I appreciate this post and anticipate others like it. I'm actually more concerned about Bloesch than I am about the players. Until I see a game he calls that isn't run it up the middle into the teeth of the defense every play (the bowl game I went to great effort to attend), I'm concerned. Clearly there is more talent on the offense, and I'm most excited about the Oline and RB rooms. It's going to be so hard and strange to project how we stack up in the ACC. If it was still the Pac it would be much easier to project. Looking forward to report from Fall camp.
was there ever any info about why Spav left? I know it was advertised as family, but I don't believe that.
P12 network recently re-ran the UCLA game, and after a Cal touchdown, while the sideline was celebrating, Spav and Wilcox could barely look at each other. Gotta believe something was going on behind closed doors.
I'm pretty sure, aside from unguarded moments of licking his lips, JW has never been terribly demonstrative. That's my take. But you could be on to something. Cal has a rep as the beginning of the end-of-the-line for coaching careers, Spav had cold feet before, so no real surprises, here, history proves the future.
Unless, of course, you have some insight you may have held back.
I agree, but we have had one game to evaluate Bloesch and it wasn't a pretty picture on offense. You always wonder when a position coach is given two challenging positions to manage how can he be effective at both very D1 programs combine these coaches, however despite that somehow he and the other coaches were able to convince portal talent to come to CAL. Hopefully, he does not waste that talent running the vanilla JW offense, the excitement with Spavital was that you knew he was going to run an exciting offense.
he is hoping that the bowl game was not indicative of Bloesch's plans for the offense due to not having time, and that in '24 he's had plenty of time to do so.
I don't follow this stuff too closely, but feels like this transfer class is a bit more east coast/national than our previous classes? Does that seem like the case?
Maybe our move to the ACC gives east coast recruits a nice destination to play at while still getting a few games near home each year? Stanford seems to be eschewing NIL, so I wonder if this could be an unforeseen advantage. We could be a good landing spot for kids from the east coast who want to give the west coast a try, but still want to maintain some connections back home. And it feels like our academic reputation might help here as well, as the ACC has a bit of an academic reputation, so if a recruit was inclined towards the ACC because of that, we offer a lot in that regard too. That would be a nice silver lining if this ends up being the case.
I would love to drink the Kool-Aid, and I fundamentally believe that we have added some intriguing pieces to our offense via the transfer portal. However, as others have stated, as our QB goes, our offense goes. Mendoza was horrendous in the Bowl game; fundamentally, he was a PWO, and we can't seem to get a highly-rated QB to come to CAL since Goff. I would love to see Mendoza turn into the next great PWO, but that is a tough position to have an unrated QB recruit. Furthermore, our OL improved last year, but it wasn't enough to compete in a tough PAC12 where we were blown out by Oregon, Washington, OR State, Utah, and the top of the former PAC12. However, what is fundamentally going to hold this team back is the Dline and the LBs. We just can't get to the opposing QB enough to make a difference in the game.
That is a fair point on Mendoza being hurt in the bowl game. However, I am just not sure that Mendoza is an elite quarterback who can take advantage of our elite talent in the other offensive skill players. For example, there is no doubt we have an elite RB room with a ton of depth; I think we also have elite WRs, especially with the WRs brought through the Portal. However, two of our potential constraints are QB and depth; from what I have read, Rodgers did not light up the spring. If Mendoza gets hurt, I think our season is done. In addition, we have a very suspect OL with very little depth behind the starters, we have a converted LT who has never played the position in the most position on the OL. I want nothing more than for this team to tear it up in the ACC but we always seem to have a fatal flaw of flaws that prevents that breakout season. Why can't CAL have one 9 or 10 game win season.
Also can someone help me understand why between HS recruiting and Portal we can't seem to get one elite QB and why other teams can get 2-3. We seem to be cursed at the QB position, now I expect some of that has to do with the offenses JW has been running but we can't get one QB to take a flyer on us to get us over the QB hump. I was hoping that was going to change with our previous OC but when he only sticks around for 1 year that makes things challenging.
There are several teams who seem to get multiple 4 and 5 star QBs, some examples include Oregon, USC, Ohio State, UCLA, among others. All of those teams have had at least 2 4 star QBs on their roster. CAL can't manage 1 4 star in the last 5-7 years.
Oh you mean elite high school rankings. We've had at least one 4 star guy on the roster pretty much every year in the last 5-7 years... Garbers, McIlwain, Modster, Sam Jackson.
The problem with two underrated QBs is that it has hard to take advantages of the talent we have at RB and WR. We lost Studivant a year ago because likely he got more NIL money and wanted a better QB, this year we lost Hunter, if we can't field a better QB, all of this talent will be 1 year rentals and we have to refresh every single year with new talent.
If you're an elite QB, you take the best chance to make it into the NFL. With Dykes, we kept Goff even after Tedford left and then replaced him with Webb. We recruited a few talents early on, all whom have left because Wilcox has never run an offense that allows a QB to flourish. Meanwhile, running backs love us.
Sorry to hear you've had to leave the West, but good luck out there in the tired old East. You are a true Bear so always a Son of California to the great Bear in the Sky!
