Cal Football Weekly Presser: Lupoi, Emory and Williams on the Mic

The head coach kicked things off, fielding a question about how the team has managed to make several structural changes and manage to - at least for the time being -right the ship. The changes have included passing game coordinator Pat McCann moving into a primary playcaller position and OC Jordan Somerville focusing primarily on working with the quarterbacks and another voice helping shape the gameplan.

“Just highlighting once we repositioned some guys within the offensive staff, what's so evident to me is, as I voiced from day one, my belief in Jordan Somerville,” Lupoit said. “And what's really cool is to see is how he's embraced this change, and to see his level of commitment and detail, joining in and coaching the quarterbacks with Coach Rolovich. I mean, it's like a coaching clinic when you go in there, and I think everybody's benefiting from that so it's really neat to see.

“And then obviously with Coach Pat McCann, both he and the entire offensive staff just have done a great job of highlighting our strengths, and that's my goal every week, is do this on all three phases. What exactly are we doing well? What are we not doing well? How can we dive in with the personnel we got and make it the best version of us? That's the goal.

“So that game plan was led by Pat. Of course, any positive influence that I think I can give from what I think based off of their defensive structure, some potential weaknesses that we could attack, and then the offensive staff doing a great job putting that together. And as I said, going back to two weeks ago, just can't say enough how awesome it's been to be a part of the amount of new faces and guys that are being asked for challenges to step up. And you see it all over the place, and to have no excuses in the state that we're in or have been from an injury standpoint, whatever it be.

“So, just proud of these guys and it's just all about moving forward. So it feels so long ago last Saturday, and we're already so far into preparing for yet another big-time challenge. Another nationally-ranked team that's 5-1 and extremely well-coached, and I'm really excited for the challenge here coming at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.”

Additional structural changes have occurred in the special teams units, though Lupoi cited special teams coach Zach Tinker still being involved in leadership there, though there’s obviously significant additional input.

“A little bit of similarity to what you saw in the second half two weeks ago,” Lupoi noted, comparing adjustments made in the second half of the UNLV game to the changes in last weekend’s 25-20 victory over Virginia Tech. With special teams, just the aggression that we came out with and the positive results. So just kind of having that aggressive approach, and you just look at the reflection of the results. So if it's not working, I got it. All starts with me, right? So I'm a big believer and committed to our analytics and what we did leading up to this last game, I was the most poorly-graded as far as my results of using human decisions of when not to go, and you know they worked out pretty darn good (last weekend).

“It's really hard right now because we've shifted gears, we have a new offensive approach and stuff.

“I want to get better every day. I want to get better every week, starting with me. So, same thing from special teams, right? That was the number one punt return team in the country that we faced. We held them to three total yards, I believe. Completely changed some things, but I devote a lot of time to that, and it's masterminded with Zach Tink (Tinker) and Z Dub, our special teams coaches. So that's how our whole staff is built: it is a growth mindset and not doing things because we learn them from some other coaches. Just how can we get the best out of our team, right?

So, changing up returners, Tyree has been a spark for us as well. And then this week, we knocked that team out of I don't know how far back we knocked them out of number one, and then now this team is right there. I haven't actually checked if they are number one, but I can promise you the returner is up there as far as best in the game. So now just completely changing that game plan of what we had last week and figuring out what our best way is to try to negate his returns and applying that to everything.”

The Bears will be playing against against one of the top quarterbacks in the ACC on Saturday in junior Gio Lopez. Lopez has an impressive stat line of 13 TDs and one interception along with a 67% completion rate and a QB rating of 166.3 - a higher mark than any QB in Cal football history. He’s also picked up 202 yards and six TDs on the ground - a significant challenge for a defense that’s struggled to maintain mobile QBs.

“Very explosive quarterback,” Williams said of Lopez. “Just got to be really disciplined on rush lanes, just understanding you can't do more than our job. Just do our one and 11, and just doing our job, we will definitely get the goal that we want.

“He's an explosive player...just gotta stay disciplined and just do my one and 11.

‘We're definitely gonna show him different looks. A guy like that, very explosive with his feet and with his arm. You gotta give him different looks.“

Kickoff for Saturday’s contest against Wake Forest will be at 7:30 pm at Memorial Stadium. The game will be televised on ESPN2.