Cal hires Famika Anae as their new offensive line coach

The current New Mexico offensive line coach is a former BYU offensive lineman and son of NC State assistant Robert Anae.

Credit: Cal Football

Cal made its fourth offensive staff hire of the week and third offensive assistant hire on Saturday, as New Mexico offensive line coach Famika Anae is on his way to Berkeley to take over a Golden Bear offensive line in need of rejuvenation.

Here is the official announcement from the Cal Athletics website:

Famika Anae has been named the new offensive line coach of the California football program, Travers Family Head Football Coach Justin Wilcox announced Saturday.

Anae has over 10 seasons of collegiate coaching experience, most recently serving as the offensive line coach at New Mexico in 2024. The Lobos' high-powered offense was led by a strong running attack, ranking fourth nationally in rushing at 253.6 yards per game.

Led by Anae, the Lobos' offensive line led the country this season in both total sacks allowed (5) and sacks allowed per game (0.42). New Mexico also topped FBS teams in tackles for loss allowed, giving up just 26 on the season for 70 yards (2.17 pg). The 26 tackles for loss allowed were eight fewer than Army's 34, the second-least allowed in the country. The Lobos were fourth in the NCAA in total offense at 484.3 yards per game.

Anae is a former BYU player turned coach. He started coaching offensive lines at Virginia, Dixie State, Texas A&M Commerce (now East Texas A&M), and Campbell before ending up at New Mexico for his first major FBS stint. The Hawaii native joins the staff alongside a fellow MWC coach Kyle Cefalo, who was hired as the new Cal wide receivers coach.

During his one year leading the Lobos OL, New Mexico only allowed 1 sack the entire season (!!!!), no sacks throughout the 1st half of the year despite dealing with 2 season-ending injuries, and an OL that played 0 snaps together the year before. The one caveat is their QB Devon Dampier was a significant running threat, carrying the ball 160 times for 7.4 YPA. What’s promising is that none of the players who carried the ball more than 10 times averaged less than 5.1 YPC, which in my eyes is a very good statistic.

Overall his offensive line was a highly efficient road grinding machine, even in match-ups against squads on the higher echelons of the MWC, as shown below after their 38-35 upset of #19 WSU late in the season:

Another thing worth noting is that there are 2 New Mexico OL in the portal from this group of players above, including offensive tackle Wallace Unamba and.

This also means that Cal is unlikely to retain the services of former offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Mike Bloesch and quarterbacks coach Sterlin Gilbert, as both their positions have now been filled in by Bryan Harsin and now Anae.

Anae joins a new look offensive staff featuring Harsin, Cefalo, and Nick Rolovich. Remaining offensive coaches from this year include running backs coach Aristotle Thompson and tight ends coach Mike Saffell.

Welcome to Berkeley!