28 Comments

Great stuff!

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Welcome to Cal! You’ll love it!

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Excellent news. Keep the local 4 and 5 stars, please.

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Hopefully we'll get Troy Franklin, the 5 star WR out of Menlo Atherton HS who already is being projected as a 1st round draft pick in the future

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He did go to the Cal junior day however...but not apparently in his Top 10 yet

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But you know, here we are speculating on the whims of 17-year olds. Bring out the hats on the table!

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I think our shot at him is realistically less than 10%, he can go anywhere and have a guy throwing to him whos a NFL lock at QB. Hard to pass up. But we do have legit shots at several 4* and high 3* WRs, as well as some RBs and obviously one very highly ranked TE still.

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Great news! Welcome to Cal, Akili. You've made a super decision, and we're fortunate to have your commitment!

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author

Go Bears! There is no reason we shouldn’t be in the top-five of every high school athlete in the Bay Area.

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Mar 8, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

Can we back up the brinks truck and lockup JW for a decade please.

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Absolutely would be the smartest thing Cal has done in a long long time!

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But but I hear hes on the hot seat!?

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...uh, where do you hear that!?

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If anything were on his hot seat.

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Akili Calhoun

6’4” 250 lbs (self-declared)

OT/DE --> DE/OLB

Liberty HS (Brentwood, CA) c/o 2021

This is the type of young man I like to see coming to Cal.

Local. Proud about his grades. Gets it done in the gym. Gets kudos from teammates and coaches. And is an absolute beast on the field.

On stats, he only played 7 out of 12 games last season and 8 during his sophomore season, which means that he does have some history of injuries. In the games he played, he averaged 3 tackles per game, with one of those being a TFL (and half of those being sacks). He played both OT and DE, but his DE tape was straight filthy.

Plays standing up, 3 point, four point, and way off the edge like Joey Bosa. He is explosive off the snap, has a superb outside speed rush move and a smaller repertoire of inside moves, sheds blocks with violent arms, and chases down a superb motor. His upper body strength is clearly very good as he has pancaked a few guys with just an arm shove – as illustrated by his distances in shotput and discus which are at or near enough to get invited to State championship. His Under Armor camp video is also impressive – quick feet, good lateral speed, showed a tight little spin move, generally did really well against high quality opponents.

He is built low with a thick lower body and heavy frame. That is, expect to see Tori Becton help Akili transform that 250 into even more power. If there is any area of weakness (or perhaps more accurate, something that I’d like to see), it is more diversity to his weapons. He was so successful with what he was using, his highlight tape got a bit repetitive. He is also quick and athletic for his age/size, but not fast enough (yet) to be a credible outside-pressure guy like Orin Patu. Rather, he is a contain/pressure guy like Tevin Paul. There is absolutely no video of him into coverage, so a conversion into OLB comes with a huge caveat that he can do that half of the job. But when dealing with recruits, you start with genes, raw athleticism, and work-ethic – and the rest gets developed later.

To me, he seems like he has the potential to be a multi-year starter. I predict you’ll see Akili Calhoun tackling in the backfield and then standing over an Auburn running back.

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Local 3/4 star kid with a NFL pedigree? Great pickup! How do you post gifs here? Is it the sweaty sax player dude or the guy jerking off in the trophy or...

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Images and animated gifs aren't supported. Fortunately, wherever there is a need, there is technology to address it - in this case, an image to text converter at https://www.text-image.com/convert/ascii.html.

3* recruits in this cycle are celebrated with the dancing Jean-Claude van Dam gif. All you have to do is take a screenshot, pass it to the converter, and the result is an uncannily accurate replica of the gif:

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hhhhdyyhdmmdyyyyyyyhdhyhhyyyoshddoshdhhsyhhhdmmd

hyyhhyhhmmmsoooosyysyddhhsdddmmmmsshhhhsyhyoshdm

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dmmhhhmmddddmmdhs++oysydmNNhhsddNNmys+/oyyoyshdh

mmmddhhdmmNmmmdms+oyhhhdNNNmdddmNmmh+/oyyyooshdh

ddmhdhdmmmdmmmdy+ossyhdNNmmmdddyo++/+syo/-+oyhhh

mmdhhhdhyyyhhhhsoshdddmmddhddhhyooosyyo-``-/oso+

ddddhhhhhhhhhhddhhddhhhmhhddddddhhhsoo+-::::+/:-

hhdddddddddddddmdddhhhhNddddmmmmmmdooysoyyssyo/:

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mNNNmNNNNNNNNmNNNNNNMMMMMNmmhhmmhdysoohmNNNNNNmd

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mNNNNNmmmNNNMMMMMNNNNMMMNNNNNmmdsyysodmNNNNNNNNN

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mNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNMNmmNMNNNNNNNmdhooooymNNNNNdsmNN

mmmNNmmmNNNNNNNmmyosmNNNNmmmmmddsooohmNNNNmsohNN

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mmmmmmmmmNNNdhyoooooydmyyssyyhdddhooohNNNmyooshN

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Looking forward to my post turning gold very soon (oh wait nvm)

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I used to do these by hand back in the the day! You need to convert to a monospace font like Courier. Then reduce the font size so it fits onto a single page. Using Bold type also helps. Finally, the result appears to be a woman on her hands and knees.

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I guess it's a high-tech Rorschach test - I saw a glass of champagne and a beer schooner.

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author

Are the champagne glass and schooner behind the floating doll heads that are dripping blood from their eyes?

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That's a damn good question, which gif will Starkey post??

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Miller Moss should be announcing any day

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He likes furd but they still havent offered him (for some reason) so IDK why he'd even care about them at this point. Hes strong on the LA schools though, but Id think Cal football future wise would be better for him than UCLA...but hes local down there so that probably matters to him. Hes also a big family kid so that might matter for home games

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RemovedMar 8, 2020Liked by Rick Chen
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19th on 247, but it being so early and thus only 4 commits it really doeant mean anything lol

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4th in the conference on average ratings, per 247.

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Actually 3rd (Oregon 1, USC 2 with one 5 star and two 4 stars) in conf now and 16th in the nation WooOWOOooooOOo! Except it means nothing, Georgia is 17th and LSU 20th or something. haha

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People like to look at average ratings early in the recruiting cycle because regular ratings punish teams for not having numbers. So a school like LSU who is in it for like all the 5*, but have only converted a few so far will be ranked like 20th while a Cal building a class of 3* and 4* an be ranked higher for having more recruits.

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The same rivals link you sent includes average rankings and allows you to sort according to average ranking. The overall team rankings are a function of both the total number of commits and the average ranking.

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