Cal Sports Report

We Should Expect Cal's Sam Jackson V to Improve -- He Has To

The quarterback showed his skill and his inexperience in his first full game of college football against Idaho

Jake Curtis

Cal’s success hinges on Sam Jackson V improving as the weeks go by.

Jackson played his first full college game in Saturday’s 31-17 victory over Idaho, and he showed both the potential of his athleticism and the liabilities of his inexperience.

“Making the routine plays routinely, we need to get better there,” Cal coach Justin Wilcox said of Jackson’s performance Saturday.

For Cal to get to a bowl game or have any impact in the Pac-12, Jackson needs to make those routine plays routinely, which means he needs to improve significantly.

As a redshirt sophomore who had not played a meaningful college down before this season, the expectation is that Jackson will improve dramatically over the course of his first season as a Power Five quarterback. Each game should feed him with some vital information about how to play the position. By the end of the season . . . well, we’ll see.

“I feel like the seventh or eighth game I’ll be much different,” Jackson said. “It’ll be like night and day honestly.”

The expectation also is that he will be a much better quarterback in his second or third year at the position, but Cal does not want to wait.

Cal seems to have hitched its wagon to Jackson, and finally got a full game out of him this week. He suffered a second-quarter injury that sidelined for the rest of the season-opening win over North Texas, and he did not enter last week’s loss against Auburn until midway through the second quarter.

But Saturday belonged to Jackson, who played all but four offensive plays against Idaho.

He demonstrated his running skills for the first time, rushing for a net of 41 yards on nine carries despite getting sacked for 20 yards of losses. And his 27-yard rushing touchdown put his speed and elusiveness on display for the first time.

Jackson’s 20-yard touchdown pass to Jeremiah Hunter was a thing of beauty, but with three defenders in the area, it’s questionable whether he should have thrown the ball at all. 

His touchdown pass to Trond Grizzell was was a critical play, but he nearly overthrew a wide-open receiver in the end zone. Grizzell made a nice catch to save him.

And a number of Jackson's decisions were questionable. He took sacks (negative 20 yards or sacks) when he should have unloaded the ball, and some of his throws were prayers more than confident passes with a purpose.

His passing numbers were tolerable: 12-for-23 for 108 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions to go along with his 41 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown.

However, Cal will need more than those so-so numbers to compete against teams like next week’s opponent Washington as well as USC, Oregon, Oregon State and Washington State, all of whom have excellent quarterbacks. That is the problem in the Pac-12 this year. Nearly every team has an elite quarterback, while Cal has a guy who is learning the position.

Jackson also needs to learn how to slide at the end of his runs rather than diving head first, as he did in the third quarter, forcing him to leave the game for a few plays. It was just another example of his inexperience.

The assumption is that Jackson will improve by leaps and bounds as the season goes on. That’s Jackson’s expectation. That’s Wilcox’s hope. That’s Cal’s fate.

Cover photo of Sam Jackson V by Kyle Terada, USA TODAY Sports

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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