Agree, and I expect Mendoza to be very improved this year. Also if our O-line can gel and open holes for the run game and give him decent pass pro, we have the skill guys to punish our opponents. It's never as good as the eternal sunshine I pump, but if its half as good then we will be solid and fun to watch.
I look at these Rankings as disrespectful. These rankings are simply someone's opinion based on someone they probably like. Cal is simply going to have to earn their respect. Some of these experts act like the Pac 12 was a scrub league. The national runner up came from our conference and they sent multiple people through our conference to the national football league. Make no mistake.We are ready and our head coach used to be in the Big 10 and is used to being undefeated and know what that looks like. Make no mistake, we are ready for the atlantic coast conference. Outside of Florida, state, Clemson and a couple of other teams, we can play with anybody. The key is going to be that offensive line opening up holes with that powerful running game of ours. If we do that we can play action pass all day long and be an effective offense.
I'm hoping that with all these improvements on offense and depth,that they can keep defense from being on field too much.And can improve our red zone scoring which the team has needed for awhile now.Sounds very positive go bears.
Lots of nice pieces added on offense. Honestly we didn’t target many offensive players in the portal this cycle that we didn’t land. Been a while since we have had this kind of recruiting success at Cal. In addition to our donors, we have to give credit to our recruiting staff for making this happen. They crushed it.
Yes, major credit goes to the recruiting staff, it's not an easy job to sell top prospects on joining a team that still has yet to break through. They're putting in the work.
Given that last year's portal transfers have had a full year at Cal, do any of them who didn't contribute much last season look ready step up this year?
On offense, I'd expect Cardwell and/or JWT to contribute significantly if healthy. There aren't many others left though who didn't contribute last year that are returning.
I appreciate this post and anticipate others like it. I'm actually more concerned about Bloesch than I am about the players. Until I see a game he calls that isn't run it up the middle into the teeth of the defense every play (the bowl game I went to great effort to attend), I'm concerned. Clearly there is more talent on the offense, and I'm most excited about the Oline and RB rooms. It's going to be so hard and strange to project how we stack up in the ACC. If it was still the Pac it would be much easier to project. Looking forward to report from Fall camp.
There are games on YouTube of when he was an OC at North Texas. I’d watch them
was there ever any info about why Spav left? I know it was advertised as family, but I don't believe that.
P12 network recently re-ran the UCLA game, and after a Cal touchdown, while the sideline was celebrating, Spav and Wilcox could barely look at each other. Gotta believe something was going on behind closed doors.
I'm pretty sure, aside from unguarded moments of licking his lips, JW has never been terribly demonstrative. That's my take. But you could be on to something. Cal has a rep as the beginning of the end-of-the-line for coaching careers, Spav had cold feet before, so no real surprises, here, history proves the future.
Unless, of course, you have some insight you may have held back.
I think you’re reading into too much from a re-run of a game. He’s from Texas. Baylor is a good gig. That’s it.
I agree, but we have had one game to evaluate Bloesch and it wasn't a pretty picture on offense. You always wonder when a position coach is given two challenging positions to manage how can he be effective at both very D1 programs combine these coaches, however despite that somehow he and the other coaches were able to convince portal talent to come to CAL. Hopefully, he does not waste that talent running the vanilla JW offense, the excitement with Spavital was that you knew he was going to run an exciting offense.
I'm just hoping that Bloesch didn't have enough time to install what he wanted on offense. Fingers crossed.
If I recall, we had a few starters out. And, I think it's fair to assume it was an awkward transition.
Why would you want that?
he is hoping that the bowl game was not indicative of Bloesch's plans for the offense due to not having time, and that in '24 he's had plenty of time to do so.
Why didn't Chandler come here the first time around? Did we pick Sam Jackson over him?
My outside understanding is that Jackson was who Spavital liked a little more.
I don't follow this stuff too closely, but feels like this transfer class is a bit more east coast/national than our previous classes? Does that seem like the case?
Maybe our move to the ACC gives east coast recruits a nice destination to play at while still getting a few games near home each year? Stanford seems to be eschewing NIL, so I wonder if this could be an unforeseen advantage. We could be a good landing spot for kids from the east coast who want to give the west coast a try, but still want to maintain some connections back home. And it feels like our academic reputation might help here as well, as the ACC has a bit of an academic reputation, so if a recruit was inclined towards the ACC because of that, we offer a lot in that regard too. That would be a nice silver lining if this ends up being the case.
Our recruiting staff has increased so it has allowed us to cast a wider net as well.
Anyone have any intel on Nyziah Hunter and where he fits into the WR room?
In the mix for sure because of his speed aspect, had some nice big plays in the spring.
I would love to drink the Kool-Aid, and I fundamentally believe that we have added some intriguing pieces to our offense via the transfer portal. However, as others have stated, as our QB goes, our offense goes. Mendoza was horrendous in the Bowl game; fundamentally, he was a PWO, and we can't seem to get a highly-rated QB to come to CAL since Goff. I would love to see Mendoza turn into the next great PWO, but that is a tough position to have an unrated QB recruit. Furthermore, our OL improved last year, but it wasn't enough to compete in a tough PAC12 where we were blown out by Oregon, Washington, OR State, Utah, and the top of the former PAC12. However, what is fundamentally going to hold this team back is the Dline and the LBs. We just can't get to the opposing QB enough to make a difference in the game.
