Post-Game Thoughts: Texas Southern University Football 2025

Cal's annual sleepwalk against an FCS opponent feels very familiar indeed

photo via Rob Hwang

Remember when Cal trailed by three points to Weber State entering the 3rd quarter in 2017? How about when the Bears punted on their first three possessions vs. Idaho State in 2018? Being tied with UC Davis late into the 3rd quarter in 2019 was fun. And who can forget allowing 370 passing yards to Sac State in 2021? Gaining a combined three yards on the first four offensive drives of the game in 2022 against UC Davis was certainly par for the course, as was falling behind 17-0 to Idaho in 2023. Heck, 2024’s win over UC Davis felt downright easy even though the Bears led by just 1 point halfway through the 3rd quarter.

If you’re inclined to be glass-half-full, you will happily note that Cal is still undefeated against FCS competition, and Justin Wilcox has not lost one of these games despite mostly scheduling a bunch of pretty-competent Big Sky teams.

If you’re glass half empty, you’re probably in a pretty sour mood after yet again watching Cal play down to the level of their competition in their annual tune up game.

For good or for ill, we’ve seen this story before

Offense

Efficiency Report

10 drives: 4 touchdowns, 1 field goal attempt (1-1), 2 punts, 3 turnovers (1 fumble, 1 interception, 1 downs), 3.2 points/drive.

Removed: Cal’s early three-and-out that resulted in a field goal thanks to defense/special teams, and the final clock-killing drives of each half.

Cal’s first six drives were pretty nightmarish. Averaging 4.2 yards/play against a low level FCS team to go along with a fumble and an interception was deeply concerning.

The rest of the game was . . . fine. From that point on Cal averaged 7.7 yards/play, which I’d probably be OK with for a full game.

A very different passing attack

A week after bombing away down the field, Cal’s passing game was decidedly more underneath. 27 of JKS’s 37 pass attempts were within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage, and there weren’t really any notable deep shots.

This struck me, both at the time AND on re-watch, as a deliberate game plan rather than a reaction to anything Texas Southern was doing. Cal didn’t give up any more pressure in this game than they did against Oregon State, but Sagapolutele did get the ball out faster, and many of his throws he went right to his first read, and that first read was typically an underneath throw.

Maybe that’s a reflection of not wanting to put anything fancy on film. Maybe that’s a reflection of wanting to get JKS practice getting the ball out quickly against future opponents who will be able to credibly rush the passer.

While the start was iffy, the actual passing performance looks much better in retrospect. 27-38 is a reasonable completion rate, particularly when your receivers drop four passes and three were batted down. JKS was functionally 31-35 in terms of pass accuracy for throws that made it past the line of scrimmage, and although the degree of difficulty was not high, that’s still an encouraging data point.

Clarity at running back, less clarity at receiver

Kendrick Raphael pretty clearly grabbed the RB1 designation with an 18 carry, 131 yard performance that saw him hit holes decisively all game long.

Meanwhile, Cal went much deeper into the WR depth chart after playing just four last week, and four more drops from starters might open up opportunities for guys further down the depth chart. Quaron Adams and Jayden Dixon-Veal had nice late game auditions, but Minnesota will be the real tale of the tape. Anybody that gets snaps next Saturday against star safety Koi Perich clearly has the trust of the coaching staff.

Defense

Efficiency Report

12 drives: 0 touchdowns, 1 field goal attempt (1-1), 10 punts, 1 turnover (interception), 0.25 points/drive.

This is more like what you’d expect to see against a low end FCS team. Cal 3.3 yards/play, and just nine Texas Southern plays went for 10 yards or more, with five of them coming on the Tigers’ only scoring drive early in the 4th quarter with the game well in hand.

Texas Southern probably should’ve wrung more than 3 points out of their production, punting a cowardly three times while in Cal territory and throwing an interception while in scoring range. But Southern also was lucky that Cal’s defense didn’t outscore them when a pick six was nullified by a split second, so I suppose it balances out.

