okaydo said:

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While at Oregon in 2022, Somerville worked with new Cal head coach Tosh Lupoi and worked with the QB group, including with Bo Nix.https://t.co/mid5ucGFvu

— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) December 15, 2025

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Only 29 years old. Interesting.

Friends of friends from the northwest can never go wrong!

Interesting choice. Baker Mayfield's numbers are down this year, but he threw for 4,000 yards in 2023 and 4,500 yards in 2024. At least on the surface, Somerville looks like a good fit with JKS.

Who?!

So he's never been an OC? Great that he's in the NFL and seems like he can recruit but this feels like a nepo hire. That is, Tosh's network is pretty limited.

You would think he'd hire someone with some experience as OC since his strengths are on the defensive side of the ball.

This feels like a position coach hire, not an OC. Is our pool for hiring assistant coaches tiny? If so, it's hard to think that this is really a turning point for the program.

I hope this rumor is wrong. If not, I hope Rivera signed off on this because this is pretty concerning.

i'm all for finding the next generation of elite OCs, gotta take a shot.

freshfunk said:

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Who?!

So he's never been an OC? Great that he's in the NFL and seems like he can recruit but this feels like a nepo hire. That is, Tosh's network is pretty limited.

You would think he'd hire someone with some experience as OC since his strengths are on the defensive side of the ball.

This feels like a position coach hire, not an OC. Is our pool for hiring assistant coaches tiny? If so, it's hard to think that this is really a turning point for the program.

I hope this rumor is wrong. If not, I hope Rivera signed off on this because this is pretty concerning.

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Rivera obviously has signed off on it….

Alkiadt said:

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freshfunk said:

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Who?!

So he's never been an OC? Great that he's in the NFL and seems like he can recruit but this feels like a nepo hire. That is, Tosh's network is pretty limited.

You would think he'd hire someone with some experience as OC since his strengths are on the defensive side of the ball.

This feels like a position coach hire, not an OC. Is our pool for hiring assistant coaches tiny? If so, it's hard to think that this is really a turning point for the program.

I hope this rumor is wrong. If not, I hope Rivera signed off on this because this is pretty concerning.

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Rivera obviously has signed off on it….

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Tosh worked with Somerville at Oregon. Oregon thought enough to hire him with an even thinner resume than he had now. I trust Tosh to have a good read on the guy and his abilities.

I assume rolo will be heavily involved.

That said, I'm worried about experience with play calling and sequencing.

Eastern Oregon Bear said:

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Alkiadt said:

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freshfunk said:

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Who?!

So he's never been an OC? Great that he's in the NFL and seems like he can recruit but this feels like a nepo hire. That is, Tosh's network is pretty limited.

You would think he'd hire someone with some experience as OC since his strengths are on the defensive side of the ball.

This feels like a position coach hire, not an OC. Is our pool for hiring assistant coaches tiny? If so, it's hard to think that this is really a turning point for the program.

I hope this rumor is wrong. If not, I hope Rivera signed off on this because this is pretty concerning.

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Rivera obviously has signed off on it….

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Tosh worked with Somerville at Oregon. Oregon thought enough to hire him with an even thinner resume than he had now. I trust Tosh to have a good read on the guy and his abilities.

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They hired him as an offensive analyst. We're hiring him as an offensive coordinator. Those are 2 very different things.

Like I said, he would look like a great position coach hire on paper. But as an OC this just looks bad.

People need to take their Tosh-colored glasses off for a second. If this weren't Cal and it wasn't Tosh, would people call this a great hire?

Yes, we can take some chances and hire young -- but how about someone who's actually been an OC?

golden sloth said:

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I assume rolo will be heavily involved.

That said, I'm worried about experience with play calling and sequencing.

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If next season starts out rocky Rolovich will take over things

Cal88 said:

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He coached RBs at UNM in 2020, was grad assistant at ASU before, his alma mater. He did not play football there. This is one of the more complete early bios out there, on his pre-2020 resume:

https://golobos.com/staff/jordan-somerville

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FWIW a number of guys that are or became great coordinators never played. Mike Leach for one. Jedd Fisch the current UW HC was a tennis player. Sonny Dykes played baseball. Kenny Dillingham did not play in college.

Can he design on offense? What may concern me more is who will fill out the offensive staff. I am very pleased to see Tosh and Cal going younger and more aggressive.

Sommerville would have to work with Rolo. Between the OC and the assistance HC it is not clear what kind of working relationship they would have.

At the very least, I would expect Sommerville to be a very good recruiter because his football credentials are pretty thin.

freshfunk said:

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Yes, we can take some chances and hire young -- but how about someone who's actually been an OC?

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The new HC we're all thrilled to have just hired has never previously been an HC.

Way too much pearl clutching in this thread.

BearSD said:

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Way too much pearl clutching in this thread.

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Yup. Tosh and the donors are "all in" on the Talent Acquisition strategy. I mean that is why you HIRE Lup. You gotta let management pursue this strategy without interference. Might blow up. But lord knows can it be any worse than trying to run between the tackles over and over again behind sub p4 lines?