The defensive concerns are valid.
Mendoza was hurt on an early defensive play and it impacted his throwing, hard to hold that against him.
That is a fair point on Mendoza being hurt in the bowl game. However, I am just not sure that Mendoza is an elite quarterback who can take advantage of our elite talent in the other offensive skill players. For example, there is no doubt we have an elite RB room with a ton of depth; I think we also have elite WRs, especially with the WRs brought through the Portal. However, two of our potential constraints are QB and depth; from what I have read, Rodgers did not light up the spring. If Mendoza gets hurt, I think our season is done. In addition, we have a very suspect OL with very little depth behind the starters, we have a converted LT who has never played the position in the most position on the OL. I want nothing more than for this team to tear it up in the ACC but we always seem to have a fatal flaw of flaws that prevents that breakout season. Why can't CAL have one 9 or 10 game win season.
Also can someone help me understand why between HS recruiting and Portal we can't seem to get one elite QB and why other teams can get 2-3. We seem to be cursed at the QB position, now I expect some of that has to do with the offenses JW has been running but we can't get one QB to take a flyer on us to get us over the QB hump. I was hoping that was going to change with our previous OC but when he only sticks around for 1 year that makes things challenging.
Payback for getting many Elite-11 QBs during Tedford's time. And most of them not panning out.
Which teams are getting 3 elite QBs again?
There are several teams who seem to get multiple 4 and 5 star QBs, some examples include Oregon, USC, Ohio State, UCLA, among others. All of those teams have had at least 2 4 star QBs on their roster. CAL can't manage 1 4 star in the last 5-7 years.
Oh you mean elite high school rankings. We've had at least one 4 star guy on the roster pretty much every year in the last 5-7 years... Garbers, McIlwain, Modster, Sam Jackson.
Not sure if I agree with your assessment of the QB room. I can't remember the last time w had two good QBs. They are both underrated.
The problem with two underrated QBs is that it has hard to take advantages of the talent we have at RB and WR. We lost Studivant a year ago because likely he got more NIL money and wanted a better QB, this year we lost Hunter, if we can't field a better QB, all of this talent will be 1 year rentals and we have to refresh every single year with new talent.
If you're an elite QB, you take the best chance to make it into the NFL. With Dykes, we kept Goff even after Tedford left and then replaced him with Webb. We recruited a few talents early on, all whom have left because Wilcox has never run an offense that allows a QB to flourish. Meanwhile, running backs love us.
THE TIME IS NOW. THIS IS OUR FINAL AUDITION BEFORE THE ACC IMPLODES. GO BEARS
Good stuff! Am now on the East Coast which ain't half bad since CAL is now part of the ACC. Go Bears!!
Sorry to hear you've had to leave the West, but good luck out there in the tired old East. You are a true Bear so always a Son of California to the great Bear in the Sky!
Thank you! As Arnold says, "I'll be back." But it may be a few years or more.
Team goes as QB goes … everything else will or will not fall in line
Agree, and I expect Mendoza to be very improved this year. Also if our O-line can gel and open holes for the run game and give him decent pass pro, we have the skill guys to punish our opponents. It's never as good as the eternal sunshine I pump, but if its half as good then we will be solid and fun to watch.
Let's hope our offensive line gels quickly, and gives us a steady and consistent production. It's the key, as always.
I look at these Rankings as disrespectful. These rankings are simply someone's opinion based on someone they probably like. Cal is simply going to have to earn their respect. Some of these experts act like the Pac 12 was a scrub league. The national runner up came from our conference and they sent multiple people through our conference to the national football league. Make no mistake.We are ready and our head coach used to be in the Big 10 and is used to being undefeated and know what that looks like. Make no mistake, we are ready for the atlantic coast conference. Outside of Florida, state, Clemson and a couple of other teams, we can play with anybody. The key is going to be that offensive line opening up holes with that powerful running game of ours. If we do that we can play action pass all day long and be an effective offense.
I'm hoping that with all these improvements on offense and depth,that they can keep defense from being on field too much.And can improve our red zone scoring which the team has needed for awhile now.Sounds very positive go bears.
Lots of nice pieces added on offense. Honestly we didn’t target many offensive players in the portal this cycle that we didn’t land. Been a while since we have had this kind of recruiting success at Cal. In addition to our donors, we have to give credit to our recruiting staff for making this happen. They crushed it.
Yes, major credit goes to the recruiting staff, it's not an easy job to sell top prospects on joining a team that still has yet to break through. They're putting in the work.
Given that last year's portal transfers have had a full year at Cal, do any of them who didn't contribute much last season look ready step up this year?
On offense, I'd expect Cardwell and/or JWT to contribute significantly if healthy. There aren't many others left though who didn't contribute last year that are returning.
What happened to Sergio Allen?