Virginia Tech heads to Berkeley on Saturday with a familiar burden on its back: a hard loss, a long trip, and a game against an opponent trying to sort itself out.
The Hokies, 4-1 overall and 1-1 in the ACC, face Cal at 3:30 p.m. ET on ACC Network in a matchup that doubles as the Bears’ homecoming and Virginia Tech’s first visit to Berkeley.
The series is tied 1-1. Cal took the 2003 Insight Bowl 52-49, while Tech answered with a 42-34 double-overtime win last October.
That game in Blacksburg came a week after Cal had fallen in double overtime to Oregon. This time, Virginia Tech is the team walking into California after a bruising defeat, coming off a 35-33 loss to Pitt eight days earlier.
It’s a setup that looks a lot like the one James Franklin faced last season, when Penn State went to the Rose Bowl after a gut-punch loss and fell to winless UCLA. Franklin coached one more game there.
Now he brings Virginia Tech into a spot that feels uncomfortably similar.
Cal’s quarterback situation is still murky. Sophomore Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele is day-to-day after leaving the 39-31 loss at UNLV late in the first half and sitting out the contact portion of Tuesday’s practice.
He has thrown for 1,180 yards with eight touchdowns and five interceptions. If he can’t go, Colorado State transfer Jackson Brousseau is the backup, and he stepped in at UNLV to go 19-of-32 for 200 yards and two touchdowns.
Cal’s first availability report comes Wednesday night, which should give a clearer read on the situation.
The Bears also made a change on offense. Coach Tosh Lupoi said Tuesday that he pulled play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Jordan Somerville at UNLV and handed them to passing game coordinator Pat McCann.
“I just changed it up,” Lupoi said. Cal managed only seven points before halftime in that game and scored 24 after the break.
Against FBS opponents before that, the Bears had averaged 18.3 points. Virginia Tech has only about a half of film on the version of Cal’s offense it is likely to see.
The Hokies, meanwhile, need their ground game to travel better than it has against FBS opponents. Virginia Tech averages 155.2 rushing yards per game, good for 76th nationally, but the numbers look thinner once VMI is removed.
Against four FBS teams, the Hokies have 508 rushing yards on 152 carries, which works out to 3.3 yards per carry. Jeffrey Overton Jr.’s 76-yard touchdown at Boston College makes up 15% of that total.
Without it, the number drops to 2.9 per carry. Cal could be the place to change that.
The Bears allow 187.4 rushing yards per game, which ranks 121st in the country, and Tech piled up 357 rushing yards against them last year. Marcellous Hawkins Jr. led that effort with 167 yards on 21 carries.
Virginia Tech’s defense has been the engine of the season so far. The Hokies lead the nation with 51 tackles for loss, and their 18 sacks top the ACC.
Aycen Stevens has recorded a solo sack in every game. There is a catch, though: 12 of those sacks came against VMI and Old Dominion, and Tech has six sacks across its three games against Maryland, Boston College and Pitt.
Cal’s quarterback has already taken eight sacks this season, and the Bears’ run game has been one of the weakest in the country, sitting 133rd at 95 yards per game. Leading rusher Adam Mohammed missed the UNLV game with a left knee injury.
Turnovers remain a problem for Virginia Tech. The Hokies are minus-five in turnover margin, one of the worst marks in the FBS, and the nine giveaways - seven of them lost fumbles - have done the damage.
On the other side, all four of Tech’s takeaways came in the first two weeks. It has none in the last three games.
Cal has seven interceptions, and five belong to safety Kingston Lopa, who leads the FBS in that category. He was hurt on the first defensive snap at UNLV.
Ethan Grunkemeyer’s performance against Pitt was another bright spot for Virginia Tech, even in defeat. His 434 passing yards were the third-most by a Hokies quarterback on record, and he became the first Tech player to post three 300-yard passing games in a season since Jerod Evans in 2016.
He has 1,446 passing yards, 11 touchdowns and two interceptions while completing 74% of his throws. Franklin said Monday that the fourth-quarter interception came on a play where Tech “tried to make a throw that we didn’t need to try to make.”
That matters against a Cal defense that ranks 28th against the pass but 121st against the run. If the Hokies turn this into a high-volume throwing night - 41 more attempts, Franklin suggested - they may be playing right into the Bears’ hands.
Penalties could also shape the game. Cal was flagged 16 times for 152 yards at UNLV and is averaging 87.8 penalty yards per game, which ranks 136th in the FBS.
The Bears convert just 34.7% of their third downs, 106th nationally, while Virginia Tech’s defense allows opponents to convert only 27.9% of the time, good for 17th. The Hokies were not especially sharp against Pitt either, taking eight penalties for 82 yards and committing four turnovers.
One trend has held steady for Virginia Tech: it starts fast, then gets dragged into a second-half fight. Against its four FBS opponents, Tech has outscored teams 88-41 in the first half but been outscored 55-45 after halftime.
Old Dominion, Maryland and Pitt all won the second half. Boston College was the exception, with Tech rallying from a 14-6 fourth-quarter deficit to score the final 15 points.
The Hokies have led at halftime in all four of those games. Pitt was the first opponent to make them pay for what happened after that.
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