Cal Football: Former OC Beau Baldwin's Debut at Cal Poly Has Been a Struggle So Far
It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for ex-Cal offensive coordinator Beau Baldwin in his return to the Football Championship Subdivision.
Hired 15 months ago as head coach at Cal Poly, Baldwin had his initial fall season wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. Then the FCS Big Sky Conference decided to play a six-game spring schedule, and Baldwin’s Mustangs have staggered out of the gate.
Cal Poly is 0-3, starting with a 34-24 home loss to a Southern Utah squad that hadn’t won at San Luis Obispo since 1988. The Mustangs fell 73-24 at UC Davis a week ago.
On Saturday, Baldwin returned to Eastern Washington, where he coached nine seasons and led the Eagles to an FCS national championship in 2010. His old school welcomed him home with a 62-10 beatdown.
Aaron Best, who was offensive coordinator for the 2010 EWU team and now is head coach, took no joy in such a lopsided victory over Baldwin.
“Your heart goes out for those guys when you’re facing your former boss, when he’s trying to jump-start a program, trying to take it from a triple (option) to a spread offense,” Best said. “It’ll come along, there’s no doubt about it. We’re just fortunate that it didn’t come as fast as they wanted it to.”
This was going to be a challenging transition under the best of circumstances. Cal Poly operated a triple-option offense the past 13 seasons, so Baldwin is working to a large degree with personnel recruited for a vastly different system.
Baldwin had less-than-overwhelming success as Justin Wilcox’s offensive coordinator for three seasons though 2019, but he built a powerhouse at Eastern Washington.
He was 85-31 overall, 58-14 in Big Sky games and led the Eagles to the FCS playoffs six of his nine seasons.
Eastern under Baldwin was in particular a thorn in the side of Pac-12 teams from the Northwest. The Eagles won 49-46 at Oregon State in 2013 and 45-42 at Washington State in 2016. They averaged 47 points in games vs. Washington, Oregon, WSU and OSU over a four-year span and lost by more than a touchdown just once in six games vs. Pac-12 opponents.
Eastern was picked 10th in the 13-team Big Sky last season before the fall schedule was axed, then only eight of the league’s programs opted to play the conference-only spring schedule.
The Mustangs have struggled mightily so far. They have been outscored 66-0 in the second quarter, 125-24 in the first half of three games. They rank last among 94 teams in FCS in scoring defense, surrendering 56.3 points per game.
Opponents have scored 21 touchdowns and punted just five times. Cal Poly quarterbacks have been sacked 22 times.
Eastern Washington senior defensive end Mitchell Johnson, who returned an interception 34 yards for a touchdown on Saturday, said afterward he sees a brighter future for Cal Poly.
“It felt like they could be really good in a few years,” Johnson said. “Just with some more experience, that’s gonna be a really good program.”
But there certainly will be more growing pains ahead.
Cal Poly’s best remaining shot at victory spring likely is next Saturday at Northern Arizona, which has won just once in its first three games.
After that, the Mustangs have a rematch vs. Davis at home April 10 vs. before facing unbeaten Weber State, which was ranked No. 3 among FCS teams nationally this week.
Cover photo of Beau Baldwin courtesy of Cal Poly Athletics
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
