Can Cal Handle Its Early-Season Success?

The most promising aspect of Cal’s 27-14 victory over Minnesota Saturday night did not come on the field but in the postgame interview room 20 minutes later.

In past seasons, Cal coach Justin Wilcox would have been bubbling with pride over such a win, throwing out kudos left and right while warning that it’s still early, that players can’t rest on their laurels, that bigger challenges lay ahead and any number of other cautionary cliches.

No, this time Wilcox’s postgame comments were more analytical than emotional. He saw no need to interject warnings about the future. He simply talked about what Cal did right and what it did wrong with nary a chuckle or grin or fist pump in sight. That’s how coaches who expect to win act.

“You gain confidence through demonstrated performance and preparation,” said Wilcox of his players, “and they did both . . . Their preparation showed up tonight.”

Is Wilcox simply maturing as a head coach? Afterall, he had never been a head coach before taking over at Cal prior to the 2017 season?

Or is this Cal team different? Do Wilcox and his players realize they really haven’t done anything remarkable yet even though the Bears are 3-0 and won two games in which they were underdogs? Do they simply expect to be where they are, knowing the real challenges are ahead?

Cal began the 2019 season by winning its first four games and were ranked 15th in the country, then lost four games in row and went 3-5 the rest of the regular season.

Will something similar happen to this Cal team?

What has Cal actually done?

---The Bears beat an Oregon State team that is now 0-3 after getting beaten to a pulp by Texas Tech 45-14 on Saturday.

---Cal knocked off Texas Southern, an FCS school that has never defeated an FBS team.

---The Golden Bears defeated a Minnesota squad that was picked to finish 11th in the Big Ten in a Cleveland.com media poll, starts a redshirt freshman at quarterback, was without its top running back (Darius Taylor) and traveled across two times zones to play a night game in Berkeley.

However, the way Cal has performed and the Bears’ reaction to their performances is encouraging.

For example, it was Minnesota, not Cal, that made the inexplicable, game-deciding mistakes on Saturday that often ruined the Bears’ chances in the past.  And Cal has won each of its three games by at least 13 points, avoiding the close games that almost invariably led to Cal defeats last season and seasons before that. The Bears kept their foot on the gas pedal, continued to convert in the red zone, got effective punting from Michael Kern and have now made all six of their field-goal attempts.

“You want to do everything you can to carry momentum,” Wilcox said. “You want to keep it as long as possible. Inevitably there’s some adversity that’ll strike, which happened tonight, and then you got to attack that adversity and play yourself through it. And I thought the guys did that; they never flinched.”

The Bears have a quarterback in Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, who, despite being a true freshman that just turned 19 years old last month, seems to have the talent, football acumen and mental stability to handle whatever comes at him. For the second straight week he started slowly, throwing incompletions on his first two passes on Saturday, before settling down and dominating play.

He was not overwhelmed by the fact that 34 of the first 37 plays called by offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin were pass plays, putting virtually of the entire weight of Cal’s offense on Sagapolutele’s shoulders.

“That was the game plan,” said Sagapolutele. “Coach Harsin told me at the beginning of the week, we’re going to have to throw the ball. These guys have such a good front, they’re going to play man [to man on the receivers] and we’re going to have to beat them.”

Despite throwing for a season-high 279 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions, Sagapolutele was objective in his self-appraisal of his performance.

“There's so much I can get better on,” he said. “It wasn’t the best game, you know, I didn’t start off the best, I missed a couple of throws.”