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Recruiting Update
Posted by Alex | December 20, 2007 at 1:10 am | In Recruiting | 6 CommentsAfter 2L finals, it’s time to start looking back at some football. Cal picked up a few new recruits after nearly a dozen Cal commits or prospects visited campus last weekend. All three of the prospects should add quite a bit to Cal’s class.
Jarrett Sparks is a WR from Merced who measures in at 6’3″ and 215 lbs with a 4.5 40. Big, tall, and fast. Should be good for us. Sparks is rated as a 3 star recruit by scout.com and a 4 star recruit by rivals.com.
L.J. Washington is a WR from Stockton who measures in at 6’0″ and 180 lbs with a 4.45 40. Also a bigger receiver, though also a bit lighter than Sparks. Washington is rated as a 2 star recruit by scout.com. Apparently Washington and Sparks competed for the most receiving yards this past year in the Central Section. It should be exciting to watch these two WRs play together in the coming years.
Kamaron Yancy is a CB coming out of Pierce College, originally from Fairfax High School. He measures 5’11” and 185 lbs with a 4.4 40. He is a bit of an older guy, having graduated high school in 2002. At that time, he played in the Cali-Florida Bowl showing that he had a promising career in front of him. However, he chose to stay at home and work for a few years while his parents went through marital problems. This to me shows lots of maturity which will hopefully carry over to the playing field. He has 3 years to play 3 years.
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Does anyone else think that while picking up WR’s is a great idea, especially since Longshore only has another year left to throw interceptions, but that one of the biggest disappointments of Cal’s coaching staff is the lack of Defensive recruits. Yes they pick up good DB’s and even LB’s, but since the end of 2004 Cal has lacked a DE with real NFL quality potential? If they are going to continue to play the bend dont break they need to get a solid Pass rush from their front 4, that is why QB’s shred the D, there is no pass rush. They have yet to land a 4 star or 5 star Rush end, until they do forget about the Rose Bowl as long as they play bend dont break.
1. Comment by Terry — December 21, 2007 @ 6:44 am #
I agree that you need to have an effective pass rush to pressure the opponent’s QB into mistakes. That way they can’t pick apart our DB’s when we don’t have a good cover corner like D. Hughes. Keep in mind though, that had our offense not stalled and offensive guru Tedford kept up his end of the coaching duties and we scored what we averaged in the 1st five wins this year, we would not be in the Armed Forces Bowl and we’d have much more to celebrate. No one expected the defense to play great this year, but EVERYONE expected the offense to play WAY BETTER than they did. The O, not the D, was what cost us the Big Game and the ’07 season.
2. Comment by JC — December 23, 2007 @ 10:35 pm #
Yeah, I think it’d be nice to get more help on the defense. But I think Cal should also focus on the offensive line. This goes for any team at any level, but Cal football is only as good as the offensive line powering the run or protecting the passer. Duh, of course. I think this is one big reason Cal played poorly in its first five wins (taking early leads, playing erratically, then managing to hold on to victory) and subsequently in its last many games. There was no offensive line to dominate opposing teams. To be sure, Alex Mack looks great — but past Cal teams had a **number** of great blockers. 1990: Todd Steussie (Vikings), Troy Auzenne (Bears) and Eric Mahlum (Colts) = 1,000 yards for Russell White and 1,000 for Anthony Wallace. In between 1990 and 2006, you had combinations of lines containing Jeremy Newberry (Raiders), Tarik Glenn (Colts), O’Callaghan (Patriots), Phillips (Steelers-Browns), Walker (Raiders-Bills), John Welbourne (Eagles). Last year’s combination of Cameron-Robertson-Mack powered Lynch, Forsett, O’Keith and Montgomery. No doubt Tepper and Gibson are good — but not as good as Mack. So, in effect, you only had one stellar lineman this year. No wonder Cal couldn’t put away Colorado State or Louisianna Tech like we should have – we won but we didn’t dominate. As exciting as the Tennessee win was, I recall there was a long stretch in the 3rd quarter when the offensive stalled. So, yeah, there’s a lot of bellyaching in the media about how bad things turned for Cal — but what I believe to be the underlying problem was always there since Game 1. As for next year: I think Gibson will graduate leaving behind Mack and Tepper. Hopefully, Tepper will raise the level of his game to Mack’s — so maybe next year there is a possibility that our offensive line will once again be the dominating force it’s been before. Once we get the line cracking again, then I think semi-decent and extremely great skilled position players will play great — but, from my vantage point, it all starts with the line (duh) and, because this year’s line was so-so, so, too was this year’s team. (PS: yes, Forsett got his 1,000 yards, but the true indication of a dominating line is was when other RBs do great, i.e. Lynch-Forsett-Montgomery-O’Keith, 2005 and 2006 / Lynch-Arrington-Forsett 2004 / Arrington-Echemondou – 2003 / Wallace-White 1990. Without a dominating run offense, we couldn’t tap into the skills of DeSean Jackson and Hawkins like we would have wanted to).
3. Comment by tony_daysog — December 24, 2007 @ 3:21 pm #
So, the long and short of what I wrote as it relates to Jeff Tedford: I don’t think 2007 was Teford’s or Longshore’s fault: I don’t think we had the players in place where we really needed them to be, and that, to me, was the offensive line. I hope we recruit some good ones — but even if we do, they wont be ready to go until 2009 or 2010. So, hopefully, the ones we have now will really step up to the plate like Alex Mack.
4. Comment by tony_daysog — December 24, 2007 @ 3:26 pm #
yes I agree with the recruits.
I looked them up they sound good.
I think they will fit in great and there size will be good for the team.I think the 2 wr will be good after Longshore leaves they will have a good young offense. Syd’quan Thompson and Kamaron Yancy should be good togather. I think next years offense will be good although Thomas DeCoud is leaving (he ended up being the best overall senior saftey in NCAA Football.) I say get KEVIN RILEY in the end of the games so Longshore wont throw interceptions.
GO BEARS
5. Comment by olivia — December 30, 2007 @ 12:23 pm #
just regarding the oline comment: if you see our recruits from last year, you will see that we had one of the best oline recruiting classes in cal’s history. summers-gavin, cheadle, schwartz, huber, demartinis should all be great so i don’t believe that the o-line will be a problem in the future.
i’m disappointed that we’re not landing more studs. i don’t believe that we’ve landed a 5-star HS recruit since desean. while stars do not necessarily equate to success, it usually shows that a program is on the radar nationally and in the minds of top HS players. hopefully we can get deion walker this year, but it looks extremely unlikely after our awesome demise.
6. Comment by sean — January 1, 2008 @ 9:47 am #