrival has brought fresh hope.
Sophomore quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele is part of the draw. So is the broader push around Cal football from chancellor Rich Lyons and general manager Ron Rivera.
UCLA fans could also travel north for Bob Chesney’s first game as the Bruins’ head coach. And there’s the added pull of Cal renewing its long-running rivalry with its University of California sister school.
The Bruins have historically helped boost Cal’s home attendance. Even so, the last meeting in Berkeley, in 2022, drew only 36,221. No Cal home game against UCLA has drawn more than 50,000 since 2012, when stadium capacity was reduced from 63,000 to its current setup.
The opener still won’t come close to the largest crowd ever for a Cal season debut. During the Jeff Tedford years, the Bears regularly brought in more than 60,000 for openers, including the 2007 game that drew 72,516 for a 45-31 win over 15th-ranked Tennessee, then ranked 12th itself.
Tedford’s first opener, though, was a reminder that big crowds had to be earned. Cal drew just 27,185 against Baylor in 2002, and the program had to start winning before the stands began to fill.
The stadium later went through a retrofit from 2010 to 2012 that cut capacity to a little more than 63,000, and for the past several years Cal has typically trimmed it further to 52,428 by covering part of the south end zone with tarps.
For the true peak in Berkeley, you have to go all the way back to 1947, when an estimated 83,000 packed Memorial Stadium for a game against Navy. Sailors from the U.S.
Pacific Fleet were in port that weekend, and the crowd came before the television age, with the game carried only on radio. Cal won 14-7 in Pappy Waldorf’s first season, finishing the year 9-1.
Still, if you want the next real clue about how much traction this version of Cal football has, the Bears’ second home game against Wagner on Sept. 19 and their third home game against Clemson on Friday night, Sept. 25, may tell the fuller story.
For now, the spotlight is on UCLA. FanDuel has Cal as a 1.5-point favorite, and that number could climb if the school officially announces the opener as a sellout.
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