Rumors No Longer Abound
It’s all confirmed now.
*Littlejohn and Ferrigno were released from their position coaching duties.
*Delgado left to take a job at Louisville.
*Coach Daft will now coach the WRs.
*Former Graduate assistant Tosh Lupoi has been promoted and will now coach the DL.
*Frank Cignetti (the 49ers QB Coach last season) will become Tedford’s offensive coordinator.
*Al Simmons will become the new Cal DB Coach.
I would provide some thoughts and analysis but I’m not familiar with Cignetti or Simmons. The BearInsider did a great job conjuring up information. You can read their article here.
The only thing I can add is regarding Tosh Lupoi. I find it no coincidence that Lupoi was promoted to DL coach. He’s been working with Delgado on coaching the DL for the past two years. I never really thought much of seeing Lupoi work with Delgado. I guess I just thought Lupoi was apprenticing. Which of course, he was. But I never really thought one day he’d become Cal’s DL Coach. But after hearing that Delgado had left the team, Lupio seemed like a reasonable in-house hire if Tedford wasn’t going to bring in someone else from outside. And now that it’s confirmed that Lupoi is the new DL coach and I reflect upon my memories, it almost seems like Delgado was grooming Lupoi to be the next in line. Delgado would often let Lupoi assist in certain drills during practices. For example, Lupoi would often put on some foam arm pads and pretend to be an offensive lineman for the DL guys to bypass after hitting the sleds. In other situations, he’d use a deflated football and imitate QB snap counts to try draw the DL off the line. And during 11 on 11s, Lupoi would also assist on monitoring substitutions and signaling in the play to the DL. I suppose what Lupoi was doing was no different from anything else that other graduate assistants would do. Afterall, they have to do something to learn. But Delgado seemed to allow Lupoi to be very hands on and not just an observer.
