This week, we're putting up a 3-2-1, talking about why a couple players love the game of football, how much the offensive line means going forward, and some thoughts on the current Cal coaching staff.

Why They Love Football

This has been a time where I've been trying to put out pieces that are a little more personal than what the daily grind usually has me doing. At the heart of it all is the sport of football, which is what I write most about out of any sport and what drives a significant portion of this site.

A significant focus in the Justin Wilcox era has been recruiting guys who really 'love football.' To be frank, that's everyone's focus, or at least should be everyone's focus in recruiting, but asking the question of why they love football leads to some introspection and excellent answers. This week, I talked to two Washington state prospects, 2020 WR Justin Baker and 2021 OLB Josh McCarron about why they play football.

"I’ve played football from such a young age, I started playing football at eight years old. I always wanted to play football and I don’t really know why, my dad ran track in college, and I ran track when I was younger, because you can run track before you can play football. That was one of my main sports, but then football started. My rookie year, I scored one touchdown, but after that, my second year I scored 24 touchdowns, I was the quarterback, we ran the read option and I fell in love with it. For me, football is so fun, to be able to work so hard at something, there’s so much benefit and so much you can learn from it. Football has taught me so much about myself, other people, and life in general. I wouldn’t be who I am today without football." - WR signee Justin Baker

"I play football because there’s no better way to get away from life. You can’t be thinking about that ex-girlfriend, you can’t be thinking about your mom, you can’t be thinking about what’s going on at home. You have to be in the moment or you’re going to get killed. There’s no better escape from life and I play football because it has brought me a different reality and some awesome teammates to build that new reality with." - OLB target Josh McCarron

Burl Toler

It took a bit, but Saturday afternoon saw my public records requests for the contracts of every Cal assistant finally go through. With those contract requests came an addendum to Burl Toler's contract.

There had been rumors over the past couple weeks of another school trying to poach Toler. I can't speak to how far those conversations went. I can say that Toler's yearly salary got bumped up $40,000 per the contract addendum.

While I wouldn't expect Toler to go anywhere, as he and his family is so enmeshed in the Bay Area (father was a linebacker at Cal, grandfather was a famed member of the 1951 USF team and longtime NFL ref, sister works in the Cal athletic department), this is a bit of a shift at the school under Justin Wilcox, with a willingness to pay assistant coaches.

On the Line

Today would have marked about eight days since the end of Spring Football. By now, I would've probably gotten down to breaking down the offensive line as a part of a position by position look. I can't do that in the same way thanks to only four practices out of the originally planned fifteen taking place.

The offensive line is going to be critical to Cal's success in whatever the 2020 season looks like, with three key seniors in Jake Curhan, Mike Saffell and Valentino Daltoso, along with two guys who played thirteen games in 2019 in Matt Cindric and McKade Mettauer. There's also guys in Henry Bazakas, Brandon Mello, Erick Nisich and Gentle Williams who have played significant time, and Brayden Rohme impressed during the limited spring practice time.

If Cal is going to take the next step, it comes in improving on the line. That comes in making sure Chris Brown's median yards per carry isn't two yards, as the Cal running back could be boom or bust based on blocking. The Cal line dealt with injuries most of the year, not getting the same group consistently until the Washington State game. That led to allowing 46 sacks on the year, including nine against Oregon State.

Development and health will play a massive role for the Bears under Angus McClure's tutelage on the line in 2020

Who was the best player among the coaches?

I put this forward as a discussion question on our board, and I still don't think it has a concrete answer. Every coach on Cal's staff played college football, some at higher levels than others, but everyone played.

I come down to a few answers, either Peter Sirmon, Marques Tuiasosopo, or Bill Musgrave, because they are the three that made it to the NFL.

Tui may end up getting the nod here for a couple of reasons, being that he's still the only player to have a 300 yard passing, 200 yard rushing outing, and that he earned Heisman votes after his senior year. There's a mini-documentary on Tui's performance in that game, a win over Stanford.

What does Ryan Betley bring to the table for Cal Basketball?

Cal landed the Penn grad transfer Friday, a much needed addition for a perimeter shooting starved team. Our Ben Parker has a statistical dive comparing him to three other Ivy League transfers (Grant Mullens, Dwight Tarwater and Stone Gettings) and Kareem South here.

Betley brings another wing type to the Bears, something they need with the transfer portal entries of Jacoby Gordon and Juhwan Harris-Dyson. He rebounds bigger than his height, is a solid shooter from beyond the arc and doesn't turn the ball over. Kenpom has some good numbers on him.

As a sophomore (where Betley was second team all-Ivy League), he shot 44.8% from 3 in conference play. He had a turnover percentage of 12.5% (13.3% this past year), a number that would've put him second among regular contributors on this Cal team (only behind South). He takes a similar percentage of the shots that South does, varying from 20.4% to 22.3% of shots from year to year (South was at 22.3%).

One thing to look at is whether Betley can keep up his percentages at Cal, as South's 3 point percentages dropped 6-7% in Berkeley. It'll depend on who the Bears can land in the transfer portal as they have two slots in the class remaining.

I'm not going to prognosticate as to when football will be back. There's still far too many variables that we don't have locked down in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic that has me writing this column from my backyard. I will predict a couple things:

- The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan documentary produced by ESPN debuting this evening, will be enjoyable.

- I expect Cal to be at double-digit commitments by the projected end of this dead period (May 31st). They stand at six right now. It's a weird time where common sense would make you think players would hold off on committing. They're not, and things are even speeding up for a handful of schools. Cal only had one commit at this time last year for the 2020 class.

- I will continue my 'Why they Coach' series this week with Aristotle Thompson (though this isn't a prediction)

Stay safe and sane everybody.