Cal Football 2025 Season Preview Part 5: Best Case, Worst Case, and Final Predictions

Can Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele help Cal finally break through under Justin Wilcox?

photo via @Calfootball twitter

Part 1: Last Chance Saloon Part 2: The Offense Part 3: The Defense Part 4: Special Teams and Schedule

Position Previews: Quarterback; Offensive Line; Wide Receiver; Tight End; Defensive Line; Outside Linebacker; Inside Linebacker; Defensive Back

The big news out of fall camp is Cal’s decision to start true freshman Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele at quarterback, a move that I very much did not predict. As of my Sunday night deadline, Cal has not released a week 1 depth chart, but I have no doubt that QB will not be the only position I got wrong, which reflects both that Cal came into the season with roughly 21 open position competitions AND how little information we’ve received from closed fall practices.

I absolutely love that Cal is going with JKS. I have no idea if it’s the right move for 2025, but I’m confident it’s the right move for 2026 and beyond. As for the 2025 season, starting a true freshman immediately adds even more volatility to the season. The job for those dumb enough to try to predict what will happen on the field this year just got that much harder.

Best Case Scenario

Three things we can confidently state as true:

1. Cal was 6-6 last year, but lost four games by a combined nine points

2. Cal’s primary weakness was the offensive line, but the Bears will roll into the season with a completely re-made line.

3. Cal’s 2025 schedule is just as soft as their 2024 schedule.

It doesn’t take a genius to look at that set of facts and imagine that if Cal stays exactly as good as last year in every other area, but gets better along the offensive line and/or gets luckier in close games, they could win a lot of games.

In a best case scenario, Cal’s defense has the best front 6 of the Wilcox era, complimented by a secondary that benefits big time from that front 6. Cal has a great run defense and a varied, effective pass rush that covers up occasional DB growing pains. It adds up to a defense that is easily in the top 25 nationally and is in the conversation for best in the ACC behind Clemson.

Meanwhile, the offense is a boom and bust machine. A completely rebuilt unit balances out frustrating drives marked by mistakes and poor execution with scoring drives when the talent meshes. Sagapolutele is more mistake prone than Mendoza was in 2024, but he can make a wider variety of throws, including more production from deep balls that opens up the offense when it’s executing properly.

Cal starts the season slowly on offense, playing a series of low scoring slogs, which includes a particularly ugly loss to Minnesota with a final score of 17-13. But the offense improves with more reps, and Cal opens ACC play 3-0, highlighted by a surprisingly comfortable win over UNC. The Bears are 6-1 and right on the edge of a top 25 ranking.

Cross country road trips are brutal, and the two toughest on the schedule trip the Bears up. Cal can’t keep the momentum rolling in a frustrating close loss on the road against Virginia Tech, and the fall against two weeks later at Louisville. But the Bears rebound to crush Stanford in the Big Game, then close out the season with an upset win over SMU that serves as JKS announcing himself as a big time college quarterback. The Bears go 9-3 (6-2) and enjoy a trip to the Holiday Bowl, where they earn their 2nd win of the season in San Diego for their first 10 win season since 2006.

Worst Case Scenario

Based on the depth charts announced by Cal’s coaches, the Bears enter the year with one returning starter on offense (Trond Grizzell), two returning starters on defense* (Aiden Keanaaina and Cade Uluave), and zero returning specialists on special teams.

This leads to two important questions:

1. Are the individual players that Cal is bringing in to replace last year’s production better players than the individual players at their position from 2024?

2. Even if the new players might be better in a vacuum, are they actually going to be better as a team because of a lack of chemistry/time in Cal’s system/other transition costs?

The answer to question #1 is certainly going to vary position by position - sometimes the new player will be better than last year, sometimes not.

The answer to question #2 is the biggest problem in a 2025 worst case scenario.

Cal men’s basketball fans have seen the challenge of trying to win games with a completely rebuilt roster. Florida State football (for just one example) have seen the limits of trying to portal in talent. One scenario that is on the table for Cal in 2025 is a disjointed team that struggles all season to execute plays.

On offense this means missed blocking assignments, lots of procedural penalties, and a bunch of costly turnovers. On defense this means missed gap assignments, out of position DBS, and an unusual vulnerability to big plays. This means continued special teams breakdowns.

