Post-Game Thoughts: Minnesota Football 2025

Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele and an aggressive game plan earns Cal a win that opens up the season to possibility and promise

photo via Rob Hwang

This was a remarkably even game between two similar teams. Minnesota and Cal are two teams that are defined by their rugged defenses, and defined on offense by promising freshmen quarterbacks. For 60 minutes, they played to a near statistical standstill - both teams finished with 19 first downs and just 5 yards of difference in total yardage.

There were two reasons Cal ended up winning an otherwise even game by a surprisingly comfortable margin:

1. I was pretty impressed with Minnesota’s Drake Lindsey, a redshirt freshman who showed off a variety of throws and had some really nice ball placement at different points in the game. He’s going to be a plus quarterback for the Gophers long term. But there’s a difference between ‘going to be’ a plus quarterback and ‘already is’ a plus quarterback. Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele is that guy already, Cal built their game plan around the fact that JKS is a rare talent, and he outplayed Lindsey at the most important position on the field.

2. Cal special teams were basically flawless, while Minnesota made a handful of crucial errors.

Yes, you are living in a universe where Cal has won a game against a peer program because Cal’s 5 star QB made plays while Cal’s special teams decisively outplayed the opponent. Feel free to pinch yourself, it did very much happen.

Offense

Efficiency Report

11 drives: 3 touchdowns, 2 field goal attempts (2-2), 5 punts, 1 turnover (downs), 2.5 points/drive.

If I wanted to be a harsh grader, I could subtract Cal’s final touchdown from the offensive ledger, as it was a factor of special teams/a Minnesota screw up. But the offense did punch it in to capitalize on the error, and that does matter. We all did watch Cal struggle in the red zone throughout 2024.

I think it’s worth noting here that Minnesota allowed more than 27 points only once last year. Some of that is down to pace and style, but this is a legitimate top 25 defense and Cal found ways to move the ball and perhaps should have done even more.

Cal got guys open

After two games where Cal was plagued by dropped passes and missed chances for contested catches, Cal largely solved the issue by getting guys open all over the field. There were a few drops, but with so many pass catchers open and JKS finding guys the few drops didn’t end up mattering.

I do think this may have been the rare case where Cal actually was saving their best stuff for a tougher opponent. Cal had some nifty wrinkles, including some fakes off of WR screen actions, a few plays off of a three-wide set that got shallow crossers open, and a number of nice roll out actions.

I’m not sure how to mete out credit between the receivers for getting open vs. the coaches for scheming them open (more on JKS and the game plan below) vs. Minnesota for blowing coverages on occasion), but the end result was that dudes found space and Cal made plays with that space, and that was one of the key differences in the game.

A reminder of the margins for execution

A very Cal sequence came late in the first quarter. On first down JKS finds Mason Mini for a six yard gain, and those yards are immediately erased by a false start. On the next play JKS finds De Jesus for 16 yards, but it’s erased by a holding. On the next play, JKS hits Quaron Adams for 20 yards for a surprise first down. A few plays later, Minnesota gets a free rusher straight up the middle that blows up a play, and Cal must punt from midfield.

When Cal is playing competent teams, there will be drives blown up by good defensive play, and there were a few of those against Minnesota. For Cal to hit their ceiling, they need to cut out drives like I just described, where unforced execution errors kill a drive regardless of what the opponent is doing.

Defense

Efficiency Report

10 drives: 2 touchdowns, 1 field goal attempt (0-1), 4 punts, 3 turnovers (1 interception, 2 downs), 1.4 points/drive.

You could argue that Minnesota’s final drive shouldn’t count - the Gophers weren’t likely to achieve anything in 1:06 with no timeouts, and Cal wasn’t exactly playing their base defense in an extreme prevent situation, so if you wanted to revise Cal’s points/drive down to 14 points in 9 possessions (1.6 points/drive) I wouldn’t argue.

Cal stones the run, and Minnesota should’ve trusted their QB more

After re-watching the condensed game, I really came away impressed with Lindsey, who seemed to have a really good feel for the game. When Cal was in zone, he got passes out quickly just as his receivers settled into a gap but before Cal’s secondary could close. When Cal was in man, he did a great job placing balls so that his guys could make a catch.

Meanwhile, Cal really won the battle along the line. Not counting their pointless run on 4th down to end the game, Minnesota has just two runs of 10+ yards. One came on a goal line play where I’m pretty sure Cal a) had a defensive line stunt called that played right into Minnesota’s blocking scheme and b) had at least one player miss a run fit. The other featured a broken tackle along the line. Meanwhile, Minnesota ran it 21 times for 3 yards or less. That’s a long time to spend smashing your head into a wall when you could’ve let your quarterback try to make plays.

What to make of Cal’s coverage challenges?

As noted above, Minnesota found a lot of success throwing completions about 10-15 yards downfield, and while I do think that’s a reflection of Lindsey and particularly Lemeke Brockington. As for Cal, there were some occasions where I thought Cal was a little soft in their coverage against a team that didn’t take a single deep shot until the game was out of hand. It’s also true that Cal made Minnesota go the length of the field in small chunks, and for most of the game Minnesota was unable to do that either due to their own execution errors or because Cal forced a negative play.

