Cal Football

Cal Set to Hire Buccaneers Assistant Jordan Somerville as New OC

The 29 year old has had success at both the Collegiate and NFL level.
December 15, 2025
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14 Comments
Story Poster

Tosh Lupoi gets his man as one of the brightest young minds in Football is set to join the California program as its Offensive Coordinator.

Somerville’s experience is as follows:

  • 2016:  High School Coach in Arizona; American Leadership Academy
  • 2017-2019:  Arizona State - Graduate Assistant
  • 2020-2021:  New Mexico - RB Coach and Recruiting Coordinator
  • 2022:  Oregon - Offensive Analyst
  • 2023-2025:  Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Passing Game Specialist/Assistant QB Coach

Jordan is young at just 29 years old, albeit with 9 years of experience as a football coach.   He gets rave reviews from the Buccaneers organization as they share that he’s got tremendous energy, super bright mind, high character person and someone who really connects and communicates well with players.

Football coaching, particularly offensive football has become a young man’s game.  The energy, the creativity and the ability to connect both emotionally and mentally with young athletes has proven to work and work well.

The biggest risk will be his journey into play calling.  The presence of Nick Rolovich as the Assistant Head Coach and QB coach will ease this transition.

Welcome Jordan and his family to Berkeley.

 

14 Comments
Discussion from...

Cal Set to Hire Buccaneers Assistant Jordan Somerville as New OC

3,189 Views | 14 Replies | Last: 2 hrs ago by 6956bear
PAC-10-BEAR
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Is there any information on where Sommerville went to high school and college? I'm assuming he played college ball. If so, what position did he play?
bevans
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According to bios (New Mexico Lobos and TB Buccaneers), grew up in Tempe, Arizona and went to ASU for undergrad with no playing experience.
kc1121
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PAC-10-BEAR said:

Is there any information on where Sommerville went to high school and college? I'm assuming he played college ball. If so, what position did he play?

this looks like his HS career:

https://www.maxpreps.com/az/tempe/corona-del-sol-aztecs/athletes/jordan-somerville/football/stats/?careerid=lcssp1469p6h1
TonyTiger
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Brilliant move. He's young, smart, and his greatest strength will be on the recruiting trail. As Tosh says, winning begins with talent.
Some will argue that we need an offensive coordinator with experience. But nearly all of our previous offensive coordinators did have experienceand nearly all of them failed. Experience alone clearly isn't the answer.
Sometimes it takes courage to recognize that when the status quo isn't working anywhere, the solution isn't more of the sameit's thinking differently.
And even if he recruits at an elite level for two years but struggles as an offensive coordinator, that's easily fixable. We can move on, promote Rolo, or hire someone else. Right now, the program's biggest need isn't play-calling strategyit's talent.
calbear80
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Puzzling hire for an OC in a P-4 program.

Was he an assistant coach or just an analyst with Tampa Bay?

Has he even been a coach, a coordinator or even an assistant coach at any college or pro level or was he only an analyst (other than one or two year as a RB coach at the lower level New Mexico)?

Does he have any experience calling plays at any level?

I hope Tosh and RR know something unknown to the rest and have made a good choice.

Go Bears!
BearChemist
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OP already mentions that he is currently the assistant QB coach at Tampa.
Cal88
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BearChemist said:

OP already mentions that he is currently the assistant QB coach at Tampa.

Assistant to this QB coach: Thaddeus Lewis

Biography. Thaddeus Lewis enters his third season as quarterbacks coach with the Buccaneers in 2025, after spending the prior two seasons as the team's assistant wide receivers coach.

Tosh and Sommerville will have to overperform on recruiting (which they may actually do) in order to be successful at Cal.
MrGPAC
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Seems there are more questions created by this hire than answers provided in the article.

What are this guys greatest strengths? I see people mention recruiting a lot, but I don't see any reference of that anywhere. Who at New Mexico or Oregon was he responsible for recruiting?

The attributes I see listed are:
Tremendous Energy
Super Bright Mind
Communicates well with players

Those are all important attributes, but doesn't tell us anything about his style. What type of offense is he planning on bringing here? What will our offensive identity be?

StillNoStanfurdium
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MrGPAC said:

Seems there are more questions created by this hire than answers provided in the article.

What are this guys greatest strengths? I see people mention recruiting a lot, but I don't see any reference of that anywhere. Who at New Mexico or Oregon was he responsible for recruiting?

The attributes I see listed are:
Tremendous Energy
Super Bright Mind
Communicates well with players

Those are all important attributes, but doesn't tell us anything about his style. What type of offense is he planning on bringing here? What will our offensive identity be?



As far as recruiting goes, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list because 24/7 clearly doesn't have his information up to date (still lists him as a UNM coach despite him being there two coaching stops ago back in 2021), here's some indication of players he was on: https://247sports.com/coach/jordan-somerville-4444/ with A'Mauri Washington being the sole player listed for Oregon (which is an example I assume of incompleteness rather than the extent of his recruiting).
BEAST MODE
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Next Erik Spoelstra
MrGPAC
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StillNoStanfurdium said:

MrGPAC said:

Seems there are more questions created by this hire than answers provided in the article.

What are this guys greatest strengths? I see people mention recruiting a lot, but I don't see any reference of that anywhere. Who at New Mexico or Oregon was he responsible for recruiting?

The attributes I see listed are:
Tremendous Energy
Super Bright Mind
Communicates well with players

Those are all important attributes, but doesn't tell us anything about his style. What type of offense is he planning on bringing here? What will our offensive identity be?



