The long wait is nearly over and following Tuesday morning’s practice, head coach Tosh Lupoi, OC Jordan Somerville, DC Michael Hutchings, QB Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele and CB Ricky Fletcher fielded questions from the media about Saturday’s season opener at 7:30 pm at Memorial Stadium.
The head coach didn’t waste anytime laying down the gauntlet to students and fans to show up and show up early for Saturday’s kickoff.
“Before we get started, we just ripped it on a Tuesday hard hat practice day, so really commending the guys. We’ve taken a physical approach and there's a really cool opportunity to showcase our program, our university and our rocking fan base this this coming Saturday. So, before we get any questions,
“I just want to make it absolutely clear how important it is that all the sororities, fraternities, frat row, how important y'all are to us, and that's why we did all those off-season meetings with the presidents of of those organizations to make sure that we make our way at 7 p.m. to get your butts in the seats. So 7:30, we want everybody in their seats, ready to go, and and to join this fight with us with a great opponent ahead, a Big 10, really good Big 10 team, and a longtime West Coast foe.
“So really excited for the challenge, but want to make sure that everybody's in their seats by kickoff, so we've opened up an additional student entrance there. Understand there were some problems in the past of a traffic jam there and have committed to some really cool shuttle opportunities here in the future. So, just trying to answer what you guys requested, and excited to see all, but get your butts in the seat and be on time for 730 kickoff.
The salesmanship didn’t stop there. When the head coach took his first question related to coaching games at bigger programs like Alabama and Oregon, he made it clear he’s in no mood to play second fiddle to any college program, particularly with the exodus in recent years of all the professional East Bay teams.
“Yeah, well, those you described Oregon and Alabama,” Lupoi said. “What you didn't bring up was Cal and and this place has 20 plus games on record of 80,000 plus spectators. And when I when I was fortunate to play here and coach here, it was just a commonality of this place being sold out. That was the perception of Cal football and it makes it an unbelievable environment.
“There's a reason that I believe Sports Illustrated and some some premier publications have rated this place either number one or the top five to watch a college football game, so taking great pride in that and it's all about us being in this together. There's close to 8 million people in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, and I don't mean this by any disrespect to anybody, but to to turn on the TV after our practice last Saturday and to see that environment in Los Angeles, that's disheartening to see what what little amount of individuals came out to support, and I can guarantee you that's a completely different environment here.
“People here, we're in a really neat situation. As much as it hurt my heart for the Raiders and the A's and everyone to leave, this is the show here and on this side of the bridge, especially, there's no professional organizations, and this place is fully capable of being one of the the elite premier college environments with the dynamics there of the population, as well as having no local NFL teams. Obviously, we have the Niners, but that's that's quite a ways down towards the dark side there in the South Bay.”
Offensive coordinator Jordan Somerville provided a couple of nuggets in his appearance, noting that he’ll be calling plays from the press box, with assistant head coach and QB coach Nick Rolovich assisting from the field. He also singled out the offensive line group as the most improved unit in fall camp.
“I would I would say offensive line showed most improvement and that really that comes with communication,” the OC noted. “That's the number one thing that we echo, and it's it's those five being on the same page, and if we can do that, we got a chance.”
Having coached Tampa Bay QB Baker Mayfield and seeing particularly strong development in his QB, the new OC was asked if he learned some important lessons to impart to his new QB working with soph Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele.
“I think the biggest thing for Jaron going forward, and really just young quarterbacks in general, is no highs, no lows, and be able to be a leader,,” Somerville said. “There's going to be good times. There's going to be bad times. That's going to come, right? And it's the response. How do you respond when the good times come, when the bad times come? And so, for Jaron going forward, that's the thing that I'm most excited about.
“Communication, energy. That's that's number one thing I'm excited to see. We talked about earlier in fall camp these guys coming together, talking about all 11 on the grass, and then as a unit coming together. And I think the communication, the energy, and then playing for one another-that's the thing that stands out. So when you’ve got a guy like Jaron, whose energy is infectious, and he's natural - he is not what we call a fake juice guy. He naturally has a big smile, and he's to get the guys riled up and to be able to challenge the guys with a smile on his face and have an understanding when to get the guys going. He does in a very natural way, and that's one thing I absolutely love about the guy.”
New defensive coordinator Micheal Hutchings is working with a lot of new pieces on defense but the new DC seems confident that all the pieces will come together on Saturday.
“I think we're confident,” Hutchings said. “I think the camp went well. The thing we really want to see is to go out there and execute after the amount of time that we've put in. Can we trust our training from the last nine months, everything from the off-season program? So I think the guys have a lot of overall confidence. I think what our coaching staff has done has been unique. Think it's showed just the growth from from the beginning until now. So I think there's a reason why there there's a confident feeling. It's just the amount of work that everybody has put in together.”