I suppose my takeaway is that Cal has built a fundamentally strong secondary that will force an opposing offense to earn their yardage and will be well-positioned to punish mistakes, but they’re not so athletically dominant that they can’t be beaten when they face off against a good QB and solid execution in the passing game.

I’ll let you all debate in the comments how many teams left on Cal’s schedule can execute their passing attack as well as or better than what Minnesota did on Saturday.

Special Teams

Koi Perich’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Minnesota’s star safety and aspirational three way player had a nightmare evening in Strawberry Canyon. Obviously the single most important play of the game was his muffed punt, which turned a coin flip game into a relatively comfortable Cal win in a matter of seconds. But Perich ALSO made a bad mistake fair catching a kick at the three, and ALSO got got by play action on Cal’s first touchdown when he had coverage responsibility, and ALSO got sacked on a gadget play. Rough day, but credit to Cal for making a guy who I assume is a legit all-B1G candidate look frankly bad in three phases.

The value of just executing the basics

This game was a massive special teams win for Cal, and while much of it is down to Minnesota errors, Cal did their part as well. Two made field goals, no kickoff disasters, solid punting, and excellent work by Cal’s gunners to get downfield in time to down and/or recover loose footballs. It wasn’t anything super spectacular, but it was decisive.

A reminder of close margins and the role of random chance in football

If Abram Murray’s late 2nd quarter field goal is one foot further to the right, it probably clangs off the upright and out. If Brady Denaburg’s field goal is a few feet to the left, it probably squeaks inside the upright. In this alternative universe, Minnesota is kicking off to Cal leading the Bears by 3 points, rather than Cal taking over possession at the 33 with a lead.

Coaching

A gutsy, correct offensive game plan

In 2024, the Minnesota pass defense was excellent. The Golden Gophers allowed just 6.1 yards/pass attempt, good for 13th best in the country, and tallied 17 total interceptions, tied for 7th nationally. And strong pass defense has been one of the hallmarks of P.J. Fleck’s Minnesota teams, and we’ve seen nothing so far in 2025 to suggest that Minnesota won’t put up similar numbers this year.

It would have been easy to design a game plan that “protected” Sagapolutele, by trying to give him easy throws, or attempting to avoid obvious passing downs. Maybe you’d go heavy on screens and dump offs and max protection looks.

Instead, Cal’s coaches said “don’t care, we’re riding JKS.” Before Cal’s final, clock-eating drive up 10 points late, they ran 49 offensive plays. 38 of those were passing plays, a rate of 78%. Sagapolutele’s average depth of target was 10 yards downfield, and he went deep down the field 7 times.

JKS responded with an outrageously mature performance. I can only recall a few notable mistakes - one bad read that might’ve been picked if it hadn’t been batted down at the line, and couple of bad sack where he took too long in the pocket and didn’t have enough urgency to get a throw off or to throw the ball away.

A few mistakes on 38 dropbacks against *probably* the best defense on Cal’s schedule, and those few mistakes wildly outweighed by good decisions, sharp throws, and big time downfield completions? You’d take that every time from a 5th year senior.

Big Picture

Well, Cal just won the toughest game on the schedule until a week 10 trip to Louisville. To be more specific, based on current projections, Cal is very likely to be favored by Vegas in each of their next six games. I’ll quote myself from Friday, when I predicted a Cal loss to Minnesota:

The most important matchup in the entire game is Sagapolutele vs. the Minnesota secondary, and while I absolutely think JKS is the real deal, Minnesota's pass defense is very legit and probably a bridge too far in game 3 for our true freshman. But if JKS proves me wrong and balls out en route to a Cal win, you have my permission to go absolutely nuts.

I guess you have my permission to go nuts!

Beating Minnesota was the first step towards all kinds of fun dream scenarios. Beyond the obvious of needing to win this game to stay undefeated, Cal needed to beat Minnesota as proof that they might be a better team than the vast majority of the teams on their 2025 schedule. That mission is now firmly accomplished.

It’s naïve to start predicting a stunning run to 9-0 for our Bears. While Cal is a favorite in every game between now and Louisville, they will only be heavy favorites once, next week against San Diego State. They would have to survive two east coast road trips, and while BC and Virginia Tech spent Saturday looking embarrassing in all kinds of ways, it’s still 3,000 miles away.

Math says that Cal’s most likely record across the next six games is 4-2. But here’s the thing: that 4-2 projection is based on the assumption that Cal doesn’t improve. Yet there are good reasons to think that Cal should get better. As has been discussed ad infinitum, Cal turned over a huge percentage of their playing rotation from last year and there’s reason to think that the Bears should collectively play better as they gain chemistry and as the coaches identify how best to deploy them.

But the main reason to think that Cal could get better is that they have Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, and do any of us think that he has gotten anywhere near is ceiling yet?