Cal linebacker David Reese chats about taking on starting role

The California Golden Bears edge rusher is more confident in his second year out of Florida.

On whether having a full season at Cal bolstered his confidence

Definitely. Given my history with, injuries and stuff. It's a blessing to be able to come back 100% healthy. And it just really gave me the confidence I needed throughout this whole journey to just go out and perform and do what I got to do on the field.

On what he attributes his jump to last season.

God. Just got to stay and keep my faith. Focus. Never give up. I'd never given up on myself, just staying true to myself and just believing in me.

On building on his success as he got comfortable at Cal

Definitely. I never felt like I couldn’t. I just felt like I needed to stay the course, just keep believing, keep working. You know what I'm saying it’s football. Nobody knows at the start oof the game how it’s going to end.

So, throughout the course of the games towards the end of the season, play to play. I'm trying to do my best every play.

On the new additions to the program

We got a lot of faces in the program. So just being able to come out every day, work with each other, when all the new guys came in before the spring and doing our workouts. It was a time for us to all come together.

When you are working out five or six in the morning, you don't have no choice but to kind of come together. So I feel like just having those guys get here early was just an attribution to them coming in, get acclimated with the program.

On overcoming injury issues from Florida

I definitely want to attribute the training staff, with the offseason training they did from the end of last season to the beginning of the spring. Had a lot of guys just come back bigger, faster, stronger. Muscle, endurance, all type of stuff, just everyday, just getting up, coming to work. I really feel like that's what helped me, you know, come back healthy.