Cal Depth Chart Discussion and Projections - Offensive Coaching Staff
Jimmy's and Joe's over X's and O's but X's and O's still matter you feel me?
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“School of Athens” is a fresco by Raphael (not the turtle) depicting the famous teachers, philosophers, scientists, and generally people who would also really enjoy the intricacies of college football (Also, I have yet to ask Plato if he thinks Oski embodied the ideal of Godliness in his form).
In a way, Head Coach Tosh Lupoi has assembled a veritable school of coaches on offense, increasing the number of staff on offense from six to ten by mostly augmenting the ranks with experienced assistant coaches.
I want to zoom into the hires and what they say about the new regime. The increase in the staff is a signal: We are finally investing into the coaching staff and the assistant pool at a level comparable to our peers in the ACC. There is also more specialization, with coaches having fewer responsibilities and more help on a position level.
We also have three staff retentions on the staff: Nick Rolovich, Famika Anae, and Mike Saffell. I will dig into each in their own section, but each makes sense:
Rolovich has a massive influence on JKS and Hawai’i recruiting overall, as well as being a great offensive mind as a Run-and-Shoot disciple;
Anae remains a high-ceiling technical coach from his time at New Mexico, who also sports strong recruiting chops, bringing in two four-star OL last cycle (McMorris and Hasenhuetl);
Saffell is a high energy coach who sports strong Cal ties, being both a player and alumnus. He’s also showcased strong recruiting and talent identification chops in finding Mason Mini and Taimane Purcell.
A pattern emerges, where Tosh retained likely the best three recruiters and talent evaluators on the team last year, all of whom have recruiting experience west of the Mississippi.
Offensive Coordinator: Jordan Somerville
In 2023, his first season coaching at the NFL level, Somerville helped in putting together a Pro Bowl campaign for Mayfield during his debut season in Tampa Bay. Mayfield set career highs in completions (364), completion percentage (63.4%), passing yards (4,044) and passing touchdowns (28) on his way to the 2023 Pro Football Writers of America Most Improved Player award.
Prior to the NFL, Somerville was an offensive analyst at Oregon. While with the Ducks, he was a part of an offensive staff that ranked sixth among Power 5 programs in scrimmage yards per game (500.5) and 10th in points per game (38.8). Somerville worked with future NFL quarterback Bo Nix and helped him finish fourth among all Power 5 quarterbacks in passer rating (165.7), while also finishing top 10 in passing yards (3,593), passing yards per attempt (8.78) and passing touchdowns (29).
Prior to Oregon, Somerville served as the running backs coach and recruiting coordinator at New Mexico for two seasons (2020-21). Before his first full-time coaching role, Somerville was a graduate assistant in 2019 with the Arizona State Sun Devils, helping them to a berth in the Tony the Tigers Sun Bowl.
What does this say? The first playcall he will call against UCLA for Cal will be the first time he will make a playcall with actual football consequences in his career. This also means that we’re in the absolute dark about what scheme he prefers, what his tendencies are, and what to expect from him as a first time play-caller.
I believe that he will bring some experience from Oregon where Bo Nix had one of the most dominant seasons of a QB in the history of the NCAA, including breaking the single season completion percentage record including coming 3rd in Heisman voting.
He will also very likely bring in influences from the Dave Canales, Liam Cohen and most recently Josh Grizzard offensive playbook. Canales and Cohen come either indirectly (via Canales being the QB coach under OC Shane Waldron) and directly (via Cohen, who worked as QB coach and OC with the Rams) come from the Sean McVay tree. And if you were to zoom out to the Kyle Shanahan tree, we have Grizzard, who worked under Dolphins HC Mike McDaniel, who worked with Shanahan and McVay.
What does this mean? I think we’re going to marry a lot of the RPO concepts Oregon was famous for in the Bo Nix era with the modern McVay offense where multiple TEs, and a stronger emphasis on the power run blocking concepts. Taking a gander at the Liam Cohen 2021 playbook from his stint as Kentucky’s OC we also see a lot of condensed formations with 2 TEs and 2 WRs.
What’s a condensed formation?
As seen above we have the entire offense coalesced around the OL. conceding the space on the outside and making the middle of the field a congested mess where the defense has to sift through traffic to find their assignment. There are drawbacks to this: by bringing the defense into the middle of the formation, we’re effectively stacking the box with defenders even if we’re in a more passing personnel look.
Associate HC/QB: Nick Rolovich & Assistant QB: Jeff McDaniels
The first retention of the staff from the previous regime, Rolovich brings in a bevvy of experience in the collegiate game both as an OC and HC in Hawai’i and WSU. He also serves as an advisor for OC Somerville in converting his NFL experience into the modern college game. That experience will vary from scheme adjustments, knowing how much you can really teach teenagers who, at least at Cal, have to attend classes; and insight into game-time man management, making sure the right players are on the field at the right time.
