A New Day for Ray Hudson

On August 12th of 2017, TE and at the time 5th year senior Ray Hudson broke his foot in a team scrimmage. The Bears held out hope of him potentially playing by the end of the season, but by the Oregon State game, they finally put him on their 'out for the year' list with the dreaded lower body injury designation.

The thought of him returning for a sixth season of eligibility seemed improbable at best, but on January 23rd, Hudson was announced to have received his sixth year of eligibility. For the Bears' TE, even though his foot was still healing, when that announcement came in, he knew his foot was going to be ready to go for his second chance at a final season.

"During the process, that's a stressful time," Hudson noted, "you're in limbo, you don't really know what it's going to be, but once I got the call, I knew my foot was going to be 100%. I've got the time, I'm working through it, and to be at the point I am now with where my foot is is remarkable."

Hudson estimated that his foot is around 80%, and in the first couple days of Cal's spring ball, he's been going about 50% to just get the timing back on his routes.

"It's great just to have Ray back," offensive coordinator and now TE coach Beau Baldwin noted, "just to have him healthy again for Ray himself. It's great for us as an entire offense to have some guys come back, and someone like Ray with some gametime experience and a skillset that brings some things that we can do in this offense, you saw it last spring."

To say it simply, just by coming back, Hudson's the most productive player at the TE position that Cal has. The experience is invaluable, he's a massive framed target which will help any one of the quarterbacks who earns the starting job, and that goes along with Hudson using his time while injured to study the playbook.

READ: Hudson Returns as Bears Look for a Y

"I pretty much live in the playbook," Hudson said, "I treat it as a four-unit class. I don't want to have to worry about figuring out the play when I see a signal, I want to know it off the bat, almost to the point where I know what every position is doing, because I can dictate what I do, seeing coverages and stuff like that."

There's a genuine effort on Hudson's part to make this a final year worth remembering, and that's a big reason why Baldwin is excited to have him back.

"I get the most excited seeing him out again," Baldwin said, "for him. That's what's most exciting. We're gonna coach for a lot of years, and, knock on wood, you hope you're gonna keep earning the right to keep coaching, but at the end we're going to coach for a lot of years, while these student athletes, they get a four-year window. I know Ray's pushing six now, but for the most part they get a four year window. It hurts you when you see a guy who all of a sudden, loses part of that four year window, you're just excited to see him come back."

Now, Hudson has a dual task of cementing the tight end position and mentoring the younger group. There's a number of young tight ends in Gavin Reinwald, Ben Moos, Matt Laris, and the incoming McCallan Castles to mentor, a responsibility that Hudson takes seriously, thanks to the other TEs at Cal that mentored him.

"That's the biggest thing, passing down what I've learned over the years," Hudson said, "The guys who did it before me, Richard Rodgers, Darius Powe, and Stephen Anderson, my thing is to pass down what I've learned, and to keep that tradition going at Cal, and if I can give even a little bit and some of that sticks, seeing those guys grow and help them mold, I've got one year left and after that I want this tight end position to grow and be a staple at Cal for years to come. It was gone for a while, and it's nice to see it back."