Cal lands their transfer quarterback in Devin Brown via Ohio State
The California Golden Bears now have a brand new quarterback room with plenty of options to go with for next season.
Cal now appears to have their quarterback room set for the spring, as Devin Brown completed his national championship run with Ohio State and signed with the California Golden Bears immediately afterward. Brown is on campus, and is expected to participate in spring practice with all of the other Cal transfers.
Brown served as the backup to Will Howard for this season, and saw occasional action in mop-up duty the last two seasons, completing 27 of 48 passes for three touchdowns and one interception in 14 appearances. He did have this one spectacular touchdown this year to Jeremiah Smith.
Brown announced his transfer in early December, but decided to stay with the team for their championship run; as QB2, there was a very good chance he might have been needed for competitive action. With the title run done, Brown was able to head to Cal and get ready for an early start. He also rejoins his former teammate Kyion Grayes, who is a candidate to be WR1 this season.
There is certainly a lot of potential with Ohio State transfer quarterbacks, as we’ve seen with Kyle McCord, Quinn Ewers, and Joe Burrow. Offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin is likely buying in on that upside as Brown gets ready to use his final two seasons of eligibility.
Brown will now compete with EJ Caminong, true freshman Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele and junior college transfer Dominic Ingrassia for the starting role. Spring camp should be very exciting.
Welcome to Cal Devin! Go Bears!
OSU alum who grew up in Berkeley here: I would put Devin Brown somewhere between Riley Leonard and Will Howard. I expect him to be better passer with a stronger arm than Riley Leonard, but he has the mentality of a running QB even though that was seldom very successful. He hasn't yet had the patience to be a successful pocket passer, which may be why he lost out to McCord and then Howard the past two years. The Devin Brown development plan should be something like: start the season with a lot of quick-developing routes, and then gradually mix in the deep balls. Make sure he develops the habit to get the ball out quickly. If/when he is comfortable sitting in the pocket, then the QB run becomes a stronger weapon.
I really don't buy the idea that starting a freshman QB is ideal. Devin Brown has many more year processing the complexity of the college game. He is injury-prone with all the running, however, so it's likely we'll see JKS thrown in every so often. But best case is Devin Brown succeeding. He should be the best-prepared transfer QB at Cal since Davis Webb and maybe second only to Webb in recent memory.
Now this is big news! This certainly creates more competition for the QB1 spot.
Losing Mendoza sucks, but I think we may have, on balance, increased the overall talent level of our QB room. Kudos to our coaching staff.
PRAYING that our OL upgrades will translate into results. That seems more likely to represent the QB performance ceiling (and development) instead pure talent.