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The Week In Review: Watchlists, Ole Miss, A Decommit, and More

Tre Watson is up for two awards this year, the Hornung and Doak Walker
Tre Watson is up for two awards this year, the Hornung and Doak Walker (Neville E. Guard - USA Today)

These past two weeks have marked the release of award watchlists, which have seen an uptick in Cal players on them. A year ago, the Bears had a few players on lists, with Davis Webb making the O'Brien and Maxwell watchlists, Tre Watson and Khalfani Muhammad gracing the Doak Walker watchlist, Chad Hansen forcing his way onto the Biletnikoff watchlist and Matt Anderson making the Groza Award watchlist.

This year, ten players have made their way onto watchlists, with some of those players actually coming on the defensive side of the ball.

Let's run down the list:

Tre Watson

Award Recognition: On the watchlist for the Doak Walker Award (Best RB) and Hornung Award (most versatile player)

Career Stats: 35 career games with six starts, heads into his final collegiate campaign in 2017 as the Golden Bears’ active career leader in all-purpose yards (2316), rushing yards (1307), kick return yards (657), total offense (1307) and total touchdowns (13)

I looked at Watson in our Bear Essentials piece on the running backs, but Watson has been a great fit for the system under Beau Baldwin, as someone who can catch passes, make effective cuts, and have the versatility to move around the offense.

Read: Bear Essentials: RB Spot

Ray Davison

Award Recognition: Wuerffel Award (for community service), Allstate AFCA Good Works Team (Also for community service)

Career Stats: 35 career games with 16 starts, 111 career tackles while he has added 3.0 tackles for loss (-4 yards), one interception that he returned for 39 yards and a touchdown, four pass breakups and one fumble recovery

Davison's awards are community service based, mainly for his participation in team community service efforts at local schools, but he's primed for a solid season as well. Davison has been consistently good in pass coverage during practices, and that's shown during games, as PFF College showing him as one of the best pass covering inside linebackers a year ago.

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Demetris Robertson

Award Consideration: Biletnikoff Award (best WR)

Career Stats: 50 receptions, 767 receiving yards and seven touchdown catches in 12 games with 11 starts as a true freshman.

Robertson either tied or broke freshman records that belonged to his five-star counterparts, Desean Jackson and Keenan Allen, and will look to improve on those numbers this year. He's going to be used more in the return game as well, as his speed is going to be even more of a problem for coverage units.

Read: Bear Essentials: Demetris Robertson

James Looney

Award Consideration: Nagurski Award (Best Defensive Player)

Career Stats: 89 tackles, 11.0 tackles for loss (-49 yards) and 4.5 sacks (-26 yards), 24 games played with 23 starts

Looney is the centerpiece of the defensive line this year, and as stated before, has some of the most impact on how well the defense does. 3-4 DE is a shift for him, but he should be a good fit at the spot, taking the job despite missing the spring with a leg injury.

Read: Bear Essentials: James Looney

Looney also discusses his picture day strategy below

Devante Downs

Award Consideration: Butkus Award (Best Linebacker)

Career Stats: 147 tackles, 5.0 (-26 yards) sacks, 9.0 tackles for loss (-35 yards), three interceptions that he has returned for 20 yards, three pass breakups, one fumble recovery and one forced fumble.

Downs, covered a couple days ago in the Bear Essentials series, is being used more in his best position, a gap shooting linebacker who can make explosive plays up the middle. With a smaller area to focus on, Downs has the opportunity to live up to the expectations that've been placed on him every year

Read: Bear Essentials: Devante Downs

Ray Hudson

Award Consideration: Mackey Award (Best Tight End)

Career Stats 34 receptions and 429 yards receiving, three touchdown receptions, 34 games played with nine starts

In short, Hudson's performance this year will be telling for recruits down the line, as far as what to expect from tight end spot, something he's talked about with Cal TE target Isaiah Smalls.

