Cal Football 2026 UCLA Game Week Press Conference

Tosh Lupoi begins addressing the room almost before he’s properly in his seat. His message goes beyond the room, calling on students and fans, particularly the Greeks on campus to have “butts in seats” by 7PM Saturday. He met with chapter presidents over the summer. There will be a new extra student entrance. It’s in the details. The tarps are off the south end and a fanbase has been re-ignited in a way not seen in well over a decade. It feels important that Lupoi left a CMS that was regularly at capacity, and so it does not take a leap of faith or imagination for him to envision it full again.

Later in his time on the podium, Lupoi laments a moment his attention to detail jumped the shark, he wanted to make sure everything was game ready, down to the red challenge flags. Writers in the room nodded at this, but Lupoi shook his head. Equipment Manager TIm Feaster had reminded him that there are no red flags in college football. “I think we have the best equipment staff in the nation, I’ll go on record. No stone left unturned.

Process was the message of the presser, Offensive and Defensive Coordinators as well as all three team leaders, Keawe-Sagapolutele, Fletcher, and Mohammed touched upon the phrase. Staying on message has been a strong suit shared by staff and players. Defensive Coordinator Michael Hutchings put it plainly, “How did we get to those results? Did we do it the right way, did we check every box that we were supposed to check each and every play?” He continued “I don’t think we’re going to be results oriented or results driven, always process driven. Success and failure can both be imposters, we don’t want our guys to get caught up in that, so did we get to the result in the correct way?”

The focus in the building, as late as the beginning of this week, was on the team’s particulars of their own offense and skills. Again, the emphasis on process. As for the day of game, OC Jordan Somerville will call plays from the box, QB coach Nick Rolovitch will be on field. Coaching staff and players alike took the podium and were frank about the knowns in their opponent. Bruins RB Wayne Knight is a known quantity to be contained, not stopped, he is expected, and he is coming.

In a world where the first week of the college football season is a constellation of unknown and untested teams, Lupoi and a smattering of his staff coached one of their last games at Oregon against a team that overwhelmingly transferred to the Bruins shortly thereafter. “Chesney as well as Dean Kennedy, and Colin (Hitschler) their DC, I’ve got a lot of respect for what they accomplished there together. Coming over to this place, leaving James Madison, I think they do a great job.”

Even with the prognostication one can do with last year’s films of the same players on different teams, the expectation outside each of these programs amongst the fanbases are very high. In Berkeley that tension is being managed cooly by Lupoi and company, “(I think we’re) dialed into what matters, Us, how we’re playing, our opportunity to display our culture, kick off a new era of football, and don’t put a lot into what other people’s expectations are.”

Players echo this sentiment. When asked what success looks like, Ricky Fletcher smiles “Just keeping the main thing the main thing.”