What does new Cal football coach Tosh Lupoi consider his top priority?

Story byWhat does new Cal football coach Tosh Lupoi consider his top priority?Cal student Benjamin Wong interviews Cal football head coach Tosh Lupoi in Dwinelle Hall on the Cal campus Tuesday night. It was part of the Berkeley Forum interview series. (Steve Kroner)Steve KronerThu, March 12, 2026 at 2:01 AM UTC·4 min read

For most of an approximately 45-minute interview Tuesday night in a lecture hall on the Cal campus, undergraduate student Benjamin Wong asked well-researched, thoughtful questions of new head football coach Tosh Lupoi.

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A few times, Lupoi turned the tables and posed a question to Wong, an economics major. Lupoi asked Wong about his future plans and Wong mentioned getting into the field of finance.

That prompted Lupoi to discuss one of the themes he stressed throughout the interview: talent acquisition.

"The best organizations prioritize talent acquisition," Lupoi said, "so finding great people is Rule No. 1.

"It's not different in our profession, either. So, from a staff standpoint, from a player standpoint, identifying, evaluating and bringing in really good employees" is key.

The Berkeley Forum, a student-run organization established in 2012, put on Tuesday's event. The organization does interviews and panel discussions with high-profile individuals from many walks of life.

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Previous speakers included Dr. Anthony Fauci, Brett Oppenheim (a former Cal student who stars in the Netflix series "Selling Sunset"), and another former Cal student, Jaylen Brown, the Boston Celtics' swingman who was the NBA Finals MVP in 2024.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr is scheduled for an appearance April 6.

On Tuesday, Lupoi delivered most answers in a serious tone, but he displayed some understated humor as well.

Wong mentioned how Lupoi didn't handle losing particularly well growing up and then asked, "How did going through that adversity shape your approach and playing philosophy?"

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"You've done some extensive homework, haven't you?" Lupoi cracked.

He soon added, "It can be a positive thing of learning from those experiences. When you start to mature and understand, you end up really learning a lot more from the losses and the hard times than the victories and the good times."

Lupoi didn't experience any losing in his high school career at De La Salle-Concord. In his six-season (2000-05) playing career at Cal, the Bears went from a combined 4-18 in his first two seasons to a combined 33-17 over his final four seasons as head coach Jeff Tedford engineered that turnaround.

Wong said that Lupoi was one of the most respected players on the team and asked, "What were the things you did as a player to earn that type of respect?"

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"Just being a man of action," Lupoi said. "Same values that we're (discussing) with our guys every day right now. Words are great – things you write up on the wall, T-shirts are great motivational tools – but the challenge is being a man or woman of action."

After spending four seasons as Oregon's defensive coordinator, Lupoi became Cal's head coach in early December. He seems to have sparked renewed enthusiasm for the program, particularly from former players. One of his Cal teammates, defensive lineman Tom Sverchek, was in the audience Tuesday.

"What you see is what you get" with Lupoi, Sverchek said. "That's who he is, right? He's not anything different than he presents.

"He's a man of action, high intensity and that, I think, comes out in everything he does."

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Wong and Lupoi discussed the impact of NIL and the transfer portal on college football in general and on Cal specifically. The example of Indiana, which rose from being a traditionally mediocre Big Ten team to becoming an unbeaten national champion in two seasons, prompted Wong to ask, "Do you think that just raises the bar for what a program like Cal can do?"

"Maybe for you," Lupoi said. "Fortunately for me, we've declared our culture. We're attacking that every day.

"So … my bar is already raised extremely high. … I came here to win and I came here to raise the bar extremely high."

At the end of the interview, Wong referenced the Berkeley Forum's intramural flag-football team that is 0-2. It absorbed a 45-0 shellacking in its most recent game.

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Wong asked Lupoi, "So, if you had one (bit) of advice for our very high-potential team, what would that be?"

Lupoi's answer: "Talent acquisition."

Steve Kroner is a freelance writer. Email: [email protected]; X: @SteveKronerSF

This article originally published at What does new Cal football coach Tosh Lupoi consider his top priority?.

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