The Big Question: How Would Tosh Lupoi Respond to Cal's Loss

In the 30 minutes between the end of Cal’s 45-24 loss to UCLA and Tosh Lupoi’s postgame meeting with the media a question lingered:

How would Lupoi react?

There was no precedent. This was Lupoi’s first game as a head coach at any level, and he never had to represent his team while responding to an outcome.

The only thing media members knew was that the 45-year-old Lupoi had established himself as an intense individual who could take over a room with his loud, forceful, self-assured words.

Would he be steaming when he came into the media room, sit down and shout angrily into the microphone about losing a game it was in position to win, perhaps slapping the table in front of him for emphasis?

Or would he quietly bemoan the fact that Cal had been outscored 21-0 in the fourth quarter, ruining a comeback from a 21-10 deficit to tie the game at 24-24?

Or would he try to convince media members with an emotional plea that his team had played its heart out?

Or would he react as Justin Wilcox often did after losses, taking the outcome personally while sadly acknowledging all the missteps that led to an agonizing defeat that disappointed him and the sellout crowd at Memorial Stadium?

What the media got was somewhat unexpected, even though there was no way to expect any particular reaction.

He marched confidently into the media room, sat down and talked evenly and calmly about the opportunity this result afforded the team.

You could not have determined whether Cal had won or lost the game based on the tenor of his voice. His opening remarks were all about how this loss gives him, his coaches and his players a chance to see how they react to adversity.

There was no blame being doled out, no what-ifs being thrown out as excuses, no meandering explanation of how Saturday night’s disappointment played out.

He sat down, gave a brief grin and began:

“All right,” he said before being questioned. “Couldn’t have asked for something, uh, better than this of an early sting for us to respond to.”

He complimented the team’s third-quarter fight and the coaches’ halftime adjustments that helped Cal dominate the third quarter and tie the game.

Lupoi acknowledged the three turnovers, two of which came in the fourth quarter, that turned the game UCLA’s favor, but that was just a passing thought.

The focus was on the opportunity the result provided: a chance to respond to a disappointment, an opportunity that will come next Saturday in the Bears’ ACC opener against Syracuse.

It was almost as if the loss was – in some small way -- a good thing in the team’s long-term development.

Whether Lupoi reacts the same way to future losses is impossible to know, but you can bet Lupoi had thought long and hard over the past days, weeks or even years about how he would react to his first loss.

And when you think about, he could not have reacted other than the way he did.

He doesn’t want to lose his team after one game with a brooding assessment of the breakdowns. He doesn’t want to publicly break the players’ spirit right off the bat.

Furthermore, the results in season openers have a habit of being deceiving – often dissolving in the background as the season plays out in a very different way from what the first game suggested.

No one really knows how good UCLA is going to be this season, and Cal used a slew of players on defense, trying to find the best combination, an experiment that presumably provided important lessons to the coaches. Things are unsettled.

The other question is how Cal’s performance and Lupoi’s characterization of the result played with Cal fans.

Will a majority of the 54,283 who packed Memorial Stadium for the much anticipated opener against a long-time University of California rival return for the next home game, on September 19, against FCS foe Wagner.

Did they come this week just to witness the grand opening of the Tosh Lupoi era? Will Cal’s ACC opener next Saturday against Syracuse determine how Cal fans feel about the 2026 Golden Bears?

FanDuel and DraftKings made Cal a 1.5-point favorite over Syracuse as of Sunday morning, so that game 2,500 miles away figures to be a testament to how well the Bears respond to the season-opening loss.

An 0-2 start would not be what Cal fans had in mind when a 3-0 start heading into the game against Clemson seemed possible before the season began.

But as midnight approached on Saturday night, Lupoi had no great criticism of his team’s play in the opener.

He did not second-guess his decision to go for it on a fourth-and-3 play from the UCLA 47-yard line early in the fourth quarter when the score was tied 24-24.

“That was a call, I would go for that 10 out of 10 times, with the amount of time remaining there and where we were at,” Lupoi said.

Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele later said Cal was hoping to draw UCLA offside on that play to give the Bears an automatic first down.

But when he realized that was not going to happen, Sagapolutele tried to get the offense into the proper play, resulting in some confusion. The snap from Ashton Rivera -- not long after he had replaced injured starting center Bastian Swinney -- was not expected by Sagapolutele and resulted in a fumble and a 4-yard loss.

“Obviously a huge momentum killer,” Lupoi said. “We were lighting it up at that point, the offense was moving the ball and the defense was getting stops.”

The ultimate game-changer came two minutes later, with nine minutes left, when Sagapolutele’s nicely placed pass when off the hands of Cal wide receiver Ian Strong and into the hands of UCLA defensive back Ta’Shawn James, who returned the interception 19 yards to the Cal 31-yard line.

On the next play, Wayne Knight ran 31 yards for the touchdown that put UCLA ahead to stay 31-24.

It was a gut punch, as was the entire fourth quarter. Yet Lupoi portrayed it all as an opportunity to respond to a disappointing outcome.

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