Cal’s spot at ACC Football Kickoff on Friday put a first-year coach, a promising quarterback and a fast-moving rebuild all in the same frame.
Tosh Lupoi said he is “pleased but absolutely not satisfied” with where the Bears stand after being hired last December, even as he pointed to the work his team has already put in.
“I’m extremely proud of where we’re at today, evaluating the hunger of our team and the challenges these guys have accepted and attacked,” Lupoi told reporters at Charlotte, NC.
The Cal coach, a Bay Area native and alum, was joined by sophomore quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, junior running back Adam Mohammed and senior defensive back Ricky Fletcher. Mohammed and Fletcher are both first-year transfers.
Lupoi has already made noise on the recruiting trail. He has had success in the transfer portal, and Cal’s still-developing 2027 high school class is already ranked among the top-25 nationally.
The calendar is about to speed up now. Practice starts in a couple of weeks, and the Bears open the season Sept. 5 against UCLA at Memorial Stadium.
Lupoi said the changes he has brought in have been accepted by his players, and he framed the season around the work done every day.
“The results of the season, I truly believe those are going to be dictated by our daily transactions,” he said. “That’s ultimately what culture is. It’s not about being clever or cliche, it’s about living out what we want to represent every day.
“I’m pleased but absolutely not satisfied,” he said of the progress to date. “We came here . . . to compete at the highest level.
I wholeheartedly believe this is a place that can afford that opportunity. The goal is to win every opportunity, every moment.”
The challenge in front of Cal is obvious. The Bears went 7-6 last season in Justin Wilcox’s final year, haven’t won eight games in a season since 2019 and have not finished with a winning conference record since 2009.
Outside expectations remain modest. USA Today’s most recent projection had Cal 11th in the 17-team ACC.
There are plenty of reasons for the uncertainty, starting with the fact that Cal has a first-time head coach and first-time offensive and defensive coordinators.
Still, Lupoi’s first major recruiting win came immediately after he took the job. He traveled to Hawaii late that night and persuaded Sagapolutele, then a freshman, to stay in Berkeley.
“If you’ve got a quarterback, you’ve to a chance. He got his,” ACC media panelist Tom Luginbill said.
Sagapolutele’s freshman season gave Cal a real foundation. He threw for 3,454 yards and 18 touchdowns while starting every game. The left-hander topped 200 passing yards in every game, connected on 56 passes of 20 yards or more and did not throw an interception on his final 178 attempts, leaving him just seven short of the program record Jared Goff set in 2015.
Sagapolutele said the pitch from Lupoi came as a surprise while he was watching his high school alma mater in the Hawaii state championship game. His mother called to tell him Lupoi was flying to the islands and expected to land around midnight.
The visit “caught me by surprise,” Sagapolutele said Friday. The two talked for three hours until 4:30 in the morning, when Sagapolutele committed to stay at Cal.
“It was a great talk. It just felt right,” Sagapolutele said. “This was where I want to be.”
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Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele has gone from the quarterback trying to win a job to the quarterback everyone expects to lead Cal in 2026, and that shift comes with a different kind of pressure. The sophomore spent last year in camp as the underdog, eventually beating out Devin Brown, and now he is trying to settle into a much larger role while the Bears reshape the offense around him.
New offensive coordinator Jordan Somerville is installing a pro-style system with more NFL-style elements, and Sagapolutele said the changes should be helped by a stronger run game. Cal is counting on portal additions Adam Mohammed, Carter Vargas and Ashten Emory, along with returning pieces from last season, to make the ground attack more reliable, which would give the young quarterback a little more room to operate as the expectations around him keep rising. [Read more 🡒]
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Collin Morikawa, another Cal alum, stayed in the mix at 2 under and tied for 23rd, giving the Bears a pair of names on the leaderboard as the championship moved on. Michael Kim, meanwhile, was on the wrong side of the cut after finishing at 5 over, a reminder of how quickly one major can turn on a few closing holes. [Read more 🡒]