Cal Football 2022 Spring Notebook #1

Football is back (for a limited time)

Coach Wilcox happy to be back on the field

Welcome one. Welcome all! Football is back for just a month at Memorial Stadium and we have you covered here at Write for California. This is a free preview of the coverage and analysis you’ll see in the notebooks for Spring Camp, make sure to subscribe if you want to read and know of all the sights and storylines coming out of Spring Camp.

It was a fairly light day for the team. First day of camp, team was ready to go. Everyone was just excited to be back on the field playing football. The offense had a lot of new faces and a bunch of players playing different positions to get reps. That was particularly evident on the offensive line. The QBs all got their chance with equal reps across the board, as expected for the first practice of the spring. Kai Millner stood out with a pretty touch pass that sailed about 35 yards to the corner and a wide-open wide receiver.

The OL movement was some of the more interesting things to note. Different groups of players getting reps with each other to see which might be the best fits. Coach Wilcox mentioned that a lot of these guys just need snaps and will learn multiple position groups like Guard/Center and Guard/Tackle. As expected Ben Coleman got a few looks at left tackle with the void left by Will Craig. Bastian Swinney and Colin Moroney also got snaps at LT. Ryan Lange got some time at LG when Coleman was out. Everett Johnson was the stand-out at RG with Brayden Rohme getting the bulk at RT. The surprise for me was seeing Dylan Jemtegaard as the main spell at Center behind Matt Cindric. This group has the most questions and who distinguishes themselves when we get to full pads and contact will be interesting to watch.

2 interceptions on the first day of camp! First one by Lu-Magia, who jumped the route and exploded off the release, likely would have been a Pick-6. The second came from Hunter Barth who just sat deep and picked off an overthrown ball. Both picks were thrown by Senior QB Ryan Glover. The defensive backs had the most highlights of the day. The two picks, Ray Woodie’s one handed PBU, and a couple of stops on the outside for minimal gains. They looked the most mid-season form position group and had insane energy on every snap in 7s.

Some additional notes to end a largely uneventful practice and intro to spring camp:

• Xavier Carlton is a large human being and athletically monsterous. Reminds me very much of an athletic basketball wing, in terms of body type. Long arms, explodes from the legs and hips, and very fluid.

• Special Teams had some split up duties for Punt Formations. Aristotle Thompson and Will Barton worked with the blocking and protection duties. Terrence Brown, Tre Watson and Burl Toler III worked with the gunners.

• Way too early to say how the depth charts will play out, but this FEELS like a first team defense to me based on their ability and production the last 2 years.

  • DL - Saunders, Correia, BRETT JOHNSON

  • LB - Croteau, Sirmon, Oladejo, Patu

  • DB - Young, Scott, Williams (13), Hearns

• Myles Williams (92) recorded the first TFL of camp.

Once again the majority of the practice notebooks will be for our subscribers so make sure to sub for more in-depth looks at camp once practices start to pick up.

Next practice is Friday, April 8th.