Can Cal Freshman QB Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele Handle Starting on the Road?

Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele will become Cal’s second true freshman quarterback ever to start a season opener, but he will be the first to make that start on the road, in front of a hostile crowd at Oregon State, which is favored by 1.5 points in that Saturday night game.

How does Sagapolutele feel about that road challenge?

“I think that’s the best place to start, especially as my first game in college, just to experience it for the first time,” he said this week. “You get everything. You get to go against a great team. You get the background, you get the noise. You get to experience that for the first time. And I just think, once you experience that, it’s only up from there.”

Well, that’s one way to look at it.

Not mentioned in that scenario is that the fate of Cal’s season rests largely on Sagapolutele’s young shoulders because he is the quarterback.

“It’s the most important position in all of sports,” Wilcox said this week. “That’s just the reality of it.”

So the question remains: Can the Hawaiian with the rocket arm handle this challenging road situation in his first college game?

Is Wilcox concerned about that?

“No, I’m not,” Wilcox said.

The coach believes Sagapolutele has the mental makeup to handle the situation, but he is aware of what Sagapolutele faces.

“It’ll be a lot of firsts for him: first college game, first start, first time on the road, gonna see a new defense for the first time,” Wilcox said. “But again, he’s a very sharp kid, he learns, he communicates well, he’s got a lot of ability.

“He’ll improve from series one to series two, and quarter one to quarter two.”

Darren Johnson, Sagapolutele’s head coach at Campbell High School in Honolulu, became familiar with Sagapolutele’s calm confidence in a playoff game against Kapolei High School last year. Campbell trailed 33-7 with five minutes left in the first half, and was down 36-14 at halftime.

At halftime, Sagapolutele told the coach it was not a problem.

“He sounded real confident, and it put me at ease,” Johnson said this week, “and he started firing darts and dimes.”

In the second half, Sagapolutele threw four touchdown passes and ran for a fifth in Campbell’s 49-43 victory.

Johnson had seen it before. In Sagapolutele’s first high school start as a sophomore, he went 9-for-13 for 230 yards and three touchdowns, all in the first half, which ended with Campbell leading 34-0. That was also the final score as Sagapolutele took the rest of the game off.

Asked this week whether he played well in that game, Sagapolutele said, “Not the best, but I think we blew them out by 50, but I think there’s always a lot to improve for sure.”

Wilcox and Johnson harp on the fact that Sagapolutele is “coachable,” able to take information, process it quickly and put it to use.

“Jaron, he reminds me of A-Rod, just gambler, puts it out there, and it works,” said Cal wide receiver Kyion Grayes, invoking former Cal star Aaron Rodgers. “Jaron is really good for his age. You look at him and you wouldn’t realize that he’s as young as he is. Seems like he’s been here for so long.”

Oregon State head coach Trent Bray talks about Sagapolutele’s talent as a passer and runner, but concludes with this:

“They obviously have a bunch of confidence in him,” Bray said. “They feel great about him if they’re starting him as a true freshman. So, that says a lot.”

Of course, for Sagapolutele to be productive against the Beavers, he will need a running game and pass protection, both of which will depend on the success Cal’s remade offensive line. And with an offensive line consisting of five starters who played at four different colleges last season, it will be difficult to get that five-players-acting-as-one-machine performance that’s needed up front.

Still it is Sagapolutele’s performance that folks will be watching. And grand conclusions will be drawn based on this one Saturday night game, which, of course, is short-sighted.

The only other Cal true freshman quarterback to start a season opener was Jared Goff, and the fact that Goff became the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft and finished fifth in the MVP voting last season suggests Sagapolutele is on a favorable path.

However, Goff’s freshman season at Cal in 2013 was not a booming success. The Bears went 1-11 that year, and in his first start against 22nd-ranked Northwestern, Goff put up big numbers, going 38-for-63 for 445 yards and two touchdowns. But he also threw three interceptions, two of which were returned for touchdowns in the Bears’ 44-30 loss.

And there was one major difference from Sagapolutele’s impending debut: Goff’s first game was played in Berkeley.

Sagapolutele will be playing his first game 465 miles from Berkeley in Corvallis, where Oregon State’s home record is 20-5 since the start of the 2021 season. And Saturday night crowds are typically louder than afternoon crowds.

Oh, and one other bit of pressure: Sagapolutele’s parents will attend Saturday’s game.

Cal football general manager Ron Rivera talks about Sagapolutele

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