2025 Cal Football in review: The Offense

Putting a bow on the end of the Wilcox era, and looking ahead

photo via @calfootball twitter

For the last few years, I’ve done these recaps for a few reasons. Part of it is for self-evaluation and improvement - if I actively look back at both the season AND my own projections, I’ll hopefully get better at previewing and projecting Cal football for readers the next time around.

But the bigger reason might be a little bit moot this year. The other point is to act as sort of a way-too-early preview of next year. But with an entirely new coaching staff and a likely major overhaul of offensive personnel, what happened in 2025 might not be particularly relevant to help predict 2026.

There is one obvious exception: Jaron Keawe-Sagapolutele is back at Cal, and the player who was involved in everything positive that happened in 2025 is the reason Cal fans will enter 2026 brimming with excitement.

2025 Offense Statistical Summary

Statistical rankings

• 5.2 Yards/play, 105^th in the nation, 14th (of 17) in the ACC

• 2.8 Yards/run, 133rd in the nation, 16th in the ACC (lol Stanford)

• 7.1 Yards/pass attempt, 69th in the nation, 11th in the ACC

• 16 Turnovers lost, 62nd in the nation, 9th in the ACC

Advanced Stats

Offensive Expected Points Added/play: 80th in the nation (72nd on passing plays, 90th on running plays)
SP+: 77th in the nation, 12th in the ACC
FEI: 78th in the nation, 13th in the ACC

It’s actually eerie how little the big picture numbers changed from 2025 as compared to 2024. Despite massive personnel changes and a new offensive coordinator, Cal’s offense was roughly as effective within the ACC as the year prior. HOW Cal was effective certainly changed, but the topline production didn’t meaningfully change.

Biggest Strength: JKS generally, and JKS to JDJ specifically

The first part is obvious - JKS was an immediate revelation, and his ability to throw accurate darts downfield gave Cal’s passing game an explosiveness it hadn’t enjoyed in years.

JKS was good enough that it’s a simplification to say that Cal built an entire offense out of one dude passing to another dude, but . . . fully 1/3 of Cal catches and 29% of Cal’s passing yards came from Jacob De Jesus, and when Cal won, De Jesus tended to have a big game.

More importantly, De Jesus kinda replaced the running game as a source of efficiency and short gains. Because Cal couldn’t count on a run game to gain 5 or 6 yards on first down, the often went to an ultra-reliable route runner and hands guy to keep Cal more on-schedule. In many ways JDJ replaced the running game, and downfield throws to other receivers constituted the more explosive side of the passing game.

Biggest Weakness: Zero rushing game explosiveness

A quick and easy illustration:

Rushes of 10+ yards: 27 (last in FBS)
Rushes of 20+ yards: 6 (tied, 130th in FBS)
Rushes of 30+ yards: 1 (tied, 2nd to last in FBS)
Rushes of 40+ yards: zero

Cal’s rushing game was pretty good at not getting stuffed for negative yards or zero yards, and was decent in short yardage situations (Cal was roughly at the national average in short yardage success rate) but there was no explosiveness. If you needed 2 yards, the Cal run game could get you 2 yards. If you needed 5 yards, the Cal run game could get you 2 yards.

How were Cal’s defining questions answered?

How cleanly can Cal execute?

My concern prior to the season was that Cal, relying on a ton of new players without much on-field collegiate experience, would be prone to frequent execution errors. In the end, I think my fears were a touch overblown, but Cal certainly had more than a few mistakes.

Cal totaled 59 offensive penalties, 33 of which came from the offensive line. Those numbers are high, but not through-the-roof level problems. Cal did clean up their sack problem, going from 50 sacks allowed in 2024 to ‘just’ 32.

But I think it’s safe to say that the offensive line never particularly gelled as a cohesive unit, particularly when run blocking.

Where Cal didn’t make as many mistakes as I feared was in the passing game. I thought the combination of a true freshman quarterback with a bunch of new receivers would inevitably result in a bunch of route confusion and interceptions. I underestimated just how talented JKS was, and how quickly he would adapt to the college game. His 10 interceptions is a completely reasonable number even for a veteran quarterback, considering how heavily Cal leaning on the passing game to move the ball.

Is there enough skill position depth on the roster?

Yes and no. On one hand, Cal was almost hilariously shallow at certain positions. Late in the year, Cal had so few tight ends that Cal ran a bunch of formations with 6 offensive linemen. For long stretches of the season Kendrick Raphael was nearly the only healthy scholarship running back, and he ended up taking 77% of Cal’s RB handoffs on the season.

Luckily, Cal stayed very healthy at WR and QB, and since the bulk of Cal’s offense was built on throwing the ball, the stuff that actually worked lasted through the entire season. Mason Mini’s late-season injury was probably the only offensive injury loss of major consequence.

Maybe if LJ Johnson or Brandon High had been healthy for the entire season, Cal’s running game might have done more, but nobody looked better than Raphael at any point in the season when they were healthy to suggest that their availability would have appreciably changed Cal’s success on the ground.

Can Cal block on the edge?

I made a relatively specific prediction regarding Cal’s offensive line:

It’s almost impossible for this unit not to get better, but I’m skeptical at how much better this position group, which is so much about team work, is going to be a cohesive whole. Improvement . . . but not by as much as we’d all like

Yeah, pretty much. As noted above, Cal went from allowing 50 sacks to 32. That’s important improvement, but going from last in the nation to 111th just isn’t *enough* improvement.

