The past month marks a bit of a crossroads at the running back and fullback position moving toward the future. Over the past month, both fullbacks from the Cal roster in 2020, Drew Schlegel and Zach Angelillo, have entered the transfer portal. Marcel Dancy returned for one final season and Cal's top running back target in the 2021 class, Byron Cardwell, picked Oregon over the Bears, Auburn, and Texas A&M.
Cal returns all but one of the players who took a snap at running back in 2020, as Bradrick Shaw will not be back on the roster this year. They don't have a fullback, but they have options at the position moving forward. The Bears also don't have a running back for the 2021 class, but with the coming scholarship crunch, there's space in the 2022 class and enough players currently in the running back room who could cover that loss.
At Running Back
Returning:
Senior Marcel Dancy
Junior Chris Brown Jr.
Sophomore DeCarlos Brooks
Freshman Damien Moore
Freshman Chris Street
Freshman Ashton Stredick (walk-on)
Departing:
Graduate Bradrick Shaw
Not landing Byron Cardwell is a loss for this Cal team, as the Bears could have used a player with his home-run ability at the running back position. While Cal doesn't necessarily have that type of player in their stable of backs (Chris Street has been seen as a speed back, while Stredick has recorded a 4.48 40 in the past), they have guys who have been productive in Brown, Dancy, and Moore. Moore in particular excelled against Stanford in 2020, rushed for 121 yards on 10 carries, and ended up leading Cal in rushing for the year.
In addition, Cal could end up adding a player in the transfer portal to their RB room, though class balance would be a challenge to balance on that angle.
This is a group that offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave felt comfortable with and one that RB coach Aristotle Thompson felt had enough depth to where there wasn't a dropoff when guys subbed out. Brown, Dancy, and Moore should garner the early reps in spring ball, but any one of the other three could earn a spot as well.
Fullback
Musgrave stated multiple times in the lead-up to the 2020 season that he was going to use a fullback in the offense, making them more difficult to defend. That didn't appear to come to fruition, as Schlegel finished with 2 receptions for 14 yards and Angelillo took only one rep at the position all year.
Now both are set to play elsewhere in 2021, heading for the transfer portal after earning a graduate certificate (Schegel, in Entrepreneurship) and a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies (Angelillo, who focused on American public policy and its effect on race, class, and inequality) respectively. There's little doubt that Musgrave wants to use the fullback position in some shape or fashion, and there's a few ways the Bears could go about filling the spot.
1. Moving someone to the position - Both Kyle Smith and Evan Tattersall have played fullback before in high school, as did Ricky Correia in certain packages.
2. Use an H-back - This is something Musgrave did last spring, using both Gavin Reinwald and Elijah Mojarro in H-back roles, even occasionally lining up at the fullback spot. Reinwald has thoroughly improved as a blocker since he came to Cal, and might be a fit for an expanded role.
3. Hit up the transfer portal again - This would be a move undertaken after spring ball, as the spring semester has started at Cal, but it's one that could happen. It seems less likely than the other scenarios, mainly since there aren't too many fullbacks in the portal to begin with.
Cal does have the scholarship numbers to add another player at either running back or fullback (it's much likelier they add a running back through the portal), and that may be the piece to keep an eye out for moving forward.
