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Cal Football Countdown: 59 Days, A Good What If, Part 3

Welcome back to the Countdown to Kickoff series, where you are undoubtedly wondering what unexpectedly good scenario can occur for Cal, the implications might result. The point of these pieces is to keep it fairly grounded.

One of the things we can, discuss, though, is the most important season of Justin Wilcox's tenure coming up, and the choices he's already made heading into it. The Cheez-It Bowl capped an entire season's worth of offensive ineptitude-- take your pick of which -- and gave him ample justification to revamp that side of the ball, and a fancy multi-year extension suggested that he might have the budget to do so pretty easily. But Wilcox chose, as he often does, to bet on himself and who he's selected, so he ran it back with a few more tweaks, moving Marques Tuiasosopo to tight ends, Nick Edwards to running backs, Burl Toler to wide receivers, and Beau Baldwin back to quarterbacks.

No change was untenable, and some change was preferable. Somehow, we ended up in the middle ground, getting change, but not enough to temper skepticism -- the least satisfying version of about 14,600,005 different possibilities.

But what if those changes are already working?

I offer you a couple of tea leaf readings, which, while generous, indicate that maybe the worst of the offense has already passed us by:

#1 - Receiver recruiting has ticked up

It is no secret that I adore the receivers being brought in this year -- the combination of Jeremiah Hunter, Casey Filkins, and Tommy Christakos gives the Bears three distinct YAC threats at three different positions. Each projects clearly to a spot on the offense, and flashes "play early" potential, too. That has coincided with Burl Toler's time at the position, and while Edwards did bring in a blue-chipper in Nikko Remigio, the rest of his work, particularly in on-field player development, left a lot to be desired. It's hard to pin all of it on Edwards, because the quarterback position was also highly dysfunctional last season, but it is fair to note that none of the receivers demonstrated any growth between 2017 and 2018. A few actually regressed. Of all the offseason moves made, I'd have to wage changing over to Toler, an already experienced wide receiver's coach himself, has the highest odds of paying off.

#2 - Baldwin

Over the last two years, the Bears haven't been blessed with much consistency at quarterback. Ross Bowers got hurt and disappeared, taking the truth with him to Northern Illinois. The grand McIlwain experiment was a bust, which leaves, if you can believe it, Chase Garbers as the first real returning incumbent, and even that's not a sure thing. Baldwin's move to a more hands-on role here projects well if you consider his long and successful history at the position, which tells us has meant really maximizing the player's skill set -- getting Vernon Adams to run, not forcing it onto Gage Gubrud, for example. Spring showed the first buds of that with Garbers, at least, and Devon Modster could still catch up. Perhaps the summer to come can do more for both.

A Final Note from Trace -

One thing that's happening this year, as opposed to last year around this time, is recruiting balance. Cal has a commit for every single position group as of July 3rd. That's the result of refocusing recruiting strategy for the Bears, and a needed one. Currently, 10 of the 15 commits are on offense, something that's also needed with the rash of transfers on offense as well.

As for the onfield performance, we'll see how much continuity helps the Bears in just under a month, when Fall Camp kicks off for the Bears.

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