A week after saying he was "not going to sit around and use hope as a strategy" with his offense, Tosh Lupoi confirmed he acted on it in the middle of a game.
Lupoi shared today that he made a change at play caller during Cal's 39-31 loss at UNLV on Saturday.
Passing game coordinator Pat McCann took over the call sheet from offensive coordinator Jordan Somerville.
Last Tuesday, with Cal at 2-2, Lupoi called the offense's production "unacceptable" and said he would evaluate all three phases. "If any coordinator is not to the standard... it's my job to fix it."
At the time, the Bears were averaging 13.7 points per game against FBS opponents and had not scored a fourth-quarter point in three FBS games.
Ahead of the trip to Las Vegas, Lupoi reassigned duties among McCann, quarterbacks coach Nick Rolovich and Keith Bhonapha, but wouldn't say whether Somerville would keep calling plays. "I'm comfortable if we're producing at a high level with anybody," he shared with reporters last week.
UNLV led 24-7 at halftime. Starting quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele left with 43 seconds remaining in the second quarter after his head bounced off the turf on a hit, and Lupoi kept him out the rest of the way even after he was medically cleared. Backup Jackson Brousseau went 19 of 32 for 200 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions.
Cal put up 24 second-half points and took a 25-24 lead on Ashten Emory's 7-yard touchdown run with 11:38 to play before UNLV quarterback Jackson Arnold answered with a 42-yard run and a 10-yard touchdown pass. The Bears finished with 464 total yards and 31 points, their most against an FBS opponent this season. They also committed 16 penalties for 147 yards.
Cal is 2-3 (1-1 ACC), with losses to UCLA (45-24), Clemson (24-10) and UNLV, and wins over Syracuse (21-18) and Wagner.
Somerville is in his first season as a coordinator. Lupoi hired him from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he spent three seasons (2023-25) as assistant quarterbacks coach working with Baker Mayfield, adding offensive planning specialist duties in 2025. He overlapped with Lupoi at Oregon as an offensive analyst in 2022, and before that coached running backs and served as recruiting coordinator at New Mexico (2020-21) after starting out as a student assistant and graduate assistant at Arizona State.
McCann arrived in December after one season as Oregon State's wide receivers coach. He spent 2022-24 at Fresno State, coaching wide receivers all three years and serving as offensive coordinator for two, and the Bulldogs ranked second in the Mountain West in passing in 2023. Before that, he was at Eastern Washington (2019-21), adding passing game coordinator duties along the way. The Eagles led the FCS in total offense in 2021, when Eric Barriere won FCS Player of the Year. McCann also coached at Northern Iowa, UC Davis and Stonehill, where he was offensive coordinator.
Lupoi, a former Cal defensive lineman and Bears assistant under Jeff Tedford, was hired last December after four seasons as Oregon's defensive coordinator. His resume also includes two national championships on Nick Saban's staff at Alabama and three years in the NFL on top of being considered one of the premier recruiters in college football. He replaced Justin Wilcox, who was fired after a lopsided loss to Stanford in the Big Game.
Head coaches shuffle play-calling duties during the season all the time. Doing it mid-game, five weeks into your first year as a head coach, makes it clear Lupoi wasn't willing to wait until Sunday.
Cal welcomes Virginia Tech to Berkeley on Saturday.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.