It's the most normal the Cal Football team has felt in seven months.

"We had just gotten into our 7 on 7," head coach Justin Wilcox remarked "and Nikko (Remigio) turned around, came up and said 'this is the most normal I've felt all year,' I said 'me too.'"

Amid a global pandemic, virtual classes, daily coronavirus testing, and a year that was postponed and brought back, Cal managed to hold a football practice Friday afternoon.

There were some key differences. As you can tell by the videos below, Cal held all their post-practice media availability on Zoom. Cal, who got approval from local health officials to practice last night, did so today in two groups.

"We were able to get out in our first group of 75 and had a practice," Wilcox said, "and brought out the second group, which is about 35 or so and had a practice with them. There was just incredible excitement to be back out there, coaches, players, everybody."

It's a different experience for the Bears with the two groups, with the second group starting their practice on another field about 30 minutes before the first group concludes practice. Team meetings have been held on Zoom, with players sitting in chairs out on the concourse of Memorial Stadium, watching on a screen set up outdoors. The hydration has been different, as there aren't 'hydro-techs' running around to keep guys hydrated, it's on the players themselves, and there's been the daily COVID-19 testing, which hasn't been pleasant.

"You're getting a nose swab to start your day," Mike Saffell said, "that isn't the most pleasant way to start your day, that's not the way you'd like to do it but it's the new normal."

The new normal is what this is right now, and it will be for the rest of the 2020 season. There were some pieces of the old normal. Offense was installed. The Bears ran through individual drills. The defense talked trash. And Elijah Hicks had an interception off a tip from Kuony Deng.

"KD made a nice little pass-breakup, I caught it, and we started turning up a little," Hicks said, "we're just trying to have fun."

That's been the prevailing message Wilcox has had, that you don't know how much fun you lose until the ability to play is gone. You could hear a little bit of the relief in players' voices as they got the opportunity to get back to playing.

"It's football, we all love it, all the guys out there," freshman safety Trey Paster noted, "there's a lot of people that got us back there on the field safely. There was a lot of energy on the defensive side, really on both sides, it was just fun today, fun to get back to football."

Getting back on the field was a big deal for everyone, but for Kuony Deng, it had been a lot longer. Nearly ten months after the Redbox Bowl, following surgery and missing the four spring practices, Deng returned 25 pounds heavier than a year ago, moving well and taking over a leadership role.

"I've been carrying this for about six months now, " Deng noted, "the last time everybody had seen me on the field was ten months, since the Redbox Bowl. I committed to changing my body, putting in the extra work since December 31st really. I've been carrying 245+ since March and it feels natural to me. Personally I feel quicker, a little more sudden."

It's early enough that there isn't talk of depth chart, who's running with a first team group, or even thoughts on Cal's season opener against Washington. Wilcox laughed at the idea of a depth chart release. There is a feeling among the players that in coming back, they get to take a shot at what they've been working toward through Wilcox's tenure so far, a shot at the Pac-12 and taking the next step as a program.

"We have high expectations as a team, like we're going to have every year," Saffell noted, "I think in the coach Wilcox era, it has been boiling down to have a year like this, where everyone can come back healthy, we have experience on both sides of the ball, schemes are in, and there's little adjustments put in, then we've got to play. There's been four years of development under coach Becton and sometimes the stars align and you get a year like this when everyone's going to be rolling and healthy. That's definitely this year for us. That doesn't translate automatically to wins, we've got to go out there, roll the ball out, play with high effort and energy like I know we're capable of doing. The leadership and experience we have speaks for itself."