Four Ways Cal QB Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele Can Be Better Still

Cal freshman quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele was good enough Saturday in his college debut that he was named Atlantic Coast Conference Rookie of the Week.

Certainly he was superb, completing 20 of 30 passes for 234 yards with three touchdowns and no turnovers in the Bears’ 34-15 win at Oregon State.

So what’s next for the 18-year-old from Ewa Beach, Hawaii?

Plenty. Because as good as he was, there are at least four ways Sagapolutele and coach Justin Wilcox said he can be better still.

“It was a great blessing to receive such high praise,” Sagapolutele said Tuesday after practice. “But it’s one game and there’s so much I could have done better in that game. So much we’ve got to fix, especially me — a lot of things I’ve got to get better on.”

For instance:

Accuracy

Sounds like an odd thing to say from a player who connected on his first nine pass attempts. Wilcox went out of his way to praise his quarterback’s accuracy.

But Sagapolutele was “only” 11 for 21 the rest of the way. “On some of the footballs, I under threw them. Some were off their line. We were working on it today. Once we get it down, we’ll be more efficient, more fluid.”

Decision-making

“I think it was not too bad,” Sagapolutele said. “There were some things I missed in there that I definitely could have hit.”

Wilcox agreed. “A couple decisions he can make better.” he said.

End-of-half operation

Wilcox noted a sequence at the end of the first half when the offense could have demonstrated better clock management.

Leading 14-3, the Bears got the ball back with 42 seconds left after a hit by cornerback Paco Austin caused a fumble that edge Ryan McCulloch recovered at the Ca 35-yard line. Sagapolutele scrambled for 25 yards to the OSU 39 and the Bears had 12 seconds left.

With less than 2 minutes left the half, the clock stopped with the first down. “You want to use that time to run a play — we have a play that was called,” Wilcox explained. “It should take maybe 3-4 seconds. We didn’t execute

“If I knew we weren’t going to get the snap off, I would have called a timeout. However, we practice that quite a bit and it didn’t play out like we hoped.”

Instead, the Bears rushed to gain nine yards on three snaps, including an incomplete pass on third down, which stopped the clock and set up Abram Murray’s 49-yard field goal. Three points, when the Bears would have preferred seven.

Lack of experience

Asked if most of these issues will resolves themselves with more experience after a few more games, Sagapolutele acknowledged, “Yes most definitely.”

“Like everybody, there’s a lot to learn, especially at that position,” said Wilcox, who was clearly pleased with most of what Sagapolutele did. “He did a nice job and I know he was eager to get in there and watch the video and improve.”

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