Tosh Lupoi had seen enough. Down 24-7 to UNLV at halftime, Cal’s offense was so lifeless that he did not even wait for the game to end before pulling play-calling duties from Jordan Somerville.
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The Golden Bears came out of the locker room with a new voice in the headset and a pretty clear message: whatever Somerville was doing was not working.
“That’s right, and he didn’t even start in the second half,” he told reporters. “I just changed it up. I thought it was time. We kind of sputtered a bit again… Then we caused a turnover with the ball, delivered it to, like, the 31-yard line or something around there. And so that was the time there, and then you kind of saw what occurred.”
Somerville was replaced by passing game coordinator Pat McCann. That is not a normal halftime adjustment. It shows a coach running out of patience. And this one came in Tosh Lupoi’s first season running the program.
Jordan Somerville was hired after spending three seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an assistant QBs coach. Before that, the 30-year-old worked as an offensive analyst at Oregon. The Cal job was his first opportunity to call plays at the coordinator level. Five games in, Tosh Lupoi decided he needed someone else doing it.
The timing of the switch was impossible to miss. Cal had seven points at halftime against UNLV. Those seven came on a 91-yard touchdown pass. Outside of that, the Bears had very little going on offensively against a Rebels team they should have been able to handle better. Then McCann took over.
Cal scored 24 points in the second half and ripped off 18 straight to take the lead. Even after QB Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele left the game with concussion concerns, the Bears kept finding ways to move the football.
Tosh Lupoi described a sideline operating at full speed, with coaches drawing things up on the iPad and installing ideas on the fly. One of those emergency wrinkles involved putting a receiver in the backfield and running a look Cal had barely, if ever, practiced.
It worked. Fifth-string walk-on running back Carson Perry-Smith broke free for a 53-yard touchdown reception, giving Cal another jolt in its second-half comeback.
“He’s not fifth string anymore, that’s for sure,” Lupoi said.
For a moment, Cal looked like a completely different offense. The Bears erased a 24-7 halftime deficit and took a 25-24 lead after scoring 18 unanswered points. But UNLV responded with two fourth-quarter touchdowns and eventually handed Cal a 39-31 loss.
And this was not Tosh Lupoi overreacting to one ugly half. Cal’s offense had been sputtering for weeks. The Bears scored 135 points through five games, but 49 of them came against FCS opponent Wagner. Against FBS competition, Cal averaged just 21.5 points and 4.6 yards per play, ranking 120th nationally. The run game was even worse, averaging 95 yards per game, 133rd in the FBS.
That put Jordan Somerville directly in the firing line. Lupoi took a chance by handing play-calling duties to a first-time offensive coordinator, and five games later, he had already seen enough to take them back. Whatever gamble Cal thought it was making with Somerville, it clearly was not paying off.
Cal will move on with Pat McCann
Stripping a play-caller of his duties mid-game isn’t uncommon. GM Ron Rivera defended Tosh Lupoi’s willingness to make the change instead of sticking with something that was not working.
“If you continue to do the same thing, isn’t that insanity?” he said. “If you keep getting the same results.”
Rivera also acknowledged that Jordan Somerville is still learning.
“Our initial play-caller is a young play-caller, a guy who’s got a lot to learn still,” he added. “Very good football coach, understands the game, but has got some things to learn.”
That is a fairly generous assessment of a coordinator who just lost his play-calling duties in the middle of a game.
Tosh Lupoi has already made his decision. Pat McCann has the headset. He’s not new to running an offense. He previously served as Fresno State’s OC for two seasons and oversaw the Mountain West’s No. 2 passing offense in 2023. When Virginia Tech visits Berkeley on Oct. 10, fans will see if the change made a difference.