Picking nits

As I glanced over the stats and rewatched portions of the game, it was difficult to find any meaningful fault in the defensive performance. I mean, I’m sure Cal’s coaches can find a missed tackle or two, and the Bears weren’t great at turning pressures into sacks (you can listen to Wilcox mention tackling technique and pass rush lane integrity in his post-game presser), but the Tigers had a slippery running QB that was difficult to corral and Cal did a good job of limiting his damage on scrambles.

No, the only real complaint was two roughing-the-quarterback penalties, one of which will result in Cade Uluave’s suspension for the first half against Minnesota. That one was particularly frustrating because it occurred deep in the game when that kind of aggressive play wasn’t needed and when Cal arguably should’ve been rotating their starters out anyway.

The Bears are lucky to have BYU transfer Harrison Taggert ready to sub in - he’s Cal’s most overqualified back-up that I can ever recall - and hope that he’s ready to go in Cal’s first major test. Taggert’s picked up 40 snaps across Cal’s first two games so he’s gotten a taste of playing within Cal’s system.

Special Teams

Another functionally flawless performance

Two different kickers made a field goal, punting was solid, De Jesus is Cal’s best return specialist in a long long time, and the coverage units generally look fine. Now: everybody knock on wood.

Jacob De Jesus has more punt return yards in two games than Cal had in the entirety of 2024 as a team

I have no information to add beyond the sentence you just read.

Coaching/Game Theory

The strategy behind a 2 point conversion play

When Cal finally scored a touchdown, they initially lined up in a standard PAT formation but motioned into a trick play formation and direct snapped the ball to Mason Mini, who ran it in.

I get why they snapped the ball - Cal had eight blockers and Texas Southern only moved seven guys to that side of the formation. What I wonder is why Cal ran this play against Texas Southern.

My first thought was that this was a waste of a 2 point conversion play against an opponent where you don’t need trickeration to win. Maybe the coaching staff just wants to get this on film because they want to run wrinkles off of it later in the year? I’ll be annoyed if Cal seems lacking in viable conversion plays further along in the season.

Big Picture

It was a funny weekend for Cal’s future prospects.

After last weekend, I mentally updated my priors upward from 6-6 based on Sagapolutele’s debut performance. As I watched Cal struggle to outplay a team that was blown out each of the last two years by Rice, I started mentally updating my expectations back downwards.

Then I got back home, surveyed what happened elsewhere around the country, and discovered that most of Cal’s future 2025 opponents spent Saturday looking varying shades of bad.

As a result, we’re in a strange situation where Cal is ranked 51st in the SP+ rankings (which have been outperforming Vegas to start the season) and yet the Bears still rank higher than 7 of their 10 remaining opponents. The same ranking system spits out the following projected lines for Cal’s future opponents*:

*Please note I screwed up my math on the original post, and BC should be a 1.5 point favorite rather than 3.5 - i.e. Cal is slightly better than BC in the rankings, but BC is favored due to home field advantage.

If you turn those odds into win probability, you get a most likely record of 6-4, for a collective record of 8-4 on the season.

Of course, the one team on Cal’s schedule that DIDN’T play bad-to-mediocre last week was Minnesota, who played a different HBCU and destroyed them 66-0. Now, Northwestern State went winless last year and is very likely a weaker team than Texas Southern, but the larger point stands: Cal and Minnesota played similar teams, and Minnesota left no doubt while Cal spent half a game waking up.

Minnesota MIGHT be the 2nd best team left on Cal’s schedule. They’re almost certainly the best defense left on Cal’s schedule. If the Bears can correct what went wrong in a week and show up ready to play start to finish, they stand an excellent chance of pulling a mild home upset. And if they do, they will be sitting pretty at 3-0 with six straight games in which they will be the favorites, give or take a toss up on the road against Boston College.

It’s weird to have a Big-10 team that usually just aspires to a bowl game as the big barrier on the schedule, but such is the nature of 2025. Cal has been handed the weakest set of opponents I can recall in my 30-odd years of Cal fandom.

Next week we’ll find out if Cal is good enough to take advantage of the gift the schedule makers provided.