Amador Valley High recruit Brady Nassar plays his football around 30 miles away from Cal’s campus, so there has been a natural attraction for the 2023 edge rusher. He has plenty of familiarity with the Bears and has been on the radar for the program for a while now. Still, his offer from the program didn’t come through until last month.

Now that he has an offer to play at Cal, Nassar can begin to seriously factor the program into his recruiting process. The 6-foot-5 defensive end and tight end has been busy this spring taking visits and getting to know coaches at schools across the country.

In addition to seeing Cal in person this offseason, Nassar has been on visits to Washington, Oregon State and San Jose State. Those trips have given him some perspective on the process overall and have helped him to start to have a better understanding of his recruitment.

“I love all the visits and all the cool things you get to see that other people miss out on,” he said. “The relationships with the coaches is probably my favorite, because you get to meet all these guys that get paid a lot of money to do this job and in my book are the best teachers in the world.

“... So, I’m meeting all these great teachers in the game of football, and I get to soak up pieces of information from each one of them and it makes me a better person and better player myself without even being on the roster yet. So, I’m just looking for the best teacher out there that I can sign on with and get better with for four years.”

Nassar was able to watch Cal practice earlier in the spring and he returned last weekend for the team’s spring game as the Bears wrapped up the practice schedule. Seeing the team in a game-like setting was especially important for Nassar, bcause he was one of the recruits visiting that weekend who has been on campus before.

“Well, I’ve been there a good amount of times, so I’m used to all the fancy stuff they usually show,” Nassar said. “So, I’m down to the little things like, how you play and how you approach every day. It’s good to see the competition out there. You don’t see that every day in the practices, because they can’t go 100% as they do in a scrimmage. It’s good to see the style of play because that’s how it would be if I went there.

“It was good to watch both the defensive and offensive sides to try and envision where I would be out on the field if I ended up there. So, that’s really key in a scrimmage to see myself in their uniform.”

Any time Nassar is able to get on campus he gets time to spend with the Cal coaching staff. That has been important in building his connection to the school, and his relationships with several of the members of Justin Wilcox’s staff stand out at this point in the process.