After a 4-8 overall and 2-6 conference record season, Cal Poly football is looking to turn over a new leaf during the 2026 season. The athletes returned to San Luis Obispo for their Fall Camp on July 29 and began preparing for their August 28 season opener at home.
The team has seen some major changes from last season, including new head coach Tim Skipper. Skipper comes from an interim head coach role at UCLA and was credited for turning the team’s 0-3 start to the 2025 season into a successful 6-3 run.
Along with a new head coach, the program has brought on 39 new players, including 11 transfers from schools including Boise State, the University of Washington, and the University of Hawai’i.
A big topic of discussion has been who will lead the team as quarterback. Last season, the team played four different quarterbacks throughout the season, with Ty Dieffenbach playing the most. Dieffenbach entered the transfer portal right after Coach Skipper was hired and decided to head to UCLA. This leaves Bo Kelly, Anthony Grigsby Jr., and Demaricus Davis as top contenders for the position. Kelly and Grigsby Jr. both saw action last season.
In Skipper’s first press conference, he let people know that he’s here to win, but the conference polling isn’t so sure. In the Big Sky Football preseason polls, the coaches ranked Cal Poly 11th out of 13 teams, whereas the media polls had slightly more confidence in Cal Poly, ranking them 9th.
The Mustangs’ 2-6 conference record last season placed them around 8th out of 12 teams (Utah Tech added in 2026), showing that people aren’t expecting much change. However, Skipper urges the fans to come out and see for themselves.
“Come watch us. We’ve been working, we’re excited,” Skipper said. “I hope you guys are too; let’s pack the house.”
The athletes have been hard at work, and their first game vs. Idaho has especially big stakes because it will be broadcast on ESPN. This broadcast is in part due to the brand new John Madden Football Center, which opened on June 6. The facility houses brand new medical, nutrition, and gym facilities for the team. The program hopes that it will give student-athletes all the resources needed to be at their best in both their education and their athletics.
There is also hope that the facility will bring in more recruits, showing that the program is not only focusing on the present but also looking towards the future. Fourth-year linebacker Mikey D’Amato has spent the last two years playing for the Mustangs. He briefly entered the transfer portal after the 2025 season, but decided to stay, sharing how the many changes to the program are leaving players hopeful.
“We’ve kind of started everything over. We got a new coach, adding this new building, we got some new transfers. There’s just something in the air this year,” D’Amato said.