Cal Football Reportedly Hiring Keith Bhonapha At Running Backs Coach
The California Golden Bears garner a very qualified assistant, and another major recruiter on staff.
The California Golden Bears landed another huge recruiting presence that fits the mindset of Tosh Lupoi’s new coaching regime in Keith Bhonapha, Oakland native. Adam Rittenberg of ESPN was first to report.
Bhonapha began his college career as a defensive back at Hawaii, where he overlapped with Nick Rolovich when he was the starting quarterback. He stayed on at Hawaii as a graduate assistant, where he coached defensive backs, then accepted an administrative role at Boise State under Chris Petersen.
In 2009, Bhonapha became running backs coach at Boise, and has held that role (along with other various capacities) for the past 17 years, including for the 2009 Boise State team that made the Fiesta Bowl, multiple Pac-12 title teams at Washington (including the College Football Playoff squad in 2016), and the first top 25 team in over a decade at Oregon State. Bhonapha was most recently at Michigan State, but there has been a regime change after his former boss Jonathan Smith was let go.
The running backs Bhonapha has helped coach, develop or recruit include five NFL draft picks:
Doug Martin (two-time NFL Pro Bowler, RIP)
Jay Ajayi (fifth in the nation in rushing in 2014 at Boise State)
Damien Martinez (two-time First Team All Pac-12 at Oregon State)
Myles Gaskin (first Pac-12 player with four 1,000+ rushing-yard-seasons at Washington)
Salvon Ahmed (1,000+ yard rusher in 2019 at Washington, multi-year pro)
Ashton Jeanty (Heisman finalist at Boise State last year)
Bhonapha has held titles from director of football operations (including for the famous 2006 Boise State team), to associate head coach (at Boise State, Oregon State and Michigan State in his last three stops), and recruiting coordinator (at his first stop at Boise and at Washington from 2011-19).
Bhonapha had plenty of primary recruiting wins, including Dante Pettis. He was responsible for locking down in-state recruits, and putting a wall around the state of Washington during his time there. Now that he’s back in Oakland, perhaps a similar philosophy will be applied for the Northern California top prospects. He also was responsible for Hawaii outreach, so hopefully along with Rolovich, both can garner inroads with more major talents.
Bhonapha comes in with bona fides that stack up to Cal running back coach legend Ron Gould, as he joins Nick Rolovich (quarterbacks coach) and Jordan Somerville (offensive coordinator). This is a huge win for the Golden Bears.
Let's make this Running Back U again!
this seems like a phenomenal hire... the sleeping giant is starting to toss and tumble