A minor retention with Jeff McDaniels, who was elevated from assistant: There is less to glean about McDaniels’s experience—before his 2 year stint at EWU as the WR coached, he worked and climbed the ranks at Auburn all the way to Interim RB coach. Over his other stops at Davidson, Boise State, Texas State, and Cal he cycled across a variety of offensive quality control and analyst roles. I must assume that his familiarity with the team and wide experience with the nuances of each position help him work with the QB room best.
OL: Famika Anae
Another holdover from the last year of the Wilcox regime. He came here on the heels of a very successful stint at the UNM Lobos, where his OL was cited for not allowing only 5 sacks and 26 TFLs (I assume it helped that Devin Dampier is an athletic QB who rushed for over 1,000 yards). However, life at the ACC level was harder, with Cal’s ever-changing cast of OL playing at each position and sometimes out of position.
He has shown good recruiting ability, likely the reason for his retention, by bringing in 4* OL Daniel McMorris in the 2026 cycle and 4* IOL Justin Hasenhuetl in 2025. Now can he prove that the 2025 OL performance was a fluke and show significant improvement upfront with another new insertion of portal talent, and avoid being labelled just a great recruiter at this level?
WR and co-OC: Ike Hilliard & Assistant WR: Geoff McArthur
Coach Hilliard’s accolades speak for themselves. The question was if he had the recruiting chops to back up his accolades. Alongside Cal Athletics Hall of Famer Geoff McArthur, he has proven that he can assemble the best wide receiver recruiting class in the recent era, with talents like Zion White and Demare Dezeurn on their way.
Not to mention, coming in this year are two NFL Draft-potential wide receivers in Ian Strong and Chase Hendricks, who elected to come to Cal instead of entering the Draft or going to any other program where they would’ve been the unequivocal WR1s in other places.
I do think that the coaching for the players will be impeccable, and at a level we haven’t seen in a while at Cal, and Hilliard’s and McArthur’s work will be essential in unlocking the offense’s ceiling.
RB & Recruiting Coordinator: Keith Bhonapha
Another extremely solid addition to the coaching staff. On top of the clear connections to the Hawai’i islands and the West Coast on the recruiting front, he also has coached some impressive running backs, with the most notable ones below:
Jay Ajayi (Miami Dolphins)
Doug Martin (Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
Myles Gaskin (Miami Dolphins)
Ashton Jeanty (Las Vegas Raiders)
Damien Martinez (Seattle Seahawks)
He also brings a verifiable track record of being a plus recruiter, with guys such as Salvon Ahmed, Dante Pettis, and Myles Gaskin being his guys he has brought in for Washington. This experience is likely why Bhonapha was given the “recruiting coordinator” title and the associated pay bump.
Will he be able to expand on his resume at Cal? We’ll see; he does have one of the most dynamic RBs in the portal to come and be the bellcow back for the offense.
TE/RGC: Steve Haunga & Assistant TE: Mike Saffell
Mike Saffell is taking a mild demotion from his previous position as the TE coach and will support new addition Steve Haunga, who will take over the room for the first time in his career.
Haunga and Saffel present the biggest unknown on the staff. Both have shown the ability to both identify talent (Mike Saffell and the recruiting staff in 2025 found an extremely underrated TE in Mason Mini, who broke out in 2026 as a viable passing game threat) and recruit/retain high-end talent in Dorian Thomas and Taimaine Purcell. From a coaching perspective, can they show that the guys they have under their wings can reach the ceiling their respective talent promises? This system will often field 2 TEs, who will need to do everything from run blocking, to motion, while running deep crossers or quick option routes to exploit space in the short passing game.
Passing Game Coordinator: Pat McCann
Usually the PGC title is given to a coach whose usual title and contributions undersell his impact on the field. Here we have a case of a coach who likely straddles the space between position coach and assistant coach/analyst. McCann comes with the Jeff Tedford stamp of approval, where at Fresno State he was the OC for the last year of the Tedford regime.
His varied experience leading the WRs up and down the west coast should be a plus in the… passing game!
I feel, I think, I know
I want to end every segment of this series with some feelings, thoughts, and beliefs I have on the group of players discussed, based on the level of evidence and confidence. These are my takes on the offensive coaching staff
I feel that…
This is overall a vastly improved coaching staff on the offensive side of the ball. The only viable comparison would be the 1st Justin Wilcox staff, where he plucked an up-and-coming FCS HC (Beau Baldiwn) and paired him with the legendary Oregon OL Coach Greatwood. In this case, we have a young hot-shot OC paired with the mixture of experienced and new faces. There is a tantalizing ceiling on this staff, but the uncertainty of the floor will loom across the season.
I think that…
Week 1 schemes and concepts will be vastly different from the ones we will see in Week 11 (after the Week 10 BYE week), and that there will be some players who will break out with new scheme adjustments and coaches. We saw that last year with the reduced usage of motions, and the emergence of Jacob de Jesus as a versatile receiver outside and in the slot. I do think the quality of coaching here will keep the arrow pointing up.
I know that…
We’re going to have a lot more recruiting power on the offensive side of the ball than we have had in the past. But I also believe that players we do recruit will be less likely to bust due to the higher levels of talent ID, especially in the TE/RB/WR rooms. There is too much quality of recruiting and experience on this side of the ball.