Friday Q&A: Worries, Areas of Confidence for this Cal Team and More
It's Friday, and we're doing a football Q&A, looking at what are the biggest concerns for this Cal football team, what are three areas that inspire confidence, and more.
What are the top 3 things that "keep you up at night" (have you most worried about) regarding Cal football?
The kicking game: Cal doesn’t have a starting kicker at the moment, and kicking is one of the most important pieces in pushing a good team to a great team. It always brings me back to 2007, and while that was a flawed team to begin with, they lost Tom Schneider before the season started. With a healthy kicker, a couple of close losses may not be losses then. While kicking can be cyclical at the college level, not having someone who you feel confident with from inside 40 yards is worrying. Either Landgrebe or Siemieniec could surprise, they both have the leg strength, it’s accuracy that needs work.
Defensive Line rotation: The defensive line rotation is a bit messy right now
Left end: Luc Bequette, Tevin Paul/Rusty Becker
Nose guard: Chris Palmer or Siu Fuimaono
Right end: Lone Toailoa/Zeandae Johnson/Gabe Cherry/Chinedu Udeogu
It’s a bit of a cluster on the line as to who plays where. Nose guard with Palmer and Siu is pretty set, because those are the two guys that have the size and ability to play at the moment. Bequette’s earned his role at one DE spot, but the others are still up in the air, just due to injury during the spring. There’s plenty of potential there, but it’s unproven at the moment, and we’ll have to see more of who emerges in fall camp.
Adding Johnson into that mix, as he returns from a knee injury, muddies the water even more. While you need more than one group on the defensive line these days, you don’t want to have a ‘too many cooks’ situation, where guys aren’t getting better because they haven’t gotten enough reps.
QB: How much better are the QBs in year two of Beau Baldwin’s offense
Ross Bowers was a lot more confident in the spring, which led him to being the frontrunner in the ongoing QB competition. There’s still a bit of trepidation there just because there’s a need to see how he does against ‘live bullets’ again. Bowers has gotten better from a cerebral standpoint, he gets what he’s doing, why he’s doing it, and what adjustments need to be made to get open.
It’s still a competition though, and while Bowers is ahead, he could still be caught depending on how he opens fall camp. Every time I’ve been up to the football facility for interviews, Brandon McIlwain is usually there in some capacity, watching film or talking with coaches. He has the work ethic to be successful, though it does need to translate to the field.
What are the top 3 things that you feel are the best reasons to be optimistic about Cal football?
Leadership: This is one area where I feel that Justin Wilcox has put his stamp on the team, and the player that represents that most is Patrick Laird. Wilcox isn’t an in-your-face type, but he’s confident, and there’s a few players like that that are the leaders. Guys like Laird, Kanawai Noa, Jordan Kunaszyk, Cam Bynum, they’re not the loudest guys in the room, but they lead by example.
With Laird specifically, he’s the standard bearer as far as leaders go. He’s a former walk-on who very literally ran with his opportunity to start after Tre Watson went down a year ago. He’s using his platform to do something in the community, with his Summer Reading Challenge. He’s a little like those old E.F. Hutton commercials, where he’ll speak, and people will lean in just a little bit more to listen. Political science professors have said he’s a joy to have had in their class. There’s many good things to say about Patrick Laird, and him being a lead-by-example type is just what Wilcox and company are looking for.
OL Growth: Cal’s offensive line allowed 23 sacks in the first six games of 2017. They allowed 12 in the final 6. While those aren’t the best numbers, it shows growth, and Steve Greatwood has every single OL start from a year ago returning. That means the Bears have 76 starts on their offensive line going into 2018, a far cry from the 16 they had last year. There’s experience there, depth with the incoming class, and a group with a ton of camaraderie.
It helps that Greatwood knows what he’s doing, having done it at a high level for so long, but you can see guys getting to the second level on zone blocks, which in my mind means that they’re getting off the ball quicker, controlling the initial double team block well, and getting off guys faster. That opens up more cutback lanes for Laird and company, which makes the run game more successful.
Secondary: I’ve said this before, you don’t always get too much from Justin Wilcox in post-practice interviews, though he’s gotten way more comfortable since he’s started, but you notice patterns of who gets brought up without prompting. Without fail, it’s Cam Bynum, Elijah Hicks, Ashtyn Davis, Jaylinn Hawkins, Quentin Tartabull, Trey Turner, Chigi Anusiem, Josh Drayden, and the belief that the secondary can be the strength of the defense. Bynum is someone we’ve talked about at length, but the secondary as a whole has a ton of depth right now. There’s a two-deep rotation that doesn’t have much drop off between the two groups, which speaks to how well Gerald Alexander has done with his group.
Who's your breakout player for 2018?
Cam Bynum. It’s an easy answer here, if only because he has the potential to be a first-team all-conference performer, just based on what’s been seen this spring. I said right after spring ball that he may be the best corner at Cal since Syd’Quan Thompson, and this is his year to prove it.
Does the recent offer by Steve Greatwood to Benjamin Dooley the Nevada OT indicate that one of Cal's earlier offered OT's is unlikely or off Cal's list?
I see if more as Dooley being someone that they like, someone that may be underrated by recruiting services for playing in a smaller league. Dooley’s got ability, and both Wilcox and Greatwood love guys who have amateur wrestling in their background. Dooley, at 285 lbs, won the state title in the heavyweight division, which makes him all the more impressive.
Dooley is 6'5 but a bit undersized at somewhere above 250 but less than 275 versus typical Tackles. He's reputed to be extremely quick on his feet. Do they plan to utilize him as a pulling lineman?
The thing with linemen in a zone blocking scheme, which Cal runs a lot of, is that they have to be able to move. There are obviously times when Cal will pull linemen on power plays, pin and pulls (see Pat Laird’s final TD against Weber State for an example), but for the most part every lineman has to be able to get downfield. Dooley does that, and he has the length to be effective at either tackle or guard. So in a short answer, yes.
What are the chances that DRob leaves after this year?
With a good year, I think it’s possible he goes, he’s certainly got NFL speed. That said, D-Rob has always struck me as someone who made an academic decision to come to Cal, which leads me to believe he’ll get his degree. He’s still somewhat raw in his route running, but you can see him improving every day in that regard. No one is better on this Cal team at running a go route, and Robertson could easily be seen as a deep threat at the next level. We’ll see how this year goes, but I wouldn’t be surprised either way.