Cal Poly’s annual non-conference game against the University of San Diego on Aug. 31 will mark the beginning of a new season of Cal Poly football, as the team is looking to continue improving upon what they built last season.
However, after a couple of new faces join the Mustang offense’s forefront, the offense has plenty to prove, including a new offensive coordinator and a new running backs coach.
The Mustangs finished 3-8 in 2023, an improvement from their 2-9 record the previous two seasons. Yet, their conference record has been stagnant: 1-7 for all three seasons.
A bright spot has been the recruiting side, which has been continuously improving.
The Mustangs signed nine high school recruits this offseason, earning a top-five FCS recruiting class according to 247Sports for a second straight year. Three of these signees were three-star recruits.
The recruiting process should also greatly benefit when the John Madden Football Center is completed, as future football players can truly envision their home at Cal Poly.
Paul Wulff enters his second full season as head coach after Beau Baldwin joined Arizona State to become the offensive coordinator.
Baldwin took over in 2020, and Wulff served as running game coordinator and offensive line coach before being promoted to head coach following Baldwin’s departure.
The Mustangs last had a winning season in 2016 when Tim Walsh was at the helm.
The Mustangs’ stacking of the top five recruiting classes builds hope for this season and the future, but the departure of program record-breaking quarterback Sam Huard left questions at the quarterback position.
A competitive QB room
Head Coach Paul Wulff announced on X that redshirt sophomore Bo Kelly will have the starting job against San Diego.
Kelly played most of the snaps last season when Huard was off the field. He started for two games while Huard was out due to a concussion.
He played UC Davis in his first start, going 19-for-37 with 191 passing yards and a touchdown.
In his second game, he totaled 262 yards on 24-for-45 passing. He threw two touchdowns but also had two picks.
Still, after the Mustangs signed two transfers, the quarterback room became even more competitive this summer.
Richie Watts, a redshirt sophomore transfer, found major success at the junior college level.
In his only season at the College of San Mateo, he threw 2,148 yards for 21 touchdowns and just two interceptions while leading the team to a state championship. He spent last season at the University of Buffalo.
The second transfer previously played at the DIII level. Jackson Akins joins Cal Poly as a potential dual threat for his true sophomore season. According to GoPoly, Akins is Kelly’s immediate backup.
Redshirt junior quarterback Jaden Jones returns to the roster after playing in three games last season. It has now been almost two years since his season-ending knee injury in October 2022. GoPoly listed Jones as the No. 3 option at quarterback.
A competitive quarterback room can create better football players because these quarterbacks are pushed to work at a high level to get to the starting quarterback role and, more importantly, stay there.
An experienced defensive line led by Ponder
Given redshirt senior Elijah Ponder’s dominance with 12 returning defensive linemen, this position group should be the team’s strongest this season.
Head Coach Paul Wulff said to GoPoly.com that the defensive line must lead the defense.
“Obviously there’s talent and a lot of experience with this position,” Wulff said. “Our belief is they can be the best (defensive line) in the conference and anything other than that is not the standard we are capable of.”
Last season, Ponder led the Big Sky Conference with ten sacks, good enough for the fifth-most in the FCS. Ponder sits in seventh place all-time for Cal Poly with 20 career sacks.
On Aug. 21, Ponder was named to the Reese’s Senior Bowl Watch List, the longest-running college football all-star game.
In addition to the plethora of returners, Cal Poly brought three-star transfer Victory Johnson from the University of Colorado.
The redshirt freshman is listed as 6-foot-4, 295 pounds, and played middle linebacker in high school, but Cal Poly announced at the time of his transfer that he would play defensive end.
Sean Doyle, Johnson’s high school coach at Cathedral Catholic in San Diego, California, praises Johnson’s intellect as a middle linebacker, in the classroom and on film.
In the Division I-AA state championship against Folsom in 2021, Johnson predicted a slant route based on the formation and motion of the play to snag a pick and take it to the end zone.
Due to Johnson’s versatility, Doyle considered putting him on the defensive line in high school.
“We didn’t need him, but we knew that he could do it,” Doyle said. “He wants to be that guy, so I think it’ll be an easy transition for him.”
New leadership in the offense
The offense still has much to prove regarding how they can create plays this season. Although many receivers return to the roster, Huard’s absence cannot go unnoticed.
Huard’s departure also brought the departure of Sheldon Cross, the offensive coordinator who coached Huard in high school.
Wulff brought in Timm Rosenbach, a highly experienced coach within the Big Sky Conference, who will take over as offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach.
They share a personal history dating back to their days at Washington State, where Wulff was the center for Rosenbach. He previously served as a senior offensive analyst at Montana, one of the top schools in the Big Sky and FCS.
“We know each other well, we know what we expect so there’s a great working relationship so I feel very fortunate to have him on board and he’s going to be very valuable for our overall team,” Wulff said in Rosenbach’s bio on GoPoly.
The Mustangs return many of their top receivers from last season, including redshirt senior Giancarlo Woods, who caught for 498 yards and four touchdowns.
Redshirt sophomore Tyrece Fairly-Diyem returns, who also scored four touchdowns and tacked on 408 receiving yards, the third-highest of the team.
Other receivers, such as junior Logan Booher and redshirt senior Michael Briscoe, will also return.
On the running backs side, Cal Poly hired former nine-year NFL veteran Steve Broussard as their running backs coach.
This move also helps the defensive side. Asa Jackson, a former NFL cornerback and Cal Poly alum, will now coach the cornerbacks.
“Coach Broussard has come in and really helped that group,” Wulff said on GoPoly. “We envision this group being a strength of ours with some depth and I expect these guys to take a big step this year.”
The top rusher returning to the roster is redshirt sophomore Paul Holyfield Jr., who played all 11 games last season and rushed for a net 193 yards. However, the team announced that he would not play this season due to an injury suffered in the final game last season.
Redshirt sophomore Troy Fletcher and redshirt freshman Kendric Sanders are in the mix to get more carries. Sanders averaged 5.1 yards per carry last season and returned kicks for the team last year.
True freshman Jaedon Matthews, a three-star recruit who enrolled early and joined the team last spring, could also see some playing time.
From Scottdale, Arizona, Matthews chose Cal Poly over several Power Four schools, such as Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Washington State, Wisconsin and Georgia Tech.
The offensive line will return nine players who contributed last season. Five of them are at least in their fifth year in college, such as Payson Campisano, Charles Lincoln and Hunter Jones.
There is a lot of combined experience to lead the line and teach the younger players.
After the University of San Diego, the Mustangs will play Stanford and return for their first home game on Sept. 14 against Western Oregon.