Recent TCU, Cal History Provides Hope for Cal QB Devin Brown

History suggests there is still hope for Cal quarterback Devin Brown, and it comes in the form of TCU’s 2022 season or Cal's 2023 season.

At the moment Brown presumably is disheartened about not being named the Bears’ starting quarterback, losing out to true freshman Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele.

Not only did he lose a competition that everybody on the outside thought he was winning, but this is the third straight year that Brown lost a one-on-one battle to be the team’s starting quarter.

Two years ago he lost a close competition with Kyle McCord to be Ohio State’s starting quarterback, a competition that was not decided until a few weeks into the 2023 season.  Last year, Brown lost out to Will Howard, who had transferred in from Kansas State, for the starting quarterback job of a Buckeyes team that eventually won the national championship.

So with two years of college eligibility remaining, Brown opted to transfer to Cal, where he figured he would have a good chance to be the starter with Fernando Mendoza transferring to Indiana. (It no doubt has dawned on Brown in the meantime that he might have won the starting quarterback job at Ohio State this season if he had stayed in Columbus, considering the job went to Julian Sayin, whose college playing career consisted of 27 snaps in 2024, when he completing 5 of 12 passes for 84 yards.)

Most observers believed Brown would be named Cal's starter this season. Instead Brown must back up Sagapolutele, with the knowledge that he will have to sit behind the freshman for both of his seasons at Cal unless he transfers or Sagapolutele struggles or get injured.

But things take strange twists in college football.

Let’s go back to 2022, to Forth Worth, Texas, and a TCU football team coached by former Cal head coach Sonny Dykes.

Max Duggan competed with Chandler Morris for the Horned Frogs’ starting quarterback in preseason camp even though Duggan had a lot more college-game experience than Morris, who had played in just four games in 2021.  Duggan had even led TCU to a 34-32 victory over Cal in 2021, throwing three touchdown passes and running for a fourth TD.

The quarterback competition in 2022 was close, and Dykes did not reveal his decision on a starter until the September 2 opener, when Morris started the game.

After being the starter in 2020 and having his junior season in 2021 ruined by injuries, Duggan was looking at spending his final college season as a backup on a TCU team picked to finish seventh in the nine-team Big 12.

Then, in the third quarter of the season opener, Morris left the game with a leg injury, and Duggan took his place.

Duggan never relinquished his starting role, and led TCU to a perfect 12-0 regular season, with four wins over nationally ranked teams – Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas State and Oklahoma State. TCU suffered an overtime loss in the Big 12 championship game, but was still one of four teams invited to the College Football Playoff. Duggan led the Horned Frogs to an upset victory over Michigan in the national semifinals, putting TCU in the national championship game before losing to Georgia.

Duggan finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting that year, behind USC’s Caleb Williams, but ahead of the likes of C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young and Michael Penix Jr. Duggan was taken in the 2023 NFL draft.

Could something similar happen to Cal’s Brown? The situation is similar to what faced Duggan, who willed TCU to victories with his versatility and heart.

Brown need only look at what happened at Cal two years ago.  Fernando Mendoza, a redshirt freshman who had been a scout team quarterback in 2022, started the 2023 season as the Bears’ No. 3 quarterback. He was elevated to a starting role midway through the 2023 season when the top two quarterbacks failed to be productive enough, and became a star. 

Mendoza, whose only Division I FBS scholarship offer out of high school was from Cal, became so good last season that he was lured away by Indiana by way of the transfer portal and is viewed as a high NFL draft prospect.

Brown has never had a chance to be in the driver’s seat of a college team.  His only start at Ohio State came in the Cotton Bowl following the 2023 season, and he left that game after 18 snaps with an injury.

No one wants Sagapolutele to get injured, and he might start every game this season and be outstanding, perhaps leading the Bears to their first winning season since 2019.

But you can never tell what might happen when a backup player gets a chance.

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