Cal Sports Report

Cal WR Coach Kyle Cefalo Reportedly Heading to Southern Miss

Southern Miss is closing in on hiring Kyle Cefalo as its offensive coordinator after his one season at Cal
Jake Curtis|
Cal football
Cal football | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

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California Golden Bears

Cal wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator Kyle Cefalo apparently will not be retained by new head football coach Tosh Lupoi, because Cefalo is close to being hired by Southern Mississippi as the Golden Eagles offensive coordinator, according to Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports.

Cefalo has been on the Cal staff for just one season. He was hired at Cal by then-head coach Justin Wilcox after being the offensive coordinator at Utah State. The Aggies ranked seventh in the country in total offense in Cefalo's final season at Utah State in 2024.

Cefalo presumably will remain Cal's wide receivers coach for the Bears' game against Hawaii in the December 24 Hawaii Bowl.

At Cal, Cefalo coached Bears wide receivers Jacob De Jesus, Trond Grizzell and Jordan King among others. De Jesus has 99 receptions this season, which ranks third in the country and is one catch shy of the Cal single-season record for receptions set by Dameane Douglas in 1998.

At Southern Miss he would be working under new Southern Miss head coach Blake Anderson, who took over after Charles Huff left to become the head coach at Memphis earlier this month. Cefalo worked with Anderson when Anderson was the head coach at Utah State.

Anderson has been the Southern Miss offensive coordinator in 2025, and the Golden Eagles lead the Sun Belt Conference in passing yards per game this season with one game left.

Southern Miss finished the regular season with a 7-5 record and faces Western Kentucky in the New Orleans Bowl.

Cal (7-5) faces Hawaii (8-4) in the Hawaii Bowl, to be played Christmas Eve on the Rainbow Warriors' home field at the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex.

The Bears are 1.5-point favorites for that game, according to DraftKings and BetMGM.

Hawaii alumnus Nick Rolovich will be Cal's head coach for that bowl game, and he reportedly has been retained by Lupoi to be Cal's quarterbacks coach next season.

Rolovich has worked closely with Cal freshman quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, and retaining Rolovich gives Sagapolutele a comfort level with a coach he respects.

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Mike White, who was the head coach of Cal’s powerful 1975 football team, dies

ESPN names Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele as one of 15 candidates for 2026 Heisman

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Cal basketball wins seventh straight game, improves to 10-1

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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