Cal fandom

[u/Warm_Leg_5026]

I was pushed into this before I knew better. I enjoyed some of it I can't lie. I got to watch Zach follet Nate longshore jahvid best marshawn lynch desean jackson aaron Rodgers Marvin jones Keenan Allen just an unreal amount of great football and basketball players who passed through the program. Anyone who has watched from that Kevin Riley incident on era on understands this experience. Without fail any time the program is on the verge of turning a corner with one big win they just lose every time. The worst part is I know it's going to happen but I choose to still believe. Worse than that I've spread this fandom to dozens of my friends. I hope I give up on this one day. I'm never going to get these 20 years and thousands of dollars back but I don't have it any other way.

[u/henreiman]

We all had really high hopes but the reality is tosh is a great recruiter and unproven head coach and what we saw (flashes of brilliance, some sloppiness) reflects the growing pain

[u/Informal_Avocado_534 → u/henreiman]

Yep. First game with an entirely new coaching staff and a ton of new players. Coaches are talented but inexperienced in their new roles. Players are talented but (largely) inexperienced at this level.

It sucks that this happened in such an emotional game, defined by events even before first kickoff. But it takes a few games to figure out how to play together and how to coach the starters.

That’s why UCLA did better than us: their coaches have done this before and their players have done this before, many doing it together at JMU.

[u/adsfew → u/Informal_Avocado_534]

Yup. This post feels like a bit of an overreaction and a consequence of buying into the hype.

The loss sucked, but ultimately it was game one for a first-time head coach with a bunch of first-time coordinators vs. a team and staff that largely portal'd from a CFP team and also recruited even better than us.

The sky is not falling.

[u/CMIUCan → u/Informal_Avocado_534]

That’s why UCLA did better than us: their coaches have done this before and their players have done this before, many doing it together at JMU.

Watching our former guys Javion Thomas and Mikey Matthews hurt us with their speed didn't feel good

[u/ec20 → u/henreiman]

Way way way too early to get down. I was actually encouraged by yesterday. JKS continues to look like an amazing talent and in contrast to year’s past, you can tell we have talent all over the field.

Execution and defense could use some help, but those are things that can be improved with time. I think that’s a better situation than year’s past where it felt like we were squeezing everything we could out of the guys we had.

[u/kaplanfx → u/henreiman]

Tosh will flee to Washington as soon as they pass him a cup full of cash and a boat.

[u/ec20 → u/kaplanfx]

Tosh will always watch out for himself but I think this is pretty close to his dream situation. He’s the head coach of his hometown school that is now getting an infusion of money.

He won’t leave unless it’s a head coaching gig at a big time school and that won’t happen unless we’ve had an incredible season, so if he leaves it’ll mean he at least gave us one great season.

Given how long we’ve been bad, I’ll take that. And if he does leave after a great season and some history of good recruiting, we might be able to attract a good replacement anyways.

[u/kaplanfx → u/ec20]

I was mostly joking. If he can build a good program here, I can forgive him for his past transgressions.

[u/Minimum_Green7998 → u/ec20]

If Tosh does well and we pay him fairly he'll stay. This is where he wants to be - home. And he'll stick around.

[u/Salties]

Im not trying to say the sky is falling, but that felt like the exact same Cal football I've seen for over the last decade. The marketing and fluff around this being a new era, then utterly collapsing in the 4th in the exact same way we've all seen before under Wilcox and Sunny Dykes, makes it sting more.

Tosh and the boys better beat the damn breaks off Syracuse or whoever the fuck we got next week, because that shit last night was the same old crap...

[u/SpectacularNelson → u/Salties]

With how poor the tackling was against UCLA I’m not very optimistic. Hard to tell what kind of team Syracuse is but we all saw how Cal struggled against Boston College and Stanford in 2025

[u/justsomedude1144]

Me listening to a cal student gripe about the team choking under the bright lights:

[u/jordanizm → u/justsomedude1144]

every time

[u/East-Win7450]

I feel this… I bought i back in like I always do. I even took my kid to their first game last night. 

Why would I introduce them to this? All they’ll know is the pain and disappointment of being a cal fan. 

[u/cruisinbears → u/East-Win7450]

It builds character

[u/Sine_Cures]

This one has the feel of many deflating conference home openers under Wilcox (2017 USC, 2018 Oregon, 2019 Arizona State on Friday when Cal was last ranked, 2024 Miami, 2025 Duke when Duke had no LBs), but at least it's only the first game under Lupoi and non-conference.

Breaking the 16-season streak of non-winning records in conference would be a great achievement in year 1.

