Cal football spring practice no. 4: Which newcomers are standing out?

Justin Wilcox had kind words for many new transfer portal additions to the Cal roster.

Credit: Cal Football

Here’s Part 1 of head coach Justin Wilcox’s comments for last Saturday’s spring practice before the team adjourned for spring break. Cal resumes spring practice this week!

Can you talk a little bit about what Kadarius Calloway brings to the running back room?

Well, he sure showed up on that last run, didn't he? I mean that, he's had some real nice runs. I think Kadarius was the guy I was looking forward to watching in pads.

When you get out here in spiders, it's all good. Everybody's running fast andyou get kind of excited about certain guys. Certain positions it's really hard to evaluate when you're in spiders, especially that position.

So I was excited to see him in pads. I think he's another guy just got to get more and more familiar with the verbiage, some of the techniques.

But he's flashed and we brought him in here for a reason. And we're glad he's here.

A lot of the speedy backs don't tend to be as physical, but he seems to combine those two pretty well.

Yeah, he's not a finesse guy. I mean, he does have speed, but you're not looking at him thinking he's going to ... the way he's played in the past and what he's shown so far, he's not a guy that's just afraid to use his shoulder pads.

A couple of young guys that struggled a little bit catching the ball consistently seem to be catching a lot this year.

[Marquez] Dortch and Nyziah Hunter. Yeah, Mojo, Dortch has had a good start. He's got speed. And, again, another guy getting here, going through that transition, coming from a long way away. Still a young player even when he joined us, but getting more comfortable with the offense, how to run the routes, when to expect the ball.

I just think he's a guy that we got to continue to watch grow. And I'm really excited about what he's done thus far. We just got to continue to stack the days, but he has shown up and made some pretty exciting plays just because he does have speed, he's got legitimate speed.

And then Nyziah, it's all about consistency. He's still learning a lot. He's a young guy and … physically he's big, he's strong, he can run. And now it's about becoming more consistent, knowing what to do and executing the plays.

And Cole Boscia he's a guy transferring from Colorado, seems like he's catching everything in sight.

Yeah, Cole's done a really good job. Him and Isaac [Torres] both, we got two guys that have joined us. I mean that whole receiver room, that I guess, I don't know how many there is total, but, Isaac Torres’s done a good job, too.

But Cole is really competitive and strong, local guy. Really impressed with his work ethic and how he's competing and same with Isaac.

Inside backer one of the few places you're thin right now, tell us about the freshmen.

Yeah, I mean, they're in there with the 1's. I mean, there's a lot of young youngsters taking reps with the 1's and 2's. Obviously, Cade is not participating right now. He'll be back.

We've got another veteran that'll be joining us who''s a talented player.

It's really good for these young guys, but they're getting thrown into the deep end and that's the best way to describe it. And they're trying, they're competing and they're showing some stuff, but to say that they're ready for that, they're not, but they're learning on the move, which we need them to do because we need them out there.

We need inside linebackers to practice.

On seeing speed on the defensive backfield to blitz more.

Ja'ir [Smith] has a couple of blocked passes. Yeah, we'll find out.We were just talking about that today.

We like to bring those DB's, whether it's the corner or the nickel, or even the safeties in some of our pressures. But ultimately they've got to be productive because if they are not productive when we pressure with them, then we're not going to call it.

We're trying to find out who has some of those abilities to come off the edges and get a feel for blitzing, run and pass game. But we've got to continue to see that over and over. And it does give you some hope because of the twitchiness and the quickness and the timing and seeing the ball come out.

We got a couple of PBU's, as you mentioned, so that's a good thing.

How has Nick Morrow’s transition been [to offensive line]?

Well he's taken a ton of reps with the 1's and he's making the most of those opportunities. Nick is a physically talented guy. I mean, he is big. What we list him, 6'7" plus maybe, 300 plus. I mean he is.

And he can run. He's a talented guy. When we first recruited Nick, I remember he came to our summer camp for a workout. He was tight end/d end from Flagstaff, and he was just kind of a big athlete, and we weren't quite sure exactly how big he was going to get, but we brought him here and played O-line.

And Coach Bloesch has done a really good job with him. And every day you can see him getting a little bit better. And so he's got a bright future as long as he continues to work at it and grind, and own learning that position.

I think he's got a bright future.

On getting a little boost when guys like Morrow and Jack Endries transition successfully to new positions.

When you’re moving from a skill position to a bigger skill or a line position, the athleticism is the thing that you, you hope shows up.And I think that's true for both of those.

For Jack to play tight end, he's got the receiving skills and he's also a really competitive guy and he'll stick his face in there and lock.

You know Nick from being a tight end and playing tackle, he's got the toughness for it. Like I said, working with coach Bloesch, you see the growth and he's still a young guy but he's got things you just can't coach.

It's hard to coach somebody to be 6'7" and 310, and be able to run. I don't know what drills you do for that. And his transition, we say to keep working at it.