GoCal80 said:

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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.

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Eh, this to me is a bold move. The "safe" and "wishful, gradual" approach is to get retreads as coaches because they have the experience and have done it before. The gamble is to bet on young, upcoming talent in the coaching ranks.

Somerville's young, yes, but he's about the same age and has roughly the same NFL position as Davis Webb who is another up-and-coming name in NFL coaching circles. Looking at reactions to his hiring at other locations it looks like people do think he's can be good at recruiting and he's had good experience working under folks like Dillingham (who was the Oregon OC when he joined) and Todd Graham (at ASU when he was tapped to start his collegiate coaching career). Generally speaking, I'm also assuming you have to have some merit to rise the ranks this quickly across relatively varied geographic regions and to even get NFL experience.

Rolo being here gives us the opportunity to roll the dice on talented young people like Tosh and this young guy. Presume that they will both view Rolo as their mentor in these new positions. So much better than traditional retreads.

pnaidu said:

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Cal88 said:

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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.

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Yeah I think that Tosh will have Rolo in charge of play calling and Sommerville has the next 2 years to learn under him to become a self sufficient leader of the offensive game planning.

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I doubt it will work the way you suggest. Assuming this will be finalized, Sommerville will be the Offensive Coordinator and will be making that salary. He will design the offense and call the plays. I'm pretty darn sure that Tosh has gotten Rolo to be 100% behind the lines of authority and how it will all work.

Cal hires an OC coming from the NFL who never played college ball. At first glance, kinda sounds like a Charlie Weis type character, oh except the part about being an OC and having four Super Bowl rings.

This hire could not have happened without having Rolovich on staff.

I get the argument that recruiting talent is the most critical step here, but the OC still has to design an offense that exploits the talent he has, and exploits what the defense gives them. Has he even constructed his own playbook and offensive philosophy?

If Tosh likes him then I like him. If he was a plus for Bo Nix and Mayfield then he will be a plus for JKS.

Big C said:

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pnaidu said:

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Cal88 said:

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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.

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Yeah I think that Tosh will have Rolo in charge of play calling and Sommerville has the next 2 years to learn under him to become a self sufficient leader of the offensive game planning.

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I doubt it will work the way you suggest. Assuming this will be finalized, Sommerville will be the Offensive Coordinator and will be making that salary. He will design the offense and call the plays. I'm pretty darn sure that Tosh has gotten Rolo to be 100% behind the lines of authority and how it will all work.

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My conclusions:
1. Tosh doesn't want to go Run n Shoot so no Rolo at OC.

2. He wanted to keep Rolo as QB coach to help keep Sagapolutele so wanted an OC that would not only accept that but welcome it.

3. Tosh understands there is a budget constraint. Coaching salaries take from NIL. He took a relatively healthy salary. He wants value at OC, so he went for a smart young guy that he knows personally and thinks can recruit to Cal and do the OC job.

4. If successful, he is likely to have some loyalty to Tosh, maybe wants to raise his daughter in the Bay Area and stay awhile. OC retention is the second biggest issue for a coach from the defensive side at a school like Cal (ie not the biggest budget out there).

5. I think we are going to find out he is a great recruiter for Cal. Tosh knows you need elite talent to have an elite team.

freshfunk said:

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pnaidu said:

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Cal88 said:

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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.

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Yeah I think that Tosh will have Rolo in charge of play calling and Sommerville has the next 2 years to learn under him to become a self sufficient leader of the offensive game planning.

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Who's getting paid the OC money? If Rolo is calling plays, this does not look good IMO.

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You are projecting...with no inside understanding of the vetting process, or of the inside discussions between RR & Tosh, or any inside perspective. Not to be unkind, but you are just throwing word vomit against the wall.

Golden One said:

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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.

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I thought that JKS was quite happy with Rolo as Asst.
HC. The new hire makes for an "interesting" Org. Chart.
That's not a problem as long as everyone (especially RRivera) knows who stands where.

[BTW I was quite pleased with the play calling against SMU. But the play calling against The Furd left me (and many Cal fans) scratching our heads - '***'. ]

calumnus said:

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Big C said:

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pnaidu said:

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Cal88 said:

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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.

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Yeah I think that Tosh will have Rolo in charge of play calling and Sommerville has the next 2 years to learn under him to become a self sufficient leader of the offensive game planning.

