First impressions – you only get one chance to make good ones.

While much of the buzz after last week's 2025 season-opener has deservedly been about the performance by rookie quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele in his California football debut, a couple of his teammates made good first impressions as well.

It had been four seasons since a pair of Cal tight ends had accomplished what transfers Landon Morris and Mason Mini did last Saturday by catching touchdown passes in the same game in the Golden Bears' impressive season-opening 34-15 win at Oregon State.

Their touchdown grabs had quite different looks but both tight ends came away with similar feelings.

Mini's score came on a 3rd-and-5 play from the Oregon State 19-yard line on the Bears' opening drive. Sagapolutele bought time by scrambling to his left before finding Mini with a perfect back-shoulder pass to the 4-yard line. Mini did the rest for his first collegiate touchdown.

"I have never felt anything like it," Mini said. "It honestly just didn't even feel real at first. I felt great."

To say anything is easy in football is certainly an overstatement, but Morris' second career touchdown was about as routine as a play can get when Sagapolutele capped the Bears first drive of the second half by finding Morris wide open in the flat. Morris was able to waltz his way into the end zone untouched from there for a 4-yard score that gave Cal a 24-3 lead.

"That was amazing," Morris said. "It was one of the best feelings in the world."

"It's a good way to start the year off for the room," added senior tight end Jeffrey Johnson, who had a career-long 20-yard catch of his own against the Beavers. "We all celebrate each other's success, so it's great to see them succeed. Both of those guys work so hard and definitely earned those touchdowns."

Just like their touchdowns, the journeys that landed Mini and Morris in Cal's tight end room this season and made them roommates for the team's road games were much different.

Mini, who grew up just across the Bay in Pacifica, was not allowed by his parents to play football until the ninth grade. After prepping at Terra Nova High School, he spent two seasons at Idaho before going into the transfer portal. Mini showed up on the Bears' doorstop at the last minute in January after having been verbally committed to Michigan State before changing his mind and deciding to join the Cal program.

"He connected with me and asked if we were interested," Cal tight ends coach Mike Saffell said. "We got really lucky for him to be right here in Pacifica and to want to be at Cal and be a part of this thing."

"I'm close to home, so my family is definitely happy," added Mini with a smile.

Mini said he expects over 100 family and friends to attend Saturday's home opener against Texas Southern.

The ticket needs for the well-traveled Morris as a graduate student at his fourth school will be significantly less. He began playing football much earlier as a third-grader in his home state of Indiana and also spent one season as a prep in Chicago. Morris was a wide receiver before moving to tight end in college after being named as one of the nation's top-10 college tight end prospects. He started his career at Syracuse in the spring of 2021 before transferring to Utah and then again to Temple, where he had his most productive season with 16 catches for 251 yards with one touchdown reception in 2024. He joined the Bears this past June as a graduate transfer looking to find a path to the NFL.

Saffell loves what he has in the tight ends room with Mini, Morris and others.

"We have a tight knit room," Saffell said. "Once you build that culture, guys like being around each other.

Mini and Morris have certainly made good first impressions.