The other thing is that I think a lot of the improvement actually might be a credit to JKS rather than Cal’s line. Per PFF, JKS faced more snaps with pressure (152) than any other quarterback in the nation, but he was pretty good about avoiding pressure and getting throws off. This is actually a skillset that Fernando Mendoza isn’t great at . . . it’s just that by going to Indiana, he moved to a team that didn’t allow linemen into his lap all that often, allowing his other attributes to shine.

For the 10th year in a row, the biggest question for the off-season is if Cal can find a way to block for their quarterback.

How high is the floor and the ceiling at quarterback?

The ceiling, as it turns out, was incredibly high. In nearly every game, we saw Jaron Keawe-Sagapolutele unleash throws that are already making NFL scouts drool. We also saw him put the team on his back and win games, like he did against Minnesota, Louisville, and SMU.

On the flip side, I was also worried that JKS, like most true freshmen, would have really bad games that would cost Cal wins. But as it turns out there was really only one game that might qualify - a rough game against San Diego State. But even in that game JKS was pretty excellent for two quarters, before he started pressing after a series of drops and fumbles put Cal into a hole that wasn’t of his own making.

I had high hopes for JKS, and he ended up smashing past them. It was the greatest true freshman QB season I’ve ever seen in Berkeley. Meanwhile, I can only think of two quarterbacks I’ve watched at Cal who might have more arm talent than JKS, and those two dudes have combined for 654 million in career earnings in the NFL. I won’t be making the mistake of putting a cap on what JKS can do again.

Predictions in Review

For reference, here was 2025’s prediction article. I actually didn’t make a ton of specific predictions, because honestly I was feeling some Justin-Wilcox-ennui and just wanted to skip ahead to predicting another 6-6 record. But we can at least talk about each position group:

QB: Look, JKS is the future of this program, I am jazzed that he is starting, and I think that by the end of the season he could develop into a QB who is already better than Fernando Mendoza . . . but I don’t think he’ll immediately be better. Freshman mistakes are inevitable and we should brace ourselves to accept them as the price of developing Cal’s biggest recruit in years. Regression, at least initially

Two true facts:

1. Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman trophy

2. Cal’s passing game was arguably better in 2025 under JKS than 2024 under Fernando Mendoza.

Generally, the numbers look virtually identical. 7.2 yards/attempt under Fernando, 7.1 under JKS. Similar touchdown and interception rates. But as noted above, JKS took way fewer sacks, though Fernando perhaps made up for that by being a better scrambler. JKS also had a higher volume, throwing the ball more in part because Cal’s rushing attack was so ineffective.

So no, Cal’s QB play didn’t regress compared to 2024. To be fair, if you keep Fernando in Berkeley I’m guessing Cal’s passing stats are even better, but he’d still be off to the NFL regardless, whereas we still get more time with JKS.

RB: A tough call. There isn’t a running back on the roster with the talent of a Jaydn Ott . . . but Cal didn’t actually have that Ott on the team last year because of injuries. Push, leaning towards improvement.

Part of my projection towards improvement here was derailed because two of Cal’s three transfer portal adds were hurt for most of the year. And while I ultimately I think run blocking took a step back, I can’t in good faith argue that it isn’t a regression to go from Jaivian Thomas (6.3 yards/rush) to averaging ~4 yards/rush across the entire RB room. Kendrick Raphael was a workhorse who often made the most of minimal room, but Cal badly missed the explosiveness that Jet Thomas brought to the field.

WR: On one hand, I don’t think Cal has a receiver on the roster this year who will be as good as Nyziah Hunter would have been as a second year player. (If I’m wrong about that, it’s because Jacob De Jesus turns into a slot YAC monster that drives ILBs mad.) On the other hand, I do think this group will be a little deeper thanks to the wide variety of options Cal found in the portal. Push

Unfortunately, that depth never really materialized. Cal relied heavily upon De Jesus and Trond Grizzell, with Jordan King getting about 30 snaps/game and a bunch of other guys like Quaron Adams and Mark Hamper getting spot snaps. Transfer players like Daz James, Jayden Dixon-Veal, and Kyion Grayes just never made a significant impact.

De Jesus was indeed a revelation, but Cal missed both Nyziah Hunter and Jonathan Brady, so push feels about right here.

TE: I’m openly skeptical that the tight end position will be a significant part of Cal’s offensive scheme after losing an all-conference level talent and not adding any proven production. Regression

My biggest eval miss last August was Mason Mini, who was a reliable pass catching option when healthy. To be fair, expecting him to bust out after not really getting any run as a redshirt freshman at Idaho seemed unrealistic, but he’s an excellent developmental win for Cal.

This was still a regression from what Jack Endries produced, but the drop off was much less drastic than what I projected.

But regardless of Cal’s skill position improvements and regressions, looming over all of it was another season of significant offensive line struggles. If you squint there’s an argument that Cal got a bit better in the trenches in 2025, but any improvement that happened was marginal and not nearly enough to allow the Cal offense to actually thrive.

Cal has added five offensive linemen in the portal. It will be up to Cal’s new coaching staff to try to develop those five players, and develop the linemen already on the roster, so that the 2026 offensive line can give a much deeper, more talented collection of skill guys time to make plays.