SAN LOUIS OBISPO – Fifteen months after Bo Baldwin was appointed Cal Poly’s head coach, the Bo Baldwin era began last Saturday afternoon when the Mustangs (0-0, 0-0 Big Sky) hosted Southern Utah (0-2, 0-2 Big Sky) for the first of six Big Sky Conference games this spring.
Beau Baldwin is named head coach just before the pandemic.
Links to the audio and video streams, as well as live stats, can be found on the football program page at GoPoly.com.
Baldwin was born on the 11th. December 2019 at 5pm. Head football coach at Cal Poly called. Since then, the Mustangs’ spring 2020 camp has been cancelled due to the pandemic. With the normal fall schedule of 11 games to go, Cal Poly’s summer access period, which is limited to eight hours of strength training, conditioning and film viewing per week, is limited to 11 days in July. The four-week fall camp (which replaced the regular spring camp), scheduled for late October and most of November, was reduced to only five days due to the pandemic.
Even a three-week preseason camp that began in late January had to be postponed, forcing Cal Poly to reschedule its first two Big Sky games. However, an adjusted 2020-21 spring season is on the horizon with two games rescheduled and the Mustangs are looking forward to their first opponent since November 2019.
Cal Poly fans expect big changes, especially on the offensive side of the ball, with Baldwin at the helm. There are no three-down options, and the new offensive plan will likely result in three or four wide receivers in the formation on most plays, with one running back instead of two slotbacks, a fullback and a pair of receivers.
In nine seasons, Baldwin led Eastern Washington to an overall record of 85-32, five Big Sky titles and six NCAA Division I playoff appearances, including the national championship in 2010. Baldwin was the offensive coordinator at Cal for the last three years before becoming head coach at Cal Poly and leading the Bears to two bowl games.
Baldwin welcomed 53 returning lettermen to campus shortly after arriving, including 17 starters (10 offensive, seven defensive) from the 2019 team that went 3-8 and shared ninth place in the Big Sky with four other schools.
The list of returnees is led by quarterback Jalen Hamler, junior quarterback Dai Tran-Sampson, fullback Myles Cecil and linebacker Matt Shotwell.
Hamler completed 62 of 108 passes for 1,167 yards and 12 touchdowns and also ran for 522 yards and nine other scores. Trance-Sampson, a second-team All-Big Sky fullback, rushed for 1,037 yards and eight touchdowns, but will miss the spring with a foot injury. Shotwell, a third-team All-Big Sky selection, led Cal Poly with 89 tackles for the second straight year (90 in 2018), and Cecil, an honorable mention All-Big Sky in 2019, totaled 35 stops after collecting 39 tackles in 2018.
Cal Poly won the Big Sky title in 2012 in his first year in the conference and finished 10th in the 13-team Big Sky field this fall as head coach and media representative. Weber State was chosen to win the 2020-21 Big Sky crown, followed by Montana and Montana State. Since the polls were released in July, the Grizzlies and Bobcats have chosen the 2020-21 spring season, as have Sacramento State, Portland State and Northern Colorado.
The Mustangs won four Great Western Conference titles in the league’s eight-year history (2004, 2005, 2008, 2011) before transferring to the Big Sky in 2012. They made the FCS Division I playoffs in 2005, 2008, 2012 and 2016.
The Cal Poly Mustangs have won 65 of their last 94 home games (70 percent), and Cal Poly has won 107 of its last 194 games (56 percent). Dating back to the 2002 final, they have won 24 of their last 58 games and 43 of the last 96 on the road, giving them 12 winning seasons in the last 19 years.
Cal Poly plays the first of three consecutive away games on Saturday, March 20, with visiting UCLA in the first of two games in the battle for the Golden Horseshoe. Kickoff at UC Davis Health Stadium is scheduled for 1:05 p.m.
Dim:
How do you load…
Associated companies
We’ll get through this together, Atascadero…
