Spring Football Roundtable: Position Groups and Playing Time Battles

We talk about our key spring football plotlines

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We begin with a prompt.

1. What’s the most important battle/position that needs to be resolved by the end of Spring Ball?

2. Which position group is the most unpredictable in how the depth chart will shake out and why?

Piotr: 1. QB is the only correct answer, otherwise, it will be the OL depth chart, and then who is next to Daniel Scott at Safety 2. OL, there is a lot of movement and outside of Cindric there can be movement horizontally (Coleman shifting from LG to LT) or vertically (moving up and down the depth chart)

SGBear: Piotr has the obvious top issues, so it's more the subsequent issues - development of talented/inexperienced WR crew, OLB depth, BRETT's recovery, and special team management.

Berkelium97: QB, obviously. I'd rather listen to a three-hour slide-whistle rendition of "Tribute to Troy" than watch an Arizona-esque offensive outing again. I want to be optimistic that the team can develop a functional QB this season, but the state of backup QBs under Wilcox has been woeful. Quickly finding QB1 and focusing his reps on the 1s will be essential for building rapport with his O-line and WRs.

Jesse Stewart (Cal Rivals): Just to be contrarian, I think the biggest battle and most important one is actually going to be outside linebacker. Cal can't afford another year with a negligible pass rush. Obviously, the quarterback is a huge battle but I personally think they'll be fine at that position no matter what. 2. It's the offensive line. There is no other answer. It's gonna be a lot of new faces this year.

Piotr T Le: Fun fact Cal hasn’t had a double-digit sack guy since Cam Jordan lol

Jesse Stewart (Cal Rivals): That is not a very fun fact. Cam Jordan 9.5 in 2019! Kyle Kragen had 8!

Piotr T Le: The thing with Wilcox 1.0 is that our defensive backfield was so good that not a lot of teams wanted to run deep passing concepts against us. It was always short to intermediate, and we never had the uber athletes to get to the QB in < 2 seconds.

Jesse Stewart (Cal Rivals): One check, the last Cal player to record double digit sacks was Zack Follett. Okay I made it to 2004 and there are no longer sack stats available…

TD: Going unconventional but NT is still of big concern. Cal's wear and tear on defense stems from teams that run the ball with aggression and the last serviceable NT we had was Chris Palmer and even then he could only do so much 2. Everyone likes to say QB is the most important and unpredictable but for me, it’s the WRs. They are all so young and inexperienced so the outlook is bleak but hopefully, one way or the other Hunter and Sturdivant are starters because we've seen what happens with Cal without WRs and even teams like Alabama when everyone goes down (national championship 2022).