It’s entirely possible that this is an overwrought concern. Cal has broken in plenty of transfer players over the last few seasons and has broadly maintained their average standard of play under Wilcox. But this year has a higher volume of imported players, and there’s barely a position group on the team that hasn’t been completely made over.

In this scenario, the warning signs are apparent early. Cal goes just 2-2 in the non-conference schedule, eking out an ugly win over San Diego State but falling to Oregon State and Minnesota, without scoring many points.

And against an ACC schedule full of mostly average teams, Cal’s offense never finds a groove. JKS reminds Cal fans of the 2013 season, both because he occasionally flashes the kind of talent that Jared Goff did, but because he spends much of the season running for his life.

Cal beat Virginia and Stanford but drops the rest of their ACC games to finish the year 4-8 (2-6).

*Yes, Ryan McCulloch, T.J. Bollers and Cam Sidney did get starts last year, and Isaiah Crosby was a part of the DB rotation, but the larger point still stands.

Final Prediction

Let’s go position group by position group and try to figure out if we expect improvement or regression from 2024:

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

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.

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

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

OL: The hardest position group to predict, because Cal will enter the season with five brand new starters, four of which weren’t on the roster last year. 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

DL: Two rock solid returnees, solid depth . . . this should be as strong as Cal has been on the defensive front since the first couple of Wilcox defenses. Improvement

OLB: It’s hard not to see this unit getting better. True, Xavier Carlton and David Reese are not a trivial players to replace. But it’s safe assumption that Ryan McCulloch will be better than either of them with better health and another season of development under his belt. And T.J. Bush was one of the more highly sought after edge rushers for a reason. If those two players remain healthy, this unit should see Improvement

ILB: Cade is still Cade, but hopefully healthier this year. Encouragingly, Cal has brought in some really intriguing talent via the portal and yet Luke Ferrelli is reportedly pushing for playing time. But they have large cleats to fill in Teddye Buchanan, Cal’s best front six player last year. This year’s group is certainly deeper and more able to absorb injuries, but I don’t know if Buchanan’s actually production will be exceeded. Push

Secondary: On one hand, I believe in the ability of a Justin-Wilcox-led coaching staff to develop defensive backs. On the other hand, I can’t just hand-wave away the reality that Cal is replacing 90% of their 2024 DB rotation, highlighted by three dudes who were selected in the NFL draft. I don’t think that Cal’s secondary is going to fall off a cliff, but this is still a pretty clear case for Regression.

Special Teams: I think Cal will have a weaker punting unit, but a stronger return unit and almost by default a more successful field goal unit. Improvement

Add it all up and I’ve predicted four units to improve, three units to stay roughly the same, and three units to regress.

One of those units with predicted regression also happens to be the most important position on the field, and also happens to be the most talented high school recruit to come to Cal since the Tedford era.

Is it fair for a true freshman quarterback to be the fulcrum of a season? Probably not, but here we are. If Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele can quickly capitalize on his raw talent, Cal can have a special season. If he is unable to, either because he needs more time to develop or because his surrounding cast is unable to gel around him, this season could be very difficult.

The safe bet, as always, is to predict something in between those two extremes. And after all, I did write this just months ago:

And what I’ve seen under Justin Wilcox is that the exact nature of the problem areas on Cal’s roster has changed from year to year, but there is consistently a problem area. At different times it has been quarterback, wide receiver, offensive line, defensive line, and even briefly in times in 2023, the secondary.

. . . But it’s just too much to ask to have to fill so many holes every single year and to find the right answer at every single position group.

I don’t know which position groups will be a problem next year. It could be quarterback, or the offensive line again, or perhaps the secondary after losing roughly 80% of the on-field production from this year. Maybe nobody can replace Teddy Buchanan or Xavier Carlton.

It’s this constant rotation of problem areas that has kept Cal as a .500 team for years on end, and it’s the primary reason I won’t be predicting anything different under Justin Wilcox until he actually manages to win 8+ regular season games.

August me can’t really disagree with February me, which is why I have no choice to predict another 6-6 season from Cal football.