2020 California Golden Bears football team


The 2020 California Golden Bears football team will represent the University of California, Berkeley during the 2020 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The team will be led by head coach Justin Wilcox, who is in his fourth year as head coach. The Bears finished 8–5 in 2019, matching their best record since 2015. The team's offense will be led by Bill Musgrave, who is replacing Beau Baldwin; Baldwin left to become the head coach at Cal Poly.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pac-12 conference announced that its members would only play in-conference games for the season.

Preseason

On January 3, 2020, Cal announced that it would hire former Denver Broncos offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave as its next offensive coordinator, replacing Beau Baldwin. Musgrave, an Oregon alumni like Wilcox, began his coaching career as quarterbacks coach for the Oakland Raiders in 1997. He last coached at the collegiate level as an offensive coordinator for Virginia in 2001-2002.
On January 10, Angus McClure was announced as the next offensive line coach. McClure spent 11 years at UCLA.
On January 14, Aristotle Thompson was hired as the running backs coach. Thompson was the running backs coach at Cal Poly prior to being hired at Cal.
Cal's defensive line coach, Gerald Alexander, was hired to the same position by the Miami Dolphins on January 24. Cal announced it would hire former Arizona defensive coordinator Marcel Yates to replace him the following day.
On March 4, it was announced that Peter Sirmon would be made co-defensive coordinator alongside Tim DeRuyter.
The Preseason Media poll will be released prior to the start of the regular season.

Schedule

Cal's 2020 regular season was announced on January 16. The Golden Bears had 3 games scheduled against UNLV, TCU, and Cal Poly, but cancelled these games on July 10 due to the Pac-12 Conference's decision to play a conference-only schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On July 31, the Pac-12 announced a new football schedule, consisting of 10 conference games instead of the usual 9. The Bears will add Arizona to their usual slate of conference games.