Cal football lands top target transfer in linebacker Harrison Taggart from BYU
Huge commitment for the California Golden Bears at a position of need.
Cal needed depth and options and they landed perhaps the best available option at the transfer at linebacker. Harrison Taggart ended up picking Cal over North Carolina State and Colorado.
Taggart had a solid season at BYU in 2024, finishing second on the team with 69 tackles. The Draper, Utah native started all 12 games and added 2.5 tackles for loss, one sack, an interception, and four passes defended. He also recorded a forced fumble and four quarterback hurries.
Taggart’s college career began at Oregon before transferring to BYU in 2023, where he tallied 28 tackles in 12 games, including four starts. Taggart has two years of eligibility remaining.
Taggart’s recruitment should offset the loss of Hunter Barth to Stanford, and he should battle fellow transfer Buom Jock as the likely replacement for Teddye Buchanan to line up aside Cade Uluave at inside linebacker (Aaron Hampton, Eze Osondu, and Luke Ferrelli are names to watch as well).
Welcome to Cal Harrison! Go Bears!
Fantastic pick up. Taggart is listed at 6'1" 230 lbs @ BYU - but he looks shorter and thinner - and that's not a bad thing. He's quite quick (but not necessarily fast over longer distances) and remains athletic to be able to be effective in pass coverage.
He is a technician of an ILB. He's less likely to try to jump into hole and put himself out of position. He's a read/trail/scrape type that is going to clean up a ton of tackles on plays blown-up/redirected by Uluave.
On another note, Cal getting the top WR and top ILB and barely missing on the top RB in the portal is pretty impressive. I don't know what Cal's coaching staff spiel is on official visits, but whatever they are saying is working.
On the one hand, we lost a lot of good players.
On the other hand, we seem to be attracting solid players.
I have no idea what to expect this season, which is probably better than unrealistically high expectations that usually crash.
Can’t wait to open our box of chocolates this year (along with an ample supply of beer) to see if it’s any good.