New Cal WRs Coach Ike Hilliard: `Anything Is Possible In Any Year'

Ike Hilliard capped an All-America senior season by catching three touchdown passes in Florida’s 52-20 rout of rival Florida State that brought the Gators their first national championship 30 years ago.

He made more than 500 receptions in a 12-year NFL career, then spent 13 more seasons coaching in the league.

Now two weeks from turning 50, Hilliard is in his first season as head coach Tosh Lupoi's receivers coach, where fellow coaches want to tap his knowledge and the players in his position room dream of a career matching his.

Hilliard sees his assignment as trying to help the Bears achieve their lofty dreams.

“Anything is possible in any year. What’s really cool is it starts with the quarterback, and we have one here,” he said, referring to sophomore Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, one of the nation’s elite young quarterbacks.

“JKS can make every throw. Really cerebral. He’s able to handle the volume we’re trying to present to him right now. And if we can keep him up right in the passing game, I think we’re gonna be OK.

“We’re going to play great defense. Obviously, our head coach is a defensive coach. We brought in a lot of talent on that end as well. We’ll have great balance, at least that’s what we expect. They’re going to be fast, physical.

“We’re going to hopefully take care of the ball on offense, limit our mistakes. We’ll be as efficient as possible. We’ll change tempos. If you can protect the quarterback, if you can limit your turnovers, and you can get (turnovers) on defense, good things will happen in the win-loss column.”

Cal completed its second day of spring practice on Friday and will take 11 days off for the academic break before resuming workouts on April 1. The Bears are just getting started, as Hilliard discusses in the video below.

Hilliard, who joked that both the people at Cal and the Berkeley weather have been too nice, is already making an impact.

“He’s a source of wisdom,” said new offensive coordinator Jordan Somerville, 20 years Hilliard’s junior. “As calm as it gets. His personality is even-tempered. I absolutely love how he goes about teaching.

“The perspective of both playing at a high level and coaching at the highest level. So getting a guy like Ike Hilliard in the room, you can’t take for granted.”

Lupoi, a rookie head coach at his alma mater, said the Bears are fortunate to have Hilliard on the staff. “He’s an expert at what he does,” Lupoi said. “I’ve sat through multiple meetings where he’s translating the information to the wide receiver group and coaching at a high level, the fundamentals and technique, the way.”

Hilliard and the Bears pulled three receivers out of the transfer portal and all of them are embracing what Hilliard is contributing to their development:

— Ian Strong. The 6-foot-3, 210-pound senior caught 52 passes for 762 yards and five touchdowns last fall at Rutgers:

“His resume speaks for itself. He’s a great person to talk to, a great father figure for the room. He puts everyone above him — that’s all you can ask for in a coach. He doesn’t like to talk about his background much. But we’ve watched a couple clips of him scoring. It’s great to watch him play. Now we’re trying to become what he did.”

— Cooper Perry. A 6-1, 195-pound sophomore, Perry saw limited action last season at Oregon, was a four-star prospect and the No. 2 high school recruit in the state of Arizona two years ago:

“He brings a calm presence. He knows so much about football and the receiver position. It’s been nothing short of amazing, just learning from him and picking his brain. We show a lot of clips of him. He’s a super-humble guy. It’s been awesome to see what he’s done in the past and taking it to us.”

— Chase Hendricks. A 6-foot, 200-pound senior, Hendricks had 71 receptions for 1,037 yards and eight TDs last season at Ohio U:

“Coach Ike’s been great, man. Been in the league a long time, coached in the league. He’s a guy who knows what he’s doing, knows what he’s taking about so I just soak up all the knowledge I can. Pretty laid-back. Not (many) words, but he knows what he’s talking about when he do talk.

“He’s already been on that level. Him coaching us with an edge and knowing what he’s done, it kind of bleeds off onto us. You just want to attack each and every day.”

Hilliard breaks down in detail the skillsets of the three new receivers in the video above:

Five-and-a-half months before Cal kicks off its season on Sept. 5 at Memorial Stadium against UCLA, Hendricks sees big things for the Bears.

“As of now, it’s kind of early. Second day of spring ball but I think the sky’s the limit for this team,” Hendricks said.” We definitely have enough talent to do whatever we want. Whether it’s the ACC championship, College Football Playoff, going all the way to the national title, I think it’s all there. Everything’s in front of us.”

Hilliard, benefitting from that wisdom Somerville cited, takes a more measured approach. Three decades after he won a national title and a year after Indiana shocked the college football world by doing so, Hilliard stops well short of making wild predictions. He also doesn’t put limits on what the 2026 Bears can become.

“We don’t want to set any parameters or ceilings,” he said. “The work needs to be done every day. We feel good about the team we put together. We still have a lot of work to do. We’re in the beginning stages of spring ball, so we’re not going to get too ahead of ourselves.”

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