2025 Hawaii Bowl: Rainbow Warriors host the Cal Golden Bears

After another exciting season of college football, bowl season is upon us. This season, the California Golden Bears have earned the right to play in the 2025 Hawaii Bowl against the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. For many players on the Cal roster and coaching staff, this bowl game will allow them an opportunity to go home for the holidays. Because, like many west coast programs, Hawaii and Polynesian roots have shown to be important part of the Golden Bears program. The game will take place on Christmas Eve.

Hawaii Rainbow Warriors vs. California Golden Bears: 2025 Bowl Game Preview

Matchup History

The 2025 Hawaii Bowl will be the sixth time these two programs have ever played each other. The last time these schools played was back in 2016 in Sydney, Australia, where Cal won a 51-31 contest. Before that, Cal had not played Hawaii since the 1990s. It’s been almost a decade since these two programs last played, and it should be a good game with both teams having stellar young quarterbacks.

Key Players, Stats, and Predictions

Key Players for Cal

This might be the most obvious key player of the season. With his recent announcement that he’s staying at Cal and the fact that he gets to play near his home, Cal quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele is key in this contest. And, the freshman has been nothing short of phenomenal in his first season of collegiate ball.

Week after week, JKS made jaw-dropping throws and had the collectiveness of a four-year starter. During the regular season, Sagapolutele threw for 3117 yards, 17 touchdowns, and nine interceptions. He should have no problem against this Hawaii defense in the last game of his freshman season. It seems as though Cal wants to actually try and win this game, so look for the young quarterback to really let it fly and end the season on a high note.

Earlier in the season, I predicted that Cal wide receiver/kick returner Jacob De Jesus would return either a kickoff or a punt back for a touchdown. He has not done that yet, but there’s still a chance he can fulfill that prediction against Hawaii.

De Jesus has been a major bright spot for this offense all season, and he became the go-to target for Sagapolutele early on. He is one of the better wide receivers to come into Cal, especially in his short to intermediate route prowess. At times, he was practically unguardable. Hopefully, he can end his career on a high note and maybe, just maybe, take one to the house on special teams.

Key Players for Hawaii

Cal wasn’t the only school to have a stellar freshman quarterback. Micah Alejado played extremely well for Hawaii this season as a freshman. On the year, Alejado threw for 2832 yards, 21 touchdowns, and nine interceptions. He’s got great tenacity and the ability to make plays all over the field. He absolutely diced up Mountain West defenses all season, and you can expect that he’s going to be tough for Cal to stop. His primary wide receiver will not be playing in this game, so we will see how much that affects him. However, Alejado and the offense cannot be counted out.

We’ve seen what elite edge rushers can do to this Cal offensive line, and Hawaii has a stud pass rusher. Jackie Johnson III has been causing havoc to opposing teams all year. During the regular season, Johnson has compiled 29 total tackles to pair with his 7.5 sacks. Cal needs to make sure they get him blocked up front, because there’s no doubt that the senior pass rusher is going to want to go out with a bang in his final game.

2025 Game Preview: Christmas Came Early

There has been a lot of positive news surrounding the program lately. Most notably, the head coaching hire of Tosh Lupoi and the confirmation that Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele is returning for his sophomore season. It was also announced that interim head coach Nick Rolovich will be staying on the staff next season to be the quarterbacks coach.

Things seem to be looking up for the Golden Bears at this moment. Obviously, there is still one more game to be played, and Cal has to take it seriously. Typically in years past, Cal has kind of “punted” these bowl games by playing a lot of backups. I’m sure there are going to be some players that will get playing time that usually don’t in this game. However, it appears that the regular starters will be playing a lot too. It’s a great opportunity to end the season on a win and also get an additional look at some players that are coming back next season.

Game Prediction: Cal 34, Hawaii 21