Kai Millner transfers to Northern Arizona, leaving Cal in desperate need of quarterbacks

The Bears have a very thin quarterback room at the moment.

The idle speculation around the potential return of Kai Millner is at an end. After entering the transfer portal and maintaining contact with the Cal coaching staff to see if there was a place for him, Millner is heading closer to home in Flagstaff, transferring to the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks.

Kai Millner @kai_millner

Committed. @NAU_Football

With Millner leaving at the same time as Jack Plummer to Louisville, that means the two remaining scholarship quarterbacks on the Cal roster are redshirt freshman Fernando Mendoza and redshirt junior Zach Johnson. Neither have played a snap.

So who can Cal land? We’ve talked about a few of the major targets.

• Louisiana Monroe quarterback Chandler Rogers seemed to really like his initial visit to Berkeley and the speculation is that he is the top target for offensive coordinator Jake Spavital. But things have gone silent.

• Boise State quarterback Hank Bachmeier has connections to the staff, but there hasn’t been much noise here in the past few weeks.

• North Texas quarterback Austin Aune was originally a target, but changed his mind and declared for the NFL Draft.

• Oregon State quarterback Chance Nolan entered the portal early. Although he struggled with the Beavers before getting injured, he does provide a level of experience Cal currently lacks. There are some rumors about Indiana, which would help Cal in their courtship of Rogers, but nothing concrete.

• Oregon State quarterback Tristan Gebbia is also in the portal. He visited Baylor recently.

• Georgia Tech transfer Taisun Phommachanh would be interesting and has shown interest in Cal in the past, but his level of experience isn’t high, with only limited snaps.

• Indiana transfer Connor Bazelak could be an interesting option, with a lot of starts under his belt and could benefit from a talent upgrade in Berkeley. Bazelak is looking at a midwest destination but could be worth courting if other options don’t pan out.

• Oklahoma State quarterback Spencer Sanders is not going to Cal, but could end up at one of the their opponents next year—Auburn has reached out.

• Mississippi State quarterback Sawyer Robertson entered the portal recently. He’s starting his journey with visits to TCU and Baylor.

Cal needs at least one transfer quarterback and ideally two for spring ball. Despite wins in the transfer portal elsewhere, what they have right now isn’t going to be enough.