What SDSU Coach Had to Say About Cal's Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele

San Diego State had a bye last week, giving coach Sean Lewis extra time to prepare his players and study the unbeaten Cal team that will visit Snapdragon Stadium on Saturday night.

The Aztecs’ second-year head coach spent a chunk of that time watching tape of Cal quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele.

Lewis, who coached Shedeur Sanders two years ago as offensive coordinator at Colorado, is impressed by the Bears’ freshman.

“He’s efficient,” Lewis said, noting that Sagapolutele has done a good job of going through progressions before finding the open target. “He’s been consistent with his footwork, he’s been consistent with his decision making. He’s done a really nice job of throwing on time and on target and playing catch with his guys.”

Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele | D. Ross Cameron

Sagapolutele won the starting job during fall camp, shortly after turning 19 years old. He became just the second true freshman ever start at the position in the season opener for Cal (following Jared Goff in 2013), and he has been good enough to earn ACC Rookie of the Week honors twice after three games.

He is completing 67 percent of his passes and has thrown for 772 yards with six touchdowns and just one interception.

Lewis was asked at his weekly news conference whether there’s an advantage facing a young quarterback early in the season before he figures things out.

“Based on the film I’ve seen, he’s got a lot of things figured out already,” Lewis said. “There’s a calm and there’s a composure to what he’s doing. He’s obviously mature beyond his years.

“He’s doing a great job in what they’re asking him to do and the way he’s operating it. You can tell each week as they go, there’s not a situation where he doesn’t seem comfortable or he doesn’t seem confident and they don’t have him operating at a high level.”

To emphasize that point, Lewis cited the Bears’ final possession of the first half vs. Minnesota, beginning at their own 25-yard line with 43 seconds left. Sagapolutele hit Mark Hamper with a 39-yard completion to trigger the hurry-up drive and completed two more passes to set up a 45-yard field goal by Abram Murray that gave Cal a 10-7 lead.

“They cut him loose and they come away with points,” Lewis said. “He’s learning and he’s growing, obviously, on the job and he’s doing it at a very, very high level. We’ve got to do a good job making it really tough on him.”

Can Bears handle success?

Cal, 3-0 for the second year in a row, is a 12.5-point favorite against the 1-1 Aztecs, the first time in three FBS matchups it has been rated as the favorite. Are the Bears positioned to deal with their early success?

“We don’t spend a lot of time talking about the (point) spread and favorites and who’s not favored,” Cal coach Justin Wilcox said. “We respect everybody we play and our job is to go out and play the best football we can. We need to do that again this Saturday night.”

Wilcox stressed that the opponent is not what matters most.

“It’s really the expectations we have for ourselves as individuals and as a team, regardless of who we’re playing,” he said. “We don’t control the schedule. What we control is how we prepare and, ultimately, how we play.

“Each week we need to do a better job of taking what we learned from the previous game and applying it to practice and taking that practice and applying it to the next game so we can keep improving.”

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