Cal Football expected to hire Oregon Defensive Coordinator Tosh Lupoi as new head coach
He's coming home.
Oregon Defensive Coordinator Tosh Lupoi is coming back home to be Cal Football’s next Head Coach. First reported by Mike Silver, Bruce Feldman, and Chris Vannini, Lupoi was heavily linked to the Cal opening after the departure of Justin Wilcox.
Lupoi is a Bay Area native, having played his high school football at De La Salle High School in Concord. He then played his collegiate football at Cal during 2000-2005, earning a Pac-12 All-Academic selection in 2005, and led the defensive line in tackles in 2003.
Lupoi was hired by Jeff Tedford to coach the defensive line in 2008, a position he remained in until 2011. During his tenure at Cal, he was named the 2010 Rivals Recruiter of the Year, helping recruit the 14th-best class in the nation, then following that up with the 11th-ranked class in 2011. While at Cal, he also developed some of the most prolific defensive linemen in Cal’s history. Cameron Jordan was a first-team All-Pac-10 selection in 2010, before being selected in the first round of the 2011 draft. In 2009, he coached Tyson Alualu to a first-team All-Pac-10 selection.
He left for the defensive line coach position at Washington in 2012, then spent time at Alabama as a defensive analyst, outside linebackers coach and defensive coordinator under Nick Saban, where he won national titles in 2015 and 2017, the latter coming as a co-defensive coordinator.
After Alabama, he then spent three years in the NFL as a defensive line coach with the Cleveland Browns, Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars. He returned to college football in Eugene to be the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach under Dan Lanning in 2022, winning the Big Ten title in 2024 and earning another playoff bid in 2025. Lupoi has been named a Broyles Award (awarded to the top assistant coach in college football) semifinalist this season and last.
Welcome back home Coach Lupoi! It’s good to see you back in Berkeley.
Recruiting go BRRRRR #analysis
To establish my hater bonafides: I made a shirt to commemorate Memorial reopening in 2012. There's a Tosh dis on the back. I wear it every night.
Now in 2025, I approve of this hire and will do what I can as a fan and donor to make him successful. Maybe he snakes us again, maybe he doesn't. But I am rooting SO hard for this prodigal son redemption story. Go Bears!