What’s happening at Cal — 10 outgoing transfers this week — isn’t just a run-of-the-mill transfer portal churn. Of the 22 total outgoing transfers off a team that finished 6-7, 18 play offense, including all five running backs who transferred this week, making up for the most staggering spring portal window storyline this side of Knoxville, Tennessee.
Several people with direct knowledge of the Cal football program, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly, described to CBS Sports a program at a crossroads — the culmination of the fallout of uneasy relationships, behind-the-scenes power struggles and a program quietly slipping into one of the most precarious positions in the Power Four.
Donor tension and the Ron Rivera factor
In early April, SFGate reported that two high-profile donors, both tied to Cal’s third-party collective, publicly vowed to stop giving to the athletic department unless alum and newly appointed football GM Ron Rivera was granted more power — essentially calling for Rivera to be Cal’s version of Andrew Luck, who exerts significant influence on football operations at Stanford and holds the power to fire and hire coaches.
The donors want Rivera to run football, not athletic director Jim Knowlton or even head coach Justin Wilcox. It’s a high-profile activist movement rooted in frustration about a perceived overemphasis on Olympic sports and a fear that Cal, already left behind in the last round of realignment before being thrown a lift raft by the ill-fitting Atlantic Coast Conference, is once again drifting toward irrelevance. Rivera, a Cal alum who coached in the Super Bowl, should have be at the controls, the booster holdouts think, because he will put football first and is not as likely to leave in the next few years as Wilcox
“You don’t hire Mario Andretti and ask him to sit in the passenger seat, right?” Kevin Kennedy, president of California Legends Collective, told SFGATE. “There’s a reason that you bring someone like that on staff: In order to give him control.”
Multiple sources have said Cal does spend NIL money, at least enough to lure coveted quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele into the portal one month after the class of 2025 four-star had signed with Oregon. They wonder, too, if a “Round B” of funding, if you will, would give Cal a needed jolt. Two years ago, Cal’s reported “donations and contributions list” pool ranked No. 38 nationally — not elite, yet nothing to sneeze at.
With an alumni pipeline that feeds into Silicon Valley, the potential is higher. Sources say Cal has gotten participation from heavy hitters like Owen Van Natta, formerly the COO at Facebook, and Bob Haas, the CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., in its player ecruiting efforts. Van Natta did not graduate from Cal-Berkeley; Haas did. Starry football products like Aaron Rodgers and Jared Goff have also pitched in by meeting with potential signees.
A Cal spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The running back exodus
The vibe around one position group is not usually a proper microcosm of a program, but for a school that prides itself on its rich lineage of running backs, losing star running back Jaydn Ott was a dagger.
Jaydn Ott, who committed to Oklahoma less than 24 hours later after his portal entry was reported, had flirted with other programs before, with Georgia and Oklahoma both pursuing him last December. He stayed in Berkeley after publicly recommitting on social media, but sources say his patience ran out this spring — the final straw in an environment that had already grown tenuous.
Oklahoma football has bigger problems than transfer portal prize Jaydn Ott can fix
Tom Fornelli
Ott isn’t alone. Cal was prepared for the loss of three other running backs — Kadarius Calloway, Byron Cardwell Jr., and Justin Williams-Thomas — with the expectation of leaning heavily on Jaivian Thomas, who led the team in rushing during Ott’s injury-plagued 2024 season. That was the word Tuesday night, at least. Wednesday came around and Thomas shockingly entered the transfer portal on its opening day.
Jamal Wiley, who has six career rushes, may have to be the bell cow. Freshman Anthony League arrives this summer. The Bears will have to rebuild through the portal in the meantime.
Staff turnover and locker room fallout
Part of Ott’s departure traces back to significant turnover on the offensive staff. Cal replaced its entire offensive coaching group this offseason, including running backs coach Aristotle Thompson, who left for the same job at Northwestern and was replaced by Julian Griffin. Offensive coordinator Mike Bloesch was fired from his role.
🏈 Cal’s offensive carousel
| Role | 2024 Season (Previous) | 2025 Season (New) |
|---|---|---|
| Offensive coordinator | Mike Bloesch | Bryan Harsin |
| Running backs coach | Aristotle Thompson | Julian Griffin |
| Quarterback | Fernando Mendoza | Devin Brown |
| RB1 | Jaydn Ott | Jamal Wiley |
| RB2 | Jaivian Thomas | Anthony League |
Multiple sources suggested new OC Bryan Harsin hasn’t exactly been a culture fit. Harsin, who flamed out at Auburn in just two years as head coach, hasn’t won over the locker room. Some close to the program believe his presence has accelerated the team’s unraveling rather than stabilizing it. Nick Rolovich, who was fired by Washington State in 2021 for refusing to comply with the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, joined Cal’s staff as a senior offensive analyst.
Wilcox’s standing and the bigger picture
Cal enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame in 2024, throwing a rowdy party for ESPN’s College GameDay and nearly topping No. 8 Miami in a wild late-night affair that saw the Hurricanes mount a 25-point comeback to win by one.
Moments of national attention are far and few between these days. Cal was a fixture of college football’s national scene in the 2000s under coach Jeff Tedford, its famous Tightwad Hill paying witness to greats like Aaron Rodgers, Marshawn Lynch and DeSean Jackson. From 2002 to 2009, Cal achieved eight consecutive winning seasons, tying a school record, and played in a record seven straight bowl wins. The 2004 and 2006 seasons saw Cal win 10 games and, memorably, Cal reached the No. 2 national ranking.
Since 2009, Cal has twice won eight or more games in a season, which calls for a resetting of the program’s expectations in college football’s new era of pay-for-play and consolidation.
A 2024 season that sparkled (a 3-0 start included a win at Auburn) before unraveling with four consecutive losses en route to a 6-7 season (bowl game included), taxed the locker room, sources said, with player morale dipping further when quarterback Fernando Mendoza, a revelation, transferred to Indiana. Losing Mendoza had a devastating effect on Cal’s roster. The Bears brought in Devin Brown from Ohio State to start in 2025, while also ponying up for Sagapolutele as the quarterback of the future. But one source this week wondered if Mendoza weathering the storm this spring would have prevented Ott and others from transferring themselves.
Within the coaching industry there is respect for Wilcox, a well-regarded defensive mind who has turned down DC jobs at high-profile programs in recent years to stick it out at Cal. But Cal’s roster downgrade is likely to mean a worse season (its win total is set at 5.5), which opens up all sorts of questions as to Wilcox’s appetite for a deteriorating situation, how he fits with Rivera and whether important boosters buy back in. With conference consolidation and the dismantling of the ACC probably in the not-so-distant future, now is not the time to become irrelevant.
“My last four years in the NFL in Washington, I did a lot of management and damage control,” Rivera said this week in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. “And that takes a lot out of you.”
John Talty and Brandon Huffman contributed reporting.