New Bears Squad Springs Into Season

By KEVIN MORSONY
Daily Cal Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
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Joe Ayoob may be the arm that guides Cal this year. The highly anticipated junior college transfer began his battle for the starting QB role yesterday in spring practice.
Stepping onto the Memorial Stadium turf for the first time this year, the Cal football team began spring practice yesterday with helmets on, in what perhaps was an attempt to obscure the lack of familiar faces on the field.
Gone are Aaron Rodgers, J.J. Arrington, Geoff McArthur, Lorenzo Alexander and much of the rest of the core of the Bears’ 2004 team.

“It was weird,” sophomore running back Marshawn Lynch said. “It feels a lot different. I can’t turn to J.J. and ask him what coach said anymore.”

Spring practice marks the unofficial kickoff to the 2005 Cal football season. For 15 practices, coach Jeff Tedford and his staff will have their first chance to work with the team.

“I just can’t wait for today’s practice,” Tedford said before stepping onto the field. “The coaches get to coach today.”

This season, the Bears will replace 26 departed seniors while learning to live with permanently heightened expectations.

After a 10-2 season and a No. 9 final ranking, Cal now must be considered among the nation’s elite programs.

That may be the key difference between this year and Tedford’s past seasons—the team no longer must rebuild each offseason, but instead it simply restocks its lineup with blue-chip prospects.

With the core of the offense of the last two seasons departing, Lynch will likely be relied on during the team’s first few games. Last season, he finished with 628 yards on the ground, 8.8 yards per carry and 10 total touchdowns.

“You can’t say that I’m the main guy,” Lynch said. “I think that we have too many weapons.”

The development of a new weapon at quarterback will be the focus of the teams 15 workouts. Losing Aaron Rodgers, the face of Cal’s success over the last two seasons, to the NFL draft has put additional pressure on Tedford to find his next pupil quickly.

While Rodgers was discovered in a Butte College video of tight end Garrett Cross and was a virtual unknown in recruiting circles, the leading candidate to replace him comes to Berkeley with expectations already high.

Joe Ayoob was the nation’s No. 1 rated junior college quarterback last season, while playing for the nation’s No. 1 junior college football program at City College of San Francisco.

“Aaron came out and no one knew who he was,” Tedford said. “Now we have progressed to a point to where there are expectations. But, as coaches, there are no expectations that (Ayoob) has to do anything today.”

At CCSF, he posted a 23-1 record, won two consecutive state championship game MVP awards, and completed 61.2 percent of his passes.

In spring, completing passes may be difficult for Ayoob and redshirt freshman Nate Longshore as they compete for the starting spot. The team lost three of its top receivers to graduation.

Now, with Sean Young injured, Chase Lyman attempting to win a sixth year from the NCAA and newcomers Lavelle Hawkins and DeSean Jackson yet to enroll at Berkeley, the team with utilize only five receivers during spring ball.

“They are young, but people always seem to step up,” Tedford said. “I’m confident that at the end of our 15th practice, we will be more mature than we are today.”

For the second year in a row, shoulder surgeries will be keeping the core of the offense line off the field. Aaron Merz, Ryan O’Callaghan and Andrew Cameron all will be sidelined, yet Tedford is confident that when they return, it will be the team’s deepest unit.

While the offense is loaded with young talent, the defense may be a more troubling area. The unit loses most of its starters, and many consider the returners in the secondary to have been exposed in the Holiday Bowl when Texas Tech put 45 points on the scoreboard.

“Defensively, you are looking at some major rebuilding,” Tedford said.

Overall, however, spring is a time for units to begin working together, and returners to etch their names in the starting lineups, before talented newcomers arrive in the fall.

“We are going to start getting ready to reach our full potential,” Tedford said. “If that is top 20, or top 10, it is what it is.”