Alright! Here it is, our first weekly mailbag for the 2022 season.

As a reminder for those who may have missed the board the other day, I’ll be posting a weekly mailbag thread every Saturday evening or Sunday morning (depending on game times, when those start happening) and answering all the questions in the days following.

Onto the fun stuff!

Has Damien Moore resolved his ball security issues?

Well, it’s hard to know just yet. Ball security is one of those things that really never gets ‘solved’ until you can look back a full season and not remember it being an issue. I’m certain it’s been a point of emphasis for both Moore and the coaching staff this offseason, so I’d be pretty surprised if it wasn’t at all better. We won’t know for sure until there are some more live hits, but I don’t think I can remember any fumbles from him this spring (and a cursory look at my notes supports that).

TL;DR: Maybe?

What will special teams look like this year from a personnel perspective?

Well, that’s quite the question.

Right away, I can tell you that in all likelihood it’ll be senior Jamieson Sheahan as the punter and redshirt senior Dario Longhetto taking up the place-kicking duties again this fall.

The kick and punt returners so far have been: J.Michael Sturdivant, Mavin Anderson, Lu-Magia Hearns, Mason Mangum, Jeremiah Hunter, Justin Richard Baker and Jaydn Ott. I’d say early favorites for punt returning have to be Anderson and Baker. Kick returning is a little more up in the air.

What do you know of UC Davis? Any film/highlights you have found that you would like to link for us?

From what I know as a coach, they run a lot of fly motions on offense and are generally a team that is going to try and beat you on leverage rather than talent. They get decently creative with everything that they do on offense trying to accomplish that goal, but trying to account for that large of a talent gap is never an easy task. That being said, if Cal doesn’t play them honest they could sneak a couple decent chunk plays in there.

Defensively I want to say they’re a 3-3 stack team (think San Diego State or any Rocky Long coached team), but they’re not overly athletic or overly big in the box. On paper, it’s a great matchup for Cal.

But, at the end of the day UC Davis is a really good football team. The FCS coaches poll currently has them ranked at No. 16 in the country (just five spots behind No. 11 Sacramento State, who gave the Bears a run for their money last year). Also, it’s worth noting that the Aggies knocked off Tulsa at Tulsa in the opening week of last season.

UC Davis is going to unload a lot of trickery coming into Berkeley, and it will absolutely be chomping at the bit to knock off ‘big brother.’ Cal should win that game, but the Aggies are not a team to ignore.