OsoDorado said:

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freshfunk said:

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Yes, we can take some chances and hire young -- but how about someone who's actually been an OC?

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The new HC we're all thrilled to have just hired has never previously been an HC.

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So?
You thought Saban wanted the job?
Mike White (RIP), Tedford, Marriuci along with more recent successful west coast coaches (Fisch, Lanning, Dillingham) weren't head coaches either. I'm all for this youth movement. The job has changed.
And…. Rivera is overseeing everything football. An excellent mentor and confidant.

In Tosh I trust. You think this was run past Rivera first? In Rivera I trust.

Rushinbear said:

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I didn't see an announcement re Rolo. Has he been named Asst. HC?

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Yes. He is the Asst. HC and QB coach.

For Christ's sake people . . .

Ben Johnson had never been more than a position coach when he was named the Lion's OC and was great, three years later he's leading a turnaround of the Bears that looked to be one of the toughest rehab projects in the NFL.

Lots of coaches with OC experience have flamed out of multiple jobs, some bounce back and some don't. Lots of coaches get their first big shot at a promotion, some succeed and some don't.

At a certain point you just have to accept that Tosh and Ron have the keys and you either trust them or you don't. But they have decades of football experience and made the call. Tosh has personally been on staff with him and probably has a pretty good idea of his coaching acumen. And if he's wrong then this hire wouldn't have been successful regardless. But Tosh has spent almost 20 years coaching at multiple stops and has a deep pool of connections, if this is who he tabbed then I think a lot of you hand-wringers are gonna be surprised. Sometimes it's better to pluck a guy before they have a deep resume because if you wait until they do their availability goes out the window and their price tag skyrockets.

To take it to another sport Steve Kerr and Pat Riley were broadcasters before they were coaches and Steve went straight from broadcasting to HC despite never having coached at any level before. Erik Spoelstra was a video review analyst before being Miami's HC and Lebron was so pissed that he tried to force Riley to step into coaching personally. Riley refused, they won a couple championships, and Spoelstra is now seen as one of the best in the NBA. The people who deal with them day-in and day-out and believe in their abilities and acumen and, unless their judgement proves to be repeatedly faulty like Wilcox, I will trust in it. Wilcox hired a couple guys with great resumes like Angus for the OL who completely flopped. I've also met tech executives with bulletproof resumes at multiple big companies who turned out to be total morons. They just came in messed a bunch of stuff up and then left after a couple years before they could get fired and moved on to the next tech company who was wowed by their resume and experience. Once you have executive anything on your resume you keep getting opportunities despite your actual results, football coaching is the same. I'd rather take a shot at an up & coming whizz kid than a proven mediocre retread despite the unimpressive resume

This tells me that Rolo is probably the real OC and this guy is being brought in as a recruiter who can learn on the job.

I wish Tosh Lupoi had gone the experienced OC route like Justin Wilcox did.

okaydo said:

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I wish Tosh Lupoi had gone the experienced OC route like Justin Wilcox did.

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lol

I think it's kind of amusing the level of confirmation bias people are willing to partake in to rationalize their feelings. Hey, let's cherry pick the exceptions and ignore all the times such a thing failed.

And now people are saying "well maybe Rolo is the real OC." ???? Does that make any sense?? How does that go over in offensive staff meetings? How do you even hire a staff under him? You tell all those other coaches that Rolo is the the real OC but Somerville is your boss. ??? Sorry, that just doesn't make sense. Rolo is not going to do all the work of an OC while being paid as a position coach. Sure, he might be there to help and mentor but there's a ton of work an OC needs to do.

And, yes, we don't have to hire a 55 year old Musgrave. I'm not saying that. Apparently, the only 2 choices are a 29 year old who's never been an OC and a retired 55-year old.

Maybe it's just me, but I thought we could do better. I thought we had more pull. When I heard that we were getting interest from the NFL, I assumed more. I thought we could pull in someone with a more impressive resume. Apparently, people feel like this is the best we could do. This just sounds like we're rolling the dice because maybe we didn't have the budget to go for a bigger hire.

I hope Somerville turns out to be an offensive genius that just hasn't gotten his chance yet. But if I were a betting man, I'm counting on some growing pains in the least.

Tosh did say there were coaches in the NFL interested in joining the staff.

If I felt there was a sense of urgency to turn things around, I would not have brought in a head coach with no head-coaching experience and an offensive coordinator with no offensive-coordinator experience. This seems like more of a wishful, gradual approach, at best, to turning things around.

I totally get this hire and you too will soon get it when you see some of the talented offense guys he signs. Don't any of you get the brilliance of a 20 something guy recruiting other 20 something's. Tosh is old and yet he told everyone that winning starts with talent not older more experienced Coordinators. Haven't we hired dozens of experienced coordinators that sucked. This hire is a clear extension of Tosh's statement on talent. I find it as brilliant!!