Cal QB Commit Kai Millner on a Two-Point Conversion, Signing Plans

Cal QB commit Kai Millner may have had the play of the season.

Playing in the Chilly Bowl (a postseason game put together by ArizonaVarsity.com's Chilly) for Higley, Millner and the Higley offense were looking to have a little fun in the final sendoff for the seniors. So they threw in a trick play that may have been better suited to a game of Horse.

Millner took the shotgun snap, faked the jet sweep, turned around for another run fake and threw it backwards over his head. The pass found its target, with Ian Seare being the recipient of the two pointer, one that would put Higley up 8-0 on their way to a 50-14 win over Mountain Ridge.

"Our offensive coordinator, coach Brandon Large, had ran it in some sort of scrimmage while he was in college," Millner said, "he came to us the weekend (before) the game, and asked 'what do you think about this?' He drew it up, then he says 'you're going to turn around and throw it behind your back, throw it without looking,' and I was like 'I'm gonna do what?' At first I was kind of shocked, but he had run it and when he did run it, it ended up working."

The success of the play came from the fakes of the play, along with Seare not being seen as one of Millner's main targets.

"We worked the logistics out, you see in the video I fake the jet sweep, turn around and fake to the running back, then throw it behind," Milllner noted, "we went out and practiced, repped it a few times, that receiver, Ian Seare, he's a sophomore, I think it was pretty smart putting him there because we have a couple receivers in Truitt Robinson and Branson Heywood who are senior guys, they're not expecting us to go to the younger dude. We worked him moving through the linebackers and getting behind me, me throwing that jump ball to him and him going to get it. It worked out that nobody was back there, he slipped out at the perfect time, it was executed perfectly from the handoffs to the offensive line to the catch, and it ended up going viral."

Unlike a number of famous trick plays, namely Boise State's famed Hook and Ladder in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, the Higley trickery worked every time they tried it in the practices leading up to the game. That gave Millner and company the confidence to complete it when the stakes were bumped up.

"Every time we ran it in practice, we completed it," Millner noted. "We ran into the game, everyone believed it was going to work, no one would see it coming, nobody really sees that play coming. I tried to look it up, and only found a couple of clips of somebody doing something similar. We had three or four practices where we actually repped it, and every practice we repped it, we did it three or four times. The first throw was a little low, we wanted to put it up a little more, every time we completed it, but we were perfecting it. He said we were running it the first chance we get, and we went out there and did it."

Millner would end up as the MVP of the Chilly Bowl, a game set up for two schools that didn't make the playoffs due to a smaller bracket this season, and it allowed the Under Armour All-American to play one final game with the seniors on his team.

"It was extremely fun to go out, that's the way us seniors get to go out," Millner said, "it was awesome being able to go out there one last time on the home turf, spread the ball around, get everybody's hands on the ball, score a lot of points."

The next step is getting to Cal next summer for Millner. He's not set to enroll early, a decision made when he didn't know if they were going to have a high school season in Arizona. That said, he has been getting to know offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave over the past handful of months, bonding with his future position coach.

"It has been great, coach Musgrave is a big reason why I thought Cal was a good fit for me," Millner said. "His experience is crazy, being an NFL quarterback and coaching-wise, having the knowledge he has is amazing. I talk to him on a regular basis, being able to talk to him on a regular basis has been amazing and by the time I get up there, I'll be ready to go."

Millner did get a chance to watch the Bears last Saturday against Oregon, a win that the team can build on going forward.

"(It was) huge," Millner said, "I think at first you could tell a little bit about the lack of practices with the new offense, but it was amazing to watch against a good Oregon team. I don't know if a lot of people thought they were going to pull it out. It was a super-exciting game to watch, and when that ball popped out at the end of the game, we were all screaming."

Millner will be signing with the Bears next week, along with Cal's other commits in the class. The communication has been relatively constant for the players in their group chat, and it'll continue through the group getting on campus by next summer.

"We talk constantly," Millner said of his fellow 2021 classmates, "pretty much every day, got a constant conversation running where we all have a common goal, we're excited to get up there and start this next chapter of our lives, being Cal Bears. "