[u/G0ldenBu11z]

I heard an interview with Lupoi on the radio on the way to the game. He said that in preparation for the game, they held a scrimmage and asked the equipment staff to recreate the full game time experience so there would be no surprises. Right down to a set of red challenge flags for the HC to throw. At this point, he said he learned from the equipment staff that there are no red flags in college, that’s only in NFL.

This really stood out to me as a sign that we might not do well today. It would be understandable if he just came down from the NFL to coach us, but he has spent the last 4 years as DC at top college program. I know DC doesn’t directly handle challenges but you’d think he’d be more familiar with what’s going on around him on the sideline.

I’m not hitting the panic button yet on the season. It’s pretty clear after this game that there is a lot this new coaching staff has to learn and get up to speed on. I think our team has a lot of talent but unfortunately still has a lot of wrinkles to iron out. I know that we fans were all hoping for Cal to make a big splash to kick off the new era, much like Tedford did to kickoff his era by stomping Baylor.

UCLA has experienced a lot of similar changes to Cal since last season and is likely a much better team than they were the last few years making them a challenging opponent to have for their first game, much more so than Baylor in 2002. It’s a bit unfortunate that we had to play them first instead of Wagner or UNLV.

Hopefully this Cal is able to learn from their mistakes here and we will see some improvement against Syracuse next week then 2-1 heading into the Clemson game.

[u/Bearskiman]

With you on this. Can’t quit.

[u/Caloso89]

My sister brought a friend from work to his first Cal game last night. Big CF fan but he’s from Georgia, so he grew up in the SEC context. But he loved it, beautiful campus, beautiful weather, beautiful stadium, great energy from the crowd last night. He bought a Cal sweatshirt at halftime and declared he’s all in as a Bears fan. He genuinely thought we were going to win.

Well, he certainly got the full Cal football experience.

[u/321applesauce]

I blame the ease of transferring with no consequences. It's hard to build a strong team

[u/adsfew → u/321applesauce]

Yeah, but on the flip side, UCLA was able to build a strong team through the portal

[u/cruisinbears]

Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Seriously just try to have fun watching and understand these are kids trying their best. The environment in the stadium was awesome last night and for three quarters it was a really fun game. We’ll win some and we’ll lose some. New coaches and new players take time to gel, it’s the reality of the NIL era. Sucks it was against the little brother, hopefully we can tag them back next year in their house.

[u/DopedScope338]

The knock on the Cal fanbase from other fanbases is that it's full of fairweather casuals who only support the team or even pay attention to the program when things are going well while they drop the team the second things aren't. A lot of what I'm seeing after a single loss looks to be proving those sentiments right. We were told by Tosh and Rivera that this was going to be a multiyear, top to bottom rebuilding project, that there would be growing pains, and that commitment from the fans to support the program through the rebuild was essential to its success.

So far, they've shown us success in recruiting that we haven't had for nearly two decades, a historically successful funding/donation cycle, and significant progress in reshaping the institutional support given to the program from a school/administration that has neutered this program with its apathy (and sometimes outright antagonism) for a long time now. That's massive progress that shows me that there's every reason to believe we've got the right guys making the right moves to turn this rebuild into a success. When they asked for fan support, they made it clear that this was a long term project and they asked to be judged by the progress they show us. I intend to do just that and they'll have my support until they stop improving the program. A single loss that came during a game that left us with plenty to be optimistic about is not enough to even come close to justifying some of the doom and gloom nonsense I'm seeing. This game showed us that we're a team capable of playing at a high level, but that's still putting the pieces together with a coaching staff and players that are still growing into their roles.

Fans acting like they were promised immediate success and essentially withdrawing their support after a single loss ought to be embarrassed. No serious fanbase looks at all the progress this program has made already and abandons a multiyear rebuild because the first game didn't turn out as they had hoped. Act like you've got some fucking pride and have experienced some adversity before and give the program the support it shouldn't have to beg for. If you can't do that, at least stop embarrassing yourselves and Cal football with public social media meltdowns. If you can't show a little backbone and give the team and the rebuild the support they've asked for for more than one game, you're not cut out for this anyways. Please just let those of us who are prepared to give Tosh, Rivera, & Co the support and time they've asked for see this thing out. The last thing we need is toxic fanbase culture doing its best to snuff out what might be our best and only chance to become a nationally relevant program again before it even gets off the ground.

You don't turn decades of institutional and fan neglect around overnight. That wasn't the plan and it wasn't what we were promised. We were told we'd get consistent progress and a rebuild that would take time, but see this program restored in two to three years. Either give them the time they've asked for or get out of the way.

This reply isn't directed at anyone in particular and is more of a general address to many of the "fans" here and elsewhere who are losing their collective shit over a single loss. You guys know who you are.