Daily Cal: Fall Camp Notebook: Day Two

Morrah Impresses, Receivers Show Up Nicely and Hill Is Sold on the 3-4

By Andrew Kim

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The Cal football team continued its fall camp regime on a rather chilly evening, going all of two hours with helmets.

To answer the quarterback question, Nate Longshore did have a better day than Kevin Riley, who struggled somewhat due to reasons beyond his control. The second unit's pass protection broke down here and there, and the wideouts ran the wrong routes on rare occasion, adding to Riley's tough day.

During individual drills, the defense maintained a 3-4 look, sorting through the nuances of holding gaps and taking on blockers in the trenches.  Defensive tackle Derrick Hill says he is coming in with a new, business-like mentality to camp. At first, Hill didn't like the news that the team was switching formations, but today he says he's sold. He shared an interesting observation from his experience thus far.   "You know the biggest difference I've seen so far, is that you have more 1-on-1 opportunities," Hill said. "Which is crazy because you would assume if it's three people, and there's always at least five on the (offensive) line, somebody would get double-teamed on a regular basis. But for some reason, it's not. You have to focus all your linemen on different people because you don't know who or what's coming."

In the secondary, cornerback Syd'Quan Thompson is looking pretty solid in his third season. At one point, he completely shadowed wideout Marvin Jones on a deep route that resulted in a near-interception, welcoming the touted freshman to life at Cal.  "(Thompson) has had a little bit of an ankle, I don't know if he's up to 100 percent yet, but he's fine," defensive coordinator Bob Gregory said. "He's kind of our veteran corner in the back, and we'll certainly count on him."  But to his credit, Jones had a nice practice as well, pulling down a couple passes during 11-on-11 drills. If the rookie doesn't get bullied in the first five yards, he's shown to be a very smooth runner.

"It's going to be a little bit different when we get the pads on," coach Jeff Tedford said of Jones. "He's got to be physical, he's got to block, he's got to keep up with the learning curve and all that. But he's shown signs that he's a special player."

Arguably the top performer of the night was tight end Cameron Morrah, who seemingly has a steady rapport building with the quarterbacks, namely Nate Longshore today.  Morrah was onto every catchable ball. Near the end of practice, as the team ran 11-on-11 drills from the 25-yard line facing the end zone, Morrah placed an exclamation mark to his day with a TD, catching up to a deep throw to the right pylon from Longshore.  "Cameron did a couple nice things, caught a few nice balls," Tedford said. "But we're not in pads.  I don't mean there's nothing going on because they're doing a lot of good things, but we get to put shoulder pads on tomorrow, and we'll start getting after it a little bit."  Michael Calvin was also a trusty target for the quarterbacks, notching receptions on both starting corners, Thompson and Chris Conte. Alongside Nyan Boateng, Calvin will likely headline a receiving corps that's loaded with size.