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I doubt it will work the way you suggest. Assuming this will be finalized, Sommerville will be the Offensive Coordinator and will be making that salary. He will design the offense and call the plays. I'm pretty darn sure that Tosh has gotten Rolo to be 100% behind the lines of authority and how it will all work.

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My conclusions:
1. Tosh doesn't want to go Run n Shoot so no Rolo at OC.

2. He wanted to keep Rolo as QB coach to help keep Sagapolutele so wanted an OC that would not only accept that but welcome it.

3. Tosh understands there is a budget constraint. Coaching salaries take from NIL. He took a relatively healthy salary. He wants value at OC, so he went for a smart young guy that he knows personally and thinks can recruit to Cal and do the OC job.

4. If successful, he is likely to have some loyalty to Tosh, maybe wants to raise his daughter in the Bay Area and stay awhile. OC retention is the second biggest issue for a coach from the defensive side at a school like Cal (ie not the biggest budget out there).

5. I think we are going to find out he is a great recruiter for Cal. Tosh knows you need elite talent to have an elite team.

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Besides, the persistent knock - both from this board and in general - has always been that "Cristobal can't coach. He only got hired at Oregon for his recruiting reputation, and would need to surround himself with great coaches in filling out his staff". Yet Cristobal did just fine at Oregon by bringing in 5-star talent. He parlayed his Oregon stint into his dream job at Miami. And he's done just fine at Miami. So I will go with "5-star recruiting results" over "no proven play calling experience".

Somerville is so green that he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page yet. I assume that will change very soon.

Somerville is among the least qualified coordinators we've ever hired. Not saying that will necessarily make him a poor choice but Tosh has gone out on a limb here. This hire is going to say a lot about Tosh's coaching talent evaluation chops.

kal kommie said:

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Somerville is so green that he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page yet. I assume that will change very soon.

Somerville is among the least qualified coordinators we've ever hired. Not saying that will necessarily make him a poor choice but Tosh has gone out on a limb here. This hire is going to say a lot about Tosh's coaching talent evaluation chops.

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Mike Bloesch doesn't have a Wikipedia page, either. A lot of people don't.

I'm not excited by this hire. But the whole Wilcox era has been about hiring what seemed like established names who ended up sucking. So maybe it would be good to try the opposite?

Two things

1) Tosh is not an inexperienced coach. He has a LOT of coaching experience and has been DC at two top tier schools - learning from young and old coaches, and all sorts in between. He knows what he wants.

2) The OC will be someone who is focused on fixing the running game, more so than the passing game. We have a passing game - we need assistance on the O-line. For our O-line coach this is a great hire.

I am excited by this hire - someone who is a good recruiter and is focused on the offensive line and the running game to make our passing attack work. JKS has a cannon with accuracy. His deep ball is a thing of beauty. We need to protect him and get him his 50 40-plus yard passing completions next year.

Truth is that none of us really know how this will go. Maybe I was overplaying it a bit in saying that Rolovich would be the "real OC," but I do think there's probably a strategy at play here in hiring a younger unproven guy as OC when you know you already have Rolo on staff as an older offensive mentor. Whatever his specific role I assume Rolo will have a big hand in the offense.

His resume isn't that different than Will Stein at Oregon before Lanning hired him as OC (other than Stein playing QB in college) and that seemed to work out fine.

DonnieMcCleskey said:

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His resume isn't that different than Will Stein at Oregon before Lanning hired him as OC (other than Stein playing QB in college) and that seemed to work out fine.

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Eh, even if you ignore the experience playing QB in college (which while not a pre-req for success is still valid offensive experience from the gameplanning perspective), Stein did have at least 1 year as a co-OC at UTSA before being hired by Oregon and was a Passing Game Coordinator at UTSA before that for 2 years (not to mention being the full OC in his year coaching HS).

Somerville has the same number of years of coaching experience (9 years) but definitely less from an actual Xs & Os coordinator level of any kind with the closest thing being his recent 1 year of Tampa Bay experience as the Pass Game Specialist or his first year of coaching in 2016 where he was a Run Game Coordinator on the HS level.

I'm not trying to knock Somerville, but just to say that I think it's misleading to compare him to Stein and say that they're on the same trajectory and experience level. I think there is still valid reasons to be uncertain as to what his offensive philosophy and style will really be like from a playbook perspective. I do have faith in our current leadership though that there's a reason why Somerville's is getting this big opportunity though.

freshfunk said:

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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.

