The Cal Football Countdown reaches 27, the jersey number of one of their stars in the secondary. Ashtyn Davis, the four-time track and field All-American, is slated to start at safety again for the Bears in 2019. He's on the Hornung Award watchlist for the most versatile player. He was voted as a second team preseason all-Pac-12 player. PFF graded him fifth highest among Power 5 safeties in 2018. He made Bruce Feldman's annual list of freaks in college football.

He also made this hit.

Does Davis pay any attention to this stuff?

"Not at all," Davis said Friday, "I have a Twitter, I'm not on Twitter. I usually don't know about these things until people mention them way later. I try not to focus on that, I just want to make the main thing the main thing, and do what allows us to be successful."

That's the kind of mentality that got Davis to the football field in Berkeley in the first place, as Davis's journey to being a likely NFL draft pick in 2020 started by walking on.

As a Recruit:

Davis was initially set to come to Cal for track, but he wanted to play football. So he repeatedly emailed assistant AD of Football Administration (then the Director of Football Operations and a fellow Santa Cruz native) Andrew McGraw, until he had a spot on the team in the fall of 2016. He came on as a walk-on, while he had a track scholarship, but couldn't take it if he wanted a spot on the roster, as the scholarship would've applied to football.

Since then:

Davis actually earned his first start at cornerback in 2016, starting the final three games of the season at cornerback. Davis didn't truly get started to what we see now until the final six games of 2017, where he started at safety. Since then, Davis has started every game in the defensive backfield. He's also held primary kickoff return duties since 2017, as he qualified for NCAA Championships in the hurdles in four consecutive years.

2018 Stats: 56 tackles, 1.5 TFLs, 4 INTs, 9 PBUs, 1 fumble recovery, 1 KR TD, 1 pick-six

Davis's Role

Cal doesn't differentiate between their safeties with a free/strong or field/boundary designation, but Davis is closer to the traditional free safety with his ability to play 'center field' when the Bears go cover 3. His ability to play the middle third of the field, then break to deep balls on either side of the field is impressive, and what makes him a potential next level player.

He's going to leave big shoes to fill after 2019, likely to Daniel Scott, as Davis is one of the best tacklers on defense as well. Cal has at least four more months with the 'football player that runs track,' so enjoy Davis while you can.