Cal Football: What Comes Next for 2021

Athletic director Jim Knowlton laid out the reasoning for postponing the season in a call with assorted media members Tuesday.

"I just think we came to the point where we no longer felt comfortable with the spread of the virus," Knowlton said, "it’s still not controlled and some of the challenges we’ve heard with the complications of COVID, it just didn’t make sense for us to put our student athletes in a position where they were competing against each other. It was a tough decision, and I’m proud of our chancellors, presidents and our commissioner, they led us through pros and cons as we consulted with medical experts, but at the end of the day we just didn’t feel, at this point in time, that moving to competitions was the right thing to do.

"We’re going to support our student athletes, we’ll work really hard to make sure we get them another year of eligibility and we’ve guaranteed their scholarships. Playing competitions for the rest of the year will not be in the cards for our student athletes."

That's that for now. If there's a spring football season, it'll be a whole new world to explore, as teams prepare for some sort of shortened season, with the Mercury News' Jon Wilner and Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm bringing forth ideas that could make playing two football seasons a possibility (with the second of the two being delayed).

This isn't ideal for anyone, just as these past five months have been as a whole. But, there's still plenty to talk about in the meantime. Justin Wilcox's squad, despite the looming threat of postponing the season, has been on fire, with ten new commitments over the past six weeks from the 2021 class. 2022 recruiting will heat up beginning on September 1st, when coaches will be more able to contact recruits from the next class up. That doesn't slow down.

Then there's much more to learn about how the Bears will juggle roster size, with scholarship limits likely to be odd going forward. Integrating early enrollees, of which there are five known right now (TE Jermaine Terry, DL Akili Calhoun, DB Kaleb Higgins, OL Ryan Lange, and OLB Patrick Hisatake) could be a possibility. I'm going to be here for it.

Knowlton noted Tuesday that he has treated the pandemic as a "relatively short term problem," and that they do feel like in 12-18 months, they'll be back where they were financially, and it was a good reminder that this isn't going to last forever. When we get back to football, it'll be better than ever.

Until then the 2021 close could be the most interesting piece going forward for the Bears, as Cal has a chance to finish with the highest ranked class that they've had since the end of the Jeff Tedford-era. Here's a look at the biggest targets.