Today as a part of the Cal football countdown, we're picking out a few quotes from Justin Wilcox from the lunch time media availability, talking recruiting, the wide receiver situation, and the Life After Ball Program
With how much the recruiting process has sped up, how much more difficult is it to figure out how much a guy loves football?
That’s a really good question, and once you watch the tape and hit the academic report, then you dig into their background, watch them work out, how they interact with their team, you can kinda get a feel. Also, you have to be aware that some guys didn’t grow up with the same expectation, you’d love to say innately they’re all that way (love playing football, love competition, etc.), but I don’t know if you’re going to fill a team of 85 scholarships with guys that are all that way.
You’re looking for that as much as possible, you don’t want to see a guy that finds his way out of stuff, and just plays because he’s talented, because that’s out there, like ‘I don’t want to do anymore reps because I’ve done that or I’ve got my offer.’ It’s just like, hold on a second, and there’s a couple, there’s some highly recruited guys that are like that. That doesn’t mean they won’t be successful, but to me that’s ‘hold on a second, red flag, let’s dig in some more, why is this.’ I think you’re just real conscious of that.
But to your point, we’ve got to be careful and tread lightly with how everybody’s out (recruiting) so early (in high school careers), it’s freshmen, sophomores. It’s such a race in the recruiting, ‘you’ve got to get in because he’s already got three offers,’ well he’s fifteen years old. ‘Is he gonna commit, because if he’s gonna commit maybe we’ll talk about it, but if not, what are we doing, he’s got three years of high school.’ We talk them through that, it’s just, slow down, we’ll be alright.
What do you see at wide receiver, what needs to happen?
It’s unproven obviously, you’ve got Jordan Duncan coming back, he’s had production in the past. Really, it’s with Nikko in the slot, Jeremiah (Hawkins) taking the next step there. I think Nikko is primed to make a move. Then it’s some of the young guys, Monroe Young, the two transfers we need some help from. Trevon Clark and Kekoa Crawford who just got there. Makai Polk, who started out really strong in the spring, and you can see the athleticism. He’s still young, and how we utilize McCallan Castles, because McCallan is a pretty gifted kid. We’ll see if he’s ready to be an in-line guy or if he’s going to continue to be removed from the formation. We’ll see where that one goes, but in my mind he has the ability to be a productive player even removed from the formation, he has the skills to do it, but we’ve got to go do it.
Then the running back thing, Chris Brown took a leap in the spring, had a little tweak at the end but he’s fine, then behind him, you have a group with Dancy, who can give you that shiftiness, Deshawn Collins who can run, Alex Netherda will bang around and help us do something, DeCarlos Brooks was a really productive high school player, we’ll see, so it’ll be more than one. If you’re asking me, Chris came out and separated himself a little bit there in spring, then there’s that committee.
How much has the LAB Program helped, with bringing in some of the former and current pros, like CJ Anderson and Justin Forsett?
That and some of the professional roundtables we do in the spring, not just the NFL, but the professionals from the Bay Area that come in and meet with our players. Our players soak it up, they wear those guys out, it’s awesome. That’s a real thing, it’d be a great story, there’ll be fifteen visitors at a time, they’ll come into the team room and we’ll talk about them. We start with a mandatory team meeting and talk about what these people do as a profession. They’ll go up to dinner (in the facility dining commons), they’ll go and sit at the tables, we’ll tell our guys ‘if you’re interested in what they do, go talk to them, get to know them, this is how you develop networking and relationships, if you don’t want to be there, don’t go.’ 99% of our guys go up, then our players won’t leave. They just go from table to table, it’s the coolest thing. They get relationships, emails, internships, and it’s really cool.
(Wendell Hunter), Francis Blay-Miezah just came back, the firefighter (Walé Forrester) is a big one. We have firefighter, investment bankers, tech, we’ve got everything, A-Z, we usually do three (roundtables) in the spring, then we’ll have the NFL guys coming back, it’s awesome, the whole life after football, you can have it. There’s enough time in a day to do that, get ready, be a great football player, go to school and preparing for life after football. That’s what we should be doing for them and they take advantage of it.
You kinda explain to them who these people are, what they do, and how it can affect their life and they have enough awareness to say ‘alright, I’ll have dinner (with them).’ It’s really cool that the guests are trying to go home after a couple hours, and Zeandae Johnson just jumps tables and won’t leave them alone, which is pretty cool. Elijah Hicks is the same.
With the recruits, we talk about the LAB program a lot, they don’t get to see that, they get the video, which is impactful, but to see it in practice would be pretty neat as well.