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No idea whether Somerville will be good or not, nor do expect to know at this point.

Let's put an end to some ridiculous fantasies, some of which are just betraying lack of confidence in some things by some people and rationalizing to make the comfortable with things they might not be entirely comfortable with.


Rolovich is the QB coach. He will develop the QBs. Lupoi had every opportunity to hire him to be OC. He didn't. There is zero reason for Rolovich to take a job as shadow OC. Lupoi made his hire. That hire is Somerville.


Somerville is OC. Cal is not paying him to be a figurehead (why would they?) or a coach in training. He is the guy Lupoi has chosen. Lupoi was hired to make these decisions. He will live or die on getting these decisions right. All he can do is make the decision he thinks is right and give his guy what he needs to succeed and hope it works out. That is what we pay him for.


Let me repeat. SOMERVILLE IS THE GUY LUPOI HAS CHOSEN. Not the guy that Rivera has chosen. Lupoi. Lupoi is the head football coach. His job is to assemble his staff, recruit his roster, put in place schemes, etc. NOT RIVERA's JOB.


Rivera is the GM. His job is to find his football coach and support him with all the resources and administrative support he can. Maybe IF ASKED provide a little advice now and then. Otherwise get the eff out of the way and let the guy he picked do his job. As a Raider fan, trust me, no matter how good you think the GM might be at coaching, you want him to use that acumen to select a coach. Not direct the coach. And very few coaches would put up with that and being a former coach, Rivera fully gets that. We hired Rivera, among other things to pick a head coach. He picked Lupoi. He will live and die by that decision.

Get this straight because there is so much BS going on here with "I'm comfortable because X will be there to guide Y" or when we were looking for a coach the "Ron can mentor unqualified candidate for 5 years until he is ready to be a real coach.


Rivera is GM. Full time job
Lupoi is HC. Full time job
Somerville is OC. Full time job.
Rolovich is QB coach. Full time job.


On any healthy staff, everyone is there to make the team better. So everyone will lend a hand on occasion. But 99.999999% of the time each person will be doing the job they are hired to do.

I am long past faith and I have zero reason to have faith or to not have faith in anyone on the chain as everyone, yes including Ron, is in a role they have pretty much no experience doing (except Rolovich who has substantial success as a QB coach). I'll wait and see what happens.


But each one of them is doing the job they are hired to do. No more. No less. I frankly do not understand the Cal fan insistence on theorizing some bizarre structure that doesn't exist in the world.


Have faith. Have skepticism. Let it come as it comes. Whatever floats your boat. But Ron is GM. Tosh is HC. Somerville is OC. Rolo is QB coach. Like it. Hate it. Whatever. But get comfortable with it. These are the guys. Those are the jobs they are doing.

okaydo said:

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kal kommie said:

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Somerville is so green that he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page yet. I assume that will change very soon.

Somerville is among the least qualified coordinators we've ever hired. Not saying that will necessarily make him a poor choice but Tosh has gone out on a limb here. This hire is going to say a lot about Tosh's coaching talent evaluation chops.

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Mike Bloesch doesn't have a Wikipedia page, either. A lot of people don't.

I'm not excited by this hire. But the whole Wilcox era has been about hiring what seemed like established names who ended up sucking. So maybe it would be good to try the opposite?

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I like the hire. High risk, high reward is a good proposition for our program. Somerville's resume is light for a first time power conference OC but not absurdly so. There are definitely some things to like in his resume, particularly in regards to people he's had an opportunity to learn from.

But Tosh is going out on a limb here because this is such a speculative hire. Tosh will look very good if Somerville turns out to be a hit and very rash if he turns out to be a miss.

BearlyCareAnymore said:

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freshfunk said:

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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.

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No idea whether Somerville will be good or not, nor do expect to know at this point.

Let's put an end to some ridiculous fantasies, some of which are just betraying lack of confidence in some things by some people and rationalizing to make the comfortable with things they might not be entirely comfortable with.


Rolovich is the QB coach. He will develop the QBs. Lupoi had every opportunity to hire him to be OC. He didn't. There is zero reason for Rolovich to take a job as shadow OC. Lupoi made his hire. That hire is Somerville.


Somerville is OC. Cal is not paying him to be a figurehead (why would they?) or a coach in training. He is the guy Lupoi has chosen. Lupoi was hired to make these decisions. He will live or die on getting these decisions right. All he can do is make the decision he thinks is right and give his guy what he needs to succeed and hope it works out. That is what we pay him for.


