Playoff odds2% → 0.1%CFB Zeitgeist forecast, before and after
Saturday: at SMUSMU
Sat Oct 24, 12 pm ET · SMUNo. 23 SMU is 5-1 · First meeting between Lupoi and Rhett Lashlee as head coaches · California’s chance to win: 10% (the site’s model)
Fan threads naming him, Oct 18–23: 1, from 1 person.
Fans are feeling good about California
For physics majors What are some of the best physics/math classes you have taken so far?
Haas vs Econ Whats it like now? I'm aware of the Haas alumni and networking perks but can Econ get you through the same door when graduating into the work force? I know it depends on how hard you work but I want to see pro's vs con's for both.
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Fan mood · last 3 weeks · more upbeat than 3 in 4 FBS fan bases
Offense: 112th of 138 per play. Defense: 92nd.
Through 7 games. Each tick is an FBS team, adjusted for opponent strength (CFB Zeitgeist model); the dot is California. The other two rows are where California stands furthest from the middle. Early-season numbers move a lot.
5 games left
Sat Oct 24at SMUSMU (5-1)10%
Sat Oct 31at NCSUNC State (3-3)21%
Sat Nov 14at UVAVirginia (4-3)18%
Sat Nov 21vs. STANStanford (3-4)59%
Sat Nov 28vs. PITTPittsburgh (5-2)21%
Percent: California’s chance to win, from the site’s model. Records are through today. Networks as announced; the rest are set closer to kickoff.
How the season got here
Where California stood among 138 FBS programs by stature after each game (1st is the highest; the CFB Zeitgeist ledger).
Oct 12–18L 7-41 vs. WAKEWake Forest2 headlines · 74th of 138
Oct 5–11W 25-20 vs. VTVirginia Tech3 headlines · 63rd of 138
Each week as this page showed it at the time. Weeks marked rebuilt came before this page existed: they were built afterward from only what was known by the end of that week.
Stories are headlines grouped by what they are about, counted through Oct 23.
In his own words
Awaiting signal — no quotes collected from this staff yet this cycle.
Part two · The hire
Hires into jobs like this
Hired into 29–29, National Program III. Rough match, not calibrated yet — ranked on what the job inherited alone. Coaches hired into this same job aren’t used as comps.
Of the 5 closest comps, 3 left the program higher than he found it and 2 left it lower. Median stay: 3 seasons.
Every coach hired into a National Program III job since 1990 (65): typically -1.7 after year 1, -3.2 after year 2.
2%chance he’s out by the end of this seasonCool89th-hottest of 137 FBS jobs
0%50%+
Our hot-seat model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, and his contract (a bigger buyout, relative to pay, makes a change costlier). Ranked against the 137 FBS head coaches with 3+ games this season.
His first rated season here.
His hot seat, week by week
The chance he’s out by the end of that season, as it stood after every week of his tenure here, by today’s model.
← swipe for earlier seasons
What drives his number
The biggest factors, each against the typical FBS job today.
▼ Cooler
Year 1· tenure, which this model overrates(why?)
Tenure is one of this model’s strongest inputs, but its weight was set when retirements like Nick Saban’s and Bob Stoops’ still counted as being pushed out, so it overstates how much tenure matters.
▲ Hotter
3-4, outscored by 27
▼ Cooler
No previous seasons here to judge him on
What happened to coaches like him, 2004–2025
A different comparison: past coaches, not today’s, grouped by one fact at a time. Neither line knows the games he has left or his contract, so they can sit above or below his chance.
Were 3-4 after 7 games
13% pushed out over results · of 522 coaches
Were in year 1, after 7 games
1% pushed out over results · of 523 coaches
The outcome
Pushed out over results — a firing, forced resignation, mutual parting or non-renewal, each read case by case. Leaving for a better job, or retiring on his own terms, doesn’t count.
