**Golden Bear Report is going position by position, alternating offense and defense, to assess where things stand for Cal entering spring practice next month. So far, we've covered the QBs, ILBs/OLBs and TEs.**

In ‘modern’ football, there is much ado about the edge rusher. A supposed apex predator with the ability to kill a game plan on any given snap. When people think about run and pass defense on the first level, that is usually where the initial thought goes.

But that is not the right place to look.

For teams that want to control the line of scrimmage on defense (so: all of them), but especially defenses like Cal, the defensive linemen are absolutely pivotal.

The Bears run a 3-4 base defense, meaning at their absolute core there are three down linemen and four linebackers on the field. However, having all seven of those guys on the field at once in the spread era is not necessarily a successful strategy. More often than not, there are two interior linemen, two edge rushers, and two middle linebackers.

There will be a bigger piece about defensive structure at some point in time, but today is not that day. It is however incredibly important to know how these defensive linemen are being deployed in order to understand why and how they’re playing the snaps that they are.

Speaking of snaps, guess what the Cal defensive line is losing a lot of?

Luc Bequette and JH Tevis both led the room in defensive snaps, totaling 537 and 558 respectively. But, on the defensive line this is perhaps not as big of a loss as one may think. Being a rotational position based on the situation (and needing to give the big guys a break), there is actually a fair amount of experience returning.

Junior Ethan Saunders will enter 2022 with 265 snaps played last year, while junior Jaedon Roberts brings 176. In addition to all of this, Cal has one more X-Factor returning in the 2022 season as well.