Read: Isaiah Smalls on why Cal made his top 7

Addison Ooms

Award Consideration: Rimington Trophy (Top Center)

Career Stats: 15 games played and 12 starts

Ooms has made a meteoric rise, going from walk-on to earning a scholarship this past spring. He's also the longest tenured offensive lineman in terms of starts. Ooms was also the only player on the line not to move around between positions during the spring.

Cameron Saffle

Award Consideration: Lott IMPACT Trophy (Top defensive player in character in performance

Career Stats: 67 tackles, 10.0 tackles for loss (-41 yards), 5.0 sacks (-25 yards) and four pass breakups

Saffle has been explosive since day one, and going back to his original high school position will give him more of an opportunity to be a pass rusher and put up more numbers in Tim DeRuyter's defense.

Matt Anderson

Award Consideration: Lou Groza Award (Top Kicker)

Career Stats 40-of-47 (85.1%) field goal attempts as well as 101-of-103 (98.1%) extra-point tries

The kicker affectionately known as "Sunshine" (for his resemblance to the character from Remember the Titans) has become near automatic, and has worked his range out past the 50 yard mark. He was on this list a year ago, and has also noted that he's more accurate than former Stanford kicker Conrad Ukropina.

Steven Coutts

Award Consideration: Ray Guy Award (Top Punter)

Career Stats (with Louisiana): 43.3 yards per punt, long of 68

The graduate transfer punter, who was a semifinalist for the award a year ago, will have to battle incumbent Dylan Klumph for the job, but he has a massive leg

What does the situation at Ole Miss mean for Cal?  

In the biggest news in the college football world, Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze resigned yesterday due to a "Pattern of poor conduct," was unveiled after a call to an escort service was discovered on Freeze's phone records (the call was reportedly made during a recruiting trip to Tampa, FL). A deeper look into the phone records aided the discover of the aforementioned pattern. Ole Miss Rivals site Rebel Grove has a great synopsis on the topic.

Read: Pattern of Poor Conduct Leads to Freeze's Fall from Grace

Ole Miss is Cal's third opponent of the upcoming season, and in addition to it being their first Power 5 opponent, road game, and game starting at 7:30 Pacific, they'll being doing it with an interim head coach. In addition to a self-imposed bowl ban this year, there is a ton of baggage surrounding the program, one that got levied with a "lack of institutional control." There's a lot of factors that play against the Rebels in their trip to Berkeley, which makes for a potential big win for Justin Wilcox early in his Cal tenure. That being said, they actually have to play the game first.

Kakala Decommitment  

It's not every day that you see a kid decommit from a P5 school in order to go to an Ivy League program, but that happened with Justin Kakala, who decided that he wanted to spend his next four years at Harvard. It's not the biggest deal, Kakala was a two-star defensive tackle who looked to be a bit more of a project, but size up front is a goal of this recruiting class, and Kakala, at 270, provided that.

Now the focus moves to guys like Tyler Manoa, Zion Tupuola-Fetui (who visited this week), and other guys they want to evaluate during the first couple weeks this fall. That's going to be important for Justin Wilcox's first full cycle of recruits.

McNeill Signs and New Numbers

Darius McNeill, the late addition to Cal's 2017 class, has officially signed with the Bears and will be on campus August 15. McNeill, with his highlights posted earlier today, should be a fit for what Wyking Jones is bringing to the table, an aggressive pressing defense turning into transition buckets on the other side.

Read: Commitment Analysis: Darius McNeill

Earlier this week, a new roster was put out on CalBears.com, with new numbers for a few different players:

- McNeill will have #1, Juhwan Harris-Dyson gets #2, transfer Paris Austin gets #3, Justice Sueing gets #10, Austin McCullough gets #12, Deschon Winston gets #25, and Grant Anticevich gets #34

- Marcus Lee now has #24, while Roman Davis got his #15

Kingsley Okoroh talked with our Ben Parker Wednesday, read a few of the quotes here

Finally, it was picture day for Cal football, with a more detailed look of Cal's new uniforms on full display.

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