Nick Bromberg Senior writer Fri, November 6, 2026 at 4:52 AM UTC · 3 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It's been a rough season for Cal and first-year head coach Tosh Lupoi. And Bears general manager Ron Rivera isn't afraid to admit it.
The Bears enter their Week 10 bye week on a three-game losing streak. After losses to Wake Forest and SMU, Cal lost 31-10 to an NC State program that fired its head coach earlier in the season. At 3-6, Cal has to beat Virginia, Stanford and Pitt to make a bowl game.
Given the way Cal's season has unfolded so far, a bowl seems unlikely. And the former NFL coach admitted that Lupoi has "bumped his head a lot" during his first year as a head coach.
"The biggest thing I can tell you guys is, again, I know the expectations were very, very high. And I know there's that comparison to UCLA," Rivera said Thursday in his weekly appearance on KNBR. "But the thing everybody's got to understand is UCLA brought in a current head coach that came and brought probably half of the team that he had that went to the playoffs to begin with.
"Tosh came in as a first time head coach. He did bring a couple of inexperienced coordinators with him. Things didn't work out the way we needed them to work out on offense. He has bumped his head a lot. We've talked a lot, tried to give him a lot of advice, point him in the right direction and, you know, some of it he's been very receptive and other portions of it he hasn't."
As Cal is three games under .500, No. 8 UCLA is 8-0 under Bob Chesney. The Bruins hired Chesney from James Madison after the Dukes made the playoff in 2025. Before going 21-6 at JMU after Curt Cignetti left to go to Indiana, Chesney was 44-21 at Holy Cross and led the Crusaders to four straight FCS playoff appearances.
Cal hired Lupoi after the team went 7-6 in 2025 and coach Justin Wilcox was fired with a game remaining in the regular season. Last year was Rivera's first as the GM at his alma mater after he spent the 2024 season out of coaching following the end of his tenure with the Washington Commanders.
Lupoi came to Cal after spending four years as Oregon's defensive coordinator and had been an assistant throughout his entire college football coaching career. In early October, pass game coordinator Pat McCann took over the play calling from offensive coordinator Jordan Somerville.
Lupoi also briefly benched quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele after immediately working to convince Sagapolutele to stay with the Bears after he was hired. Jackson Brousseau started the loss to Wake Forest over Sagapolutele and, per an ESPN report during the game, there "will be a quarterback competition moving forward.
Sagapolutele has started Cal's last two games.
"Now it's time. These last three games, hopefully four [with a bowl game], the trajectory has to be going north," Rivera said. "We have to show that we are growing, there has been some growth and development of our players, our team, and the culture is getting stronger. Those are all things that you have to have going forward."
Source: Sports