Let me repeat. SOMERVILLE IS THE GUY LUPOI HAS CHOSEN. Not the guy that Rivera has chosen. Lupoi. Lupoi is the head football coach. His job is to assemble his staff, recruit his roster, put in place schemes, etc. NOT RIVERA's JOB.


Rivera is the GM. His job is to find his football coach and support him with all the resources and administrative support he can. Maybe IF ASKED provide a little advice now and then. Otherwise get the eff out of the way and let the guy he picked do his job. As a Raider fan, trust me, no matter how good you think the GM might be at coaching, you want him to use that acumen to select a coach. Not direct the coach. And very few coaches would put up with that and being a former coach, Rivera fully gets that. We hired Rivera, among other things to pick a head coach. He picked Lupoi. He will live and die by that decision.

Get this straight because there is so much BS going on here with "I'm comfortable because X will be there to guide Y" or when we were looking for a coach the "Ron can mentor unqualified candidate for 5 years until he is ready to be a real coach.


Rivera is GM. Full time job
Lupoi is HC. Full time job
Somerville is OC. Full time job.
Rolovich is QB coach. Full time job.


On any healthy staff, everyone is there to make the team better. So everyone will lend a hand on occasion. But 99.999999% of the time each person will be doing the job they are hired to do.

I am long past faith and I have zero reason to have faith or to not have faith in anyone on the chain as everyone, yes including Ron, is in a role they have pretty much no experience doing (except Rolovich who has substantial success as a QB coach). I'll wait and see what happens.


But each one of them is doing the job they are hired to do. No more. No less. I frankly do not understand the Cal fan insistence on theorizing some bizarre structure that doesn't exist in the world.


Have faith. Have skepticism. Let it come as it comes. Whatever floats your boat. But Ron is GM. Tosh is HC. Somerville is OC. Rolo is QB coach. Like it. Hate it. Whatever. But get comfortable with it. These are the guys. Those are the jobs they are doing.

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This is on point. I would add that prior to being hired, no doubt Tosh and RR had extensive discussions about staff. Tosh would have presented his vision of who (or at least what profile of people) he wanted to hire and why. RR would have, at a minimum, signed off on Tosh's approach if not some of the specific names Tosh proposed. Coaching staff budgets were reportedly a major discussion/negotiating point. And I'm sure there were discussions about Rolo's specific role particularly given the JKS relationship.

For whatever reason, Tosh wanted Somerville. I don't know if he was the first choice, but given how fast he was hired and that he's the first outside hire, Somerville must have been at the top of the list. As a defensive coach, Tosh knows what offensive schemes are most challenging to defend, etc. It was an informed decision.

Final unrelated comment. Many on this board have been advocating for Davis Webb. Somerville and Webb basically have the same coaching profile. Webb had a bit of a career as a player, which may be relevant. Somerville is reportedly a proven recruiter. Bottom line, both guys have impressive careers in the NFL at a young age. It seems like both would be the type of guy you'd want to take a chance on.

DonnieMcCleskey said:

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His resume isn't that different than Will Stein at Oregon before Lanning hired him as OC (other than Stein playing QB in college) and that seemed to work out fine.

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This is Will Stein's history before Oregon:

2013
Louisville (GA)

2014
Louisville (QC)

20152017
Texas (QC)

20182019
Lake Travis HS (TX) (AHC/OC/QB)

20202021
UTSA (PGC/WR)

2022
UTSA (Co-OC/QB)

Not only was he OC (Co-OC) at UTSA, he had about 9 years experience including being at Louisville and Texas. This kind of resume would be more understandable because you have at least 1 year under your belt of managing an offense, perhaps under the tutelage of someone else more experienced.

People here seem to think the only option we have are completely inexperienced projects like Somerville or "retreads." And yet we point to examples like Will Stein which are neither. Somerville is an assistant QB coach right now. How much does he know about the organizational aspects of being a coordinator? I'm not saying you have to hire a guy who's retired an in his 50's, but even at least 1 year of experience at a successful G5 team would be promising.

pnaidu said:

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freshfunk said:

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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.

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Tough to say, but if the vision is being sold by a man that people believe in... the vision will be bought.

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I can see that. The Tosh hype is so strong everyone's bought it .. blindly. That's everyone's prerogative. I'm more of a "trust but verify" kind of guy.