As far as recruiting goes, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list because 24/7 clearly doesn't have his information up to date (still lists him as a UNM coach despite him being there two coaching stops ago back in 2021), here's some indication of players he was on: https://247sports.com/coach/jordan-somerville-4444/ with A'Mauri Washington being the sole player listed for Oregon (which is an example I assume of incompleteness rather than the extent of his recruiting).


I haven't seen anything posted anywhere highlighting this guys recruiting chops, but I see a lot of people stating that he is an ace recruiter. I'd love to see some evidence / anyone outside this board claiming that.
StillNoStanfurdium
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MrGPAC said:

StillNoStanfurdium said:

MrGPAC said:

Seems there are more questions created by this hire than answers provided in the article.

What are this guys greatest strengths? I see people mention recruiting a lot, but I don't see any reference of that anywhere. Who at New Mexico or Oregon was he responsible for recruiting?

The attributes I see listed are:
Tremendous Energy
Super Bright Mind
Communicates well with players

Those are all important attributes, but doesn't tell us anything about his style. What type of offense is he planning on bringing here? What will our offensive identity be?



As far as recruiting goes, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list because 24/7 clearly doesn't have his information up to date (still lists him as a UNM coach despite him being there two coaching stops ago back in 2021), here's some indication of players he was on: https://247sports.com/coach/jordan-somerville-4444/ with A'Mauri Washington being the sole player listed for Oregon (which is an example I assume of incompleteness rather than the extent of his recruiting).


I haven't seen anything posted anywhere highlighting this guys recruiting chops, but I see a lot of people stating that he is an ace recruiter. I'd love to see some evidence / anyone outside this board claiming that.

I mean it's not hard to find but here's an On3 article that describes him as a high-level recruiter: https://www.on3.com/sites/golden-bear-report/news/cal-expected-to-hire-nfl-assistant-jordan-somerville-as-new-offensive-coordinator/

Here's a Ducks site describing him as one of Oregon's stronger recruiters in Arizona: https://duckswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/ducks/football/2023/03/07/report-offensive-analyst-jordan-somerville-to-leave-for-tampa-bay-buccaneers-job/78513876007/

Lanning has described him as doing a good job in recruiting: https://247sports.com/college/oregon/article/oregon-ducks-football-jordan-somerville-assistant-qb-coach-joining-tampa-bay-buccaneers-205946674/ but I wouldn't value that as strongly since a good HC would gas up his guys no matter what.

And the whole thing about him ascending to the level of being Recruiting Coordinator at UNM rather quickly and early in his college career.

And the whole point of my link that you're responding to is to try to give some examples of players he had a hand in bringing in. It's a shame that his Oregon impact is clearly incomplete but A'Mauri Washington is a good example and for being at UNM it looks like he was able to win some decent recruiting battles for 3-stars from larger programs.
TonyTiger
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He's an ace recruiter because his 29. positive looking, and extremely intelligent with 10 years coaching experience. At Cal that's all you need and that's all tosh had when he was successful here. In case you all didn't notice Cal closes the deals not the recruiter. The recruiters jobs is to bond and get them on visits. This guy according to his resume and age has everything a successful recruiter needs to get a guy to at least come visit. Again, the university is the closer.

As far as OC goes 80% of the past OC's sucked so he's at the very worst is going to be average. But even if true at least we will have fast receivers who can catch thus keep JKS.

Again when is the last time we had a good OC and how often does that happen? When the logical no longer works, Try the illogical.

Get it ill logic cal.

Well that was kind of clever - kinda?
6956bear
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MrGPAC said:

StillNoStanfurdium said:

MrGPAC said:

Seems there are more questions created by this hire than answers provided in the article.

What are this guys greatest strengths? I see people mention recruiting a lot, but I don't see any reference of that anywhere. Who at New Mexico or Oregon was he responsible for recruiting?

The attributes I see listed are:
Tremendous Energy
Super Bright Mind
Communicates well with players

Those are all important attributes, but doesn't tell us anything about his style. What type of offense is he planning on bringing here? What will our offensive identity be?



As far as recruiting goes, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list because 24/7 clearly doesn't have his information up to date (still lists him as a UNM coach despite him being there two coaching stops ago back in 2021), here's some indication of players he was on: https://247sports.com/coach/jordan-somerville-4444/ with A'Mauri Washington being the sole player listed for Oregon (which is an example I assume of incompleteness rather than the extent of his recruiting).


I haven't seen anything posted anywhere highlighting this guys recruiting chops, but I see a lot of people stating that he is an ace recruiter. I'd love to see some evidence / anyone outside this board claiming that.

To me the biggest reason to believe he is likely a strong recruiter is that Tosh hired him. Tosh knows what it takes to compete in the recruiting game. Tosh has made it clear that he expects his staff to recruit hard and win in recruiting.

Tosh flew to Hawaii the day he was hired to show JKS just how important he is to the program. He has retained Rolo who is very important to JKS and the entire Poly community Cal is hoping to continue to tap into for players. Now Somerville who was a recruiting coordinator at UNM. He was hired at Oregon who at present is the top recruiting program in the west and one of the top in the nation.

Recruiting is not optional for Tosh. He has seen Somerville in person. He has passed that test. He left for the NFL for a likely pay increase and learn in the best football league there is.

If Tosh wants him then I expect him to be a strong recruiter.
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