Buyout
No figure on file for this coach. The salary database predates the last coaching carousel; a name mismatch is suppressed rather than misattributed.
How good is this number? Checked on every FBS coach from 2010 to 2025, with its percentages calibrated each season on earlier years only: they track what happened — coaches it put near 25% were out about a quarter of the time — and a version pricing the games left with the previous season’s ratings ranked jobs as well as the ranking this page used before. Each week it learns from coaches who were still on the job at that point, so a firing during the season counts. In the Boiling zone it has run a few points high. Every job, and the method.
Brings in bigger-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits younger transfers than most — more of a development bet.
Avg. size (raw)
6′3″, 247 lbs
across 29 of 32 arrivals — unadjusted for position mix
Size vs. position-typical
+12.8 lbs
#2 of 255 · top quarter
Avg. class year
Fr
#255 of 255 · bottom quarter
Avg. portal rating
3.2★
rated arrivals only
Top states: FL (4), MS (4), CA (4), AZ (3), GA (2)
Who won the portal our read
Talent added
56.4
position-weighted
Talent lost
55.4
position-weighted
Net
+1.0
arrivals minus departures
Best addition: Jackson Brousseau (QB) from Colorado State
Biggest loss: Devin Brown (QB) to Weber State
Position-value-weighted (QB/CB weighted highest, depth-decayed within each position) — the same scoring engine as the Portal Heat feed, not a separate grade.
Where the roster comes from, by position
Buys Cornerback via the portal
100%
#1 of 236 stints
Buys Edge via the portal
80%
#15 of 208 stints
3-4
Big games
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
One-score games
2-1
66.7% · margin ≤8
Against Blue Bloods or better
0-1
0.0%
Against the spread
2-5
all 7 had a line
Performance by opponent class
Blue Blood
0-1 0.0%
National Program
1-2 33.3%
Regional Program
1-1 50.0%
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Signature games
0-1 vs. AP top 25 · 0-0 vs. the top 10
Signature wins
WVT
Virginia Tech · 2026
25-20
UpsetQuality opponent
WSY
Syracuse · 2026
21-18
UpsetQuality opponent
Signature losses
LWA
Wake Forest · 2026
7-41
LUC
UCLA · 2026
24-45
LCL
Clemson · 2026
10-24
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
Style position and drift
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Pass rate — share of offensive plays that were pass attemptsfirst covered seasonmost recent covered season
How good is he so far?
Too new to grade — in-season movement only
California’s composite stature has fallen since preseason: 28.8 entering the year to 26.9 through week 8 (National Program III) · #17 of 138 in movement since preseason · top quarter.
Part four · How he builds a team
Three numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
No class below is fully his yet — every one was inherited or signed mid-transition, so none counts toward a verdict.
2026
#56
Transition
Transition — he was hired mid-cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his; inherited and mid-transition classes still show here, faded, but stay out of the average.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
45%His own players
of his 2026 roster arrived on his watch — 51 of 114 players. The other 63 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Arrived under him 51Inherited 63
Of his own players on this roster, 55% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
Everyone he has brought in, 2026–2026Counting players who have since left: 55% of the 51 arrivals we can classify came through the portal.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Where he recruits
CATop state
is his biggest recruiting state: 10 of 18 signees (56%) across his 2026–2026 tenure, drawn from 6 states in all. Next: HI (4).
Where his signees came from, 2026–2026 (18 high-school, JUCO and prep signees)
56% of his signees come from CA and its 3 border states.
Off this map: 1 signee to the east (FL).
By region
West
16
South
2
Roster distance from campus (California Memorial Stadium, CA)
median hometown distance
576 mi
within 100 mi
21%
within 500 mi
48%
beyond 1,000 mi
36%
111 of 114 roster players with a known hometown (97% coverage)
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
Defensive coordinator across 2 programs, 4 stints, before and after wearing the head-coach hat — every season measured on the same axis, whether he personally ran the unit or someone else did.
