The final scrimmage for Cal's football team is complete, the coaches have no doubt already made their minds up about nearly all 64 slots on the Bears' depth chart, and however it shakes out the Golden Bears will most likely be a young team. It's not unusual for a top-flight program like Cal to carry more freshmen than any other class due to the redshirt system of college football. You have your incoming freshman and your redshirt freshmen causing a two class overlap, but when nearly 64% of your available players are freshman and sophomore players, it's an easy guess that your program is going to be young. I'm no rocket scientist, nor am I as confident in my count as I'd like to be, but from what I could gather, Cal has 48 Freshmen on the team this season, 21 Sophomores, and 20 each of the Junior and Senior class. Even so, Cal should be in safe hands. From my count, nearly 20 players have started or have starting experience. Super-Soph Best should see plenty of workWhen talking about college excellence, normally one of the strongest factors in predictions is the age of the team. You quite often hear about how many starters on offense and defense are returning as a gauge as to how well the season should go for the group as a whole. With Cal, the offensive line and the linebacking corp are the team's greatest strength when it comes to returning players, but with as strong as those two spots on the roster are, Cal has plenty of strengths within their youth movement.
Starting tailback and Sophomore, Jahvid Best is a foregone conclusion to start for the Bears this season. His backup? Redshirt Freshman Shane Vereen seems to have the upper hand over Sophomore Tracy Slocum. Due to injuries suffered by starting left tackle, Mike Tepper, right tackle Chet Teofilo moves into his spot giving redshirt Freshman Mitchell Schwartz the right tackle spot. Redshirt Freshmen aren't the only guys getting their chances in 2008. True Freshmen, like SuperPrep Marvin Jones at wide receiver, may begin to put their stamps on the team right away. When discussing Jones after the final scrimmage on Tuesday, Coach Tedford said, "Let’s put it this way, he has the best chance out of the freshman to play right now at the receiver position." Four-star recruit Marc Anthony (CB), kicker David Seawright, SuperPrep defensive tackle Trevor Guyton, and three-star recruit defensive end Aaron Tipoti are also true Freshmen that could also get the opportunity to begin play in 2008. Even with such a large group of underclassmen fighting for positions on the squad, Cal comes into the season with a nucleus of players that will carry the torch of past Tedford teams and cause the national scene to take notice. Players like Tepper, center Alex Mack, with linebackers Zack Follet, Worrell Williams, and Anthony Felder should lead the young players as they have been led during their time in the Cal program.
Jones leads a strong Frosh classYou'd think that with three highly talented linebackers who are all Seniors, there wouldn't be any room for a true Freshman to get any playing time, but the Cal program is switching over to the 3-4 and according to defensive coordinator, Bob Gregory, three-star recruit Mychal Kendricks has done enough to play a role this season. When asked about the depth at linebacker Gregory said of Kendricks, "It would be hard not to redshirt Mychal Kendricks. He’s done a real good job and is making plays. We’re going to need him. Even though we have some good linebackers, we probably don’t have as much depth there since we’ve made this switch." Normally, a young team garners plenty of question marks. Even if depth is not a concern, a position that requires underclassmen to take a starter's role will usually be considered a weakness on any team. The Bears have a different outlook due to such good recruiting classes over the past several years. With players such as Kevin Riley battling for a starter's role against incumbent starter, Nate Longshore, Cal is seeing that these types of problems have only made the team stronger.
Even Tedford was uncharacteristically optimistic when asked about Cal's biggest question mark going into the season. He said he didn't see any. "There's been a lot of work that's been done. It's just a chance now to get the game plan down and put everything together that we've been working on. We don't have a major concern about anything. I think they are ready to play against someone else. They've worked hard. We practiced all situations, I think they feel like they've invested the work and now it's time to play. Now we need to game plan and execute the game plan." That all starts today. The Bears will now be in full game preparation mode as they begin devising schemes to notch a victory over incoming Michigan State on August 30th. Tedford doesn't expect to name a starting quarterback until the week of the game. He hasn't had much to say about the competition between Riley or Longshore except that, "We’re getting close." And thankfully, so is the season.
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