Cal QB Goff has gone from battered to bigger than life

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Jared Goff was told to hold an uninflated football and yell for a preseason photo shoot. So he halfheartedly did, and now the picture is all over Berkeley. It’s on billboards, posters. Even the walls of BART.

“Most of the time I get made fun of because I’m making that stupid face,” Goff said. “I didn’t know it was going to be on a 40-foot billboard.”

The sophomore quarterback has led the Bears’ resurgence to relevance this season. He’s on pace to lead the Pac-12 in passing yards, which has resulted in a level of notoriety around the Bay Area that’s new enough to still feel weird.

“He’s kind of the golden boy, Cal guy,” head coach Sonny Dykes said.

Where the 20-year-old heads most nights is a former fraternity house that he shares with nine buddies, three of them teammates. There, he is not so much Cal quarterback Jared Goff as he is a kid who’s really good at FIFA, a popular soccer video game.

Inside, there’s a beer sign on the wall next to a flat-screen TV and a pair of old, giant speakers. The walls are covered with Cal blankets and pennants. There’s Cal this, Cal that, Cal everything.

Some of that gear is old. His parents went there, and his dad played baseball and a year of football before starting a six-year major-league baseball career. When it was time to pick a college, Jared Goff had options, but it just made sense for him to play in the stadium where he grew up watching games.

Jared Goff billboard on Telegraph in Berkeley, Calif., on Wednesday, November 19, 2014. Jared Goff billboard on Telegraph in Berkeley, Calif., on Wednesday, November 19, 2014. Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Cal QB Goff has gone from battered to bigger than life 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

Then he lost all but one game his first season at Cal. Starting as a true freshman didn’t do him any favors. He reset his expectations in year two, working hard in the offseason to correct any timing problems. Most people expected more of the same from Goff and the Bears this year, and Goff entered the season obsessed with proving those people wrong.

“That’s all of I’ve thought about,” Goff said in August. “Is how sweet it’s going to feel.”

After starting the season with his first career road win, a surprising victory over Northwestern, Goff texted his roommates and told them to stay awake. He was flying back that night. When he got back to the blue house in Berkeley, he cranked the old speakers up and ran into everyone’s room.

After a dominant game against Sacramento State, Goff got to enjoy the 2-0 start with his classmates. He was giddy. This was a new feeling.

“Last year I didn’t even want to be here after some of our games,” Goff said. “I wanted to go home and get away from it all.”

Since then, it’s been a mix of skulking back into the house and trumpeting his return, once literally. After a double-overtime win over Colorado, Goff was at home celebrating when the band walked by, and wound up playing a set for the house right then and there. But there was also the Hail Mary loss to Arizona, and four other defeats that leave Cal at 5-5, looking for a sixth win that would make the Bears eligible for a bowl game.

Goff won’t call this season the sweet success he was hoping for. He says he needs to win a few more games first. Still, he’s been able to deliver on the promise of a much-improved product. He’s third in the country with 3,398 passing yards, and had thrown for 30 touchdowns with only four interceptions.

It would be logical to see Cal start a Heisman campaign for its quarterback next season. If he stays four years, he’s on pace to become the Pac 12’s all-time leading passer.

For now, he’s not worried about that. He says maybe 30 years from now it will be cool. He’s more concerned with beating Stanford, or his teammates in FIFA.

Or there’s his weekly visit to an elementary school, where he works until morning recess. These are little kids. Most of them don’t know who Jared Goff is.

But they know his face.

“You look like that guy on the picture,” one of them said.

All Goff can do is shake his head.

“They needed to choose someone a lot more intimidating,” he said.

Mike Vernon is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mvernon@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @M_Vernon