Cal lands Clemson LB transfer Sergio Allen

Another notable talent rounds up Cal's National Signing Day.

The Bears landed two major transfer portal players from perennial playoff contenders yesterday.

One of them was Clemson linebacker Sergio Allen, who was wowed by his visit to Berkeley and decided Cal was the place to be.

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Coming out of high school in 2020, Allen was ranked as the 218th best talent in the country by 247Sports. He was ranked as the 24th best linebacker in the portal by 247Sports as well.

More on his Cal visit here:

The campus was beautiful and has a lot of history behind it, so that was a good thing to see academically. All of the coaches were good to be around and made my first trip out to the west a good one.

Allen had trouble cracking into Clemson’s very deep defensive roster. He logged limited defensive snaps and eight tackles during his Tigers career. He transferred early in 2022 to avoid burning an additional year of eligibility. He should have three years left to play.

Although Jackson Sirmon is returning, Cal is losing a lot of linebacking talent to the portal. The Bears lost their second-leading tackler Femi Oladejo to UCLA, Orin Patu transferred to Arizona, and Patrick Hisatake moved on to Hawaii. Allen shores up a huge position of need for the Bears and will give Cal some depth. I’d imagine Cal will try to get more linebackers in the portal as well.

The other major transfer on Signing Day was running back Byron Cardwell transferring from Oregon. Cal has four transfers from the portal in all, including the cornerbacks Nohl Williams from UNLV and Kaylin Moore from Colorado.