The Cal Football Fan

First Cal recruit of 2008

Quarterback Allan Bridgford out of Mission Viejo, CA has committed to Cal. He is the first recruit of the new football year. Bridgford is listed as 6′3″ 215 lbs, and is also a good student with a 3.5 GPA. Scout.com lists Bridgford as a 3-star recruit, while Rivals.com lists Bridgford as a 4-star recruit.

This is an good start for Cal, and more importantly, Bridgford already seems committed to helping the team. He reportedly will help call other recruits to convince them to join him at Cal. As Bridgford is a highly rated quarterback, many players will probably want to join with him to form a great class. Bridgford also adds to line of Cal quarterbacks that were highly recruited including Nate Longshore, Kevin Riley, and Brock Mansion.

DeSean Jackson article

NFL.com recently published this article by Thomas George about DeSean Jackson. It brought up some interesting points about Jackson’s draft stock. Seemingly, concerns with Jackson’s character are dropping his stock a bit into the late first round. George says this about Jackson:

The good:

Explosive. Electrifying. Dual threat as a receiver and kick returner. Excellent hands. Projected that he could reach Carolina receiver Steve Smith-type output in style and production. A junior entry into the draft with compelling upside.

The bad:

A me-guy. Selfish. Not a good teammate. Not a coachable player. Too many questionable influences hanging around him and a hard time letting them go.

Also, he quotes a 25-year scout who gives an incredible compliment to Jackson, along with a bit of a caveat:

“This young man has all of the ability in the world. He can be as good as he wants to be. But is he going to do the things necessary to get there? I had a scout tell me to watch him in workouts with the receivers and see if he is not the last one in the line for drills. So, I looked. He was the last one in line for drills. But there are issues and there are issues. He’s not evil. He’s not robbing banks. If you draft this guy, you’d better have him on a short leash from the get-go. He seems to have always done just enough to beat those around him relying on the fact he was better than them. Well, at the next level, they are as good and better than him. His size is a concern. He goes no later than the second round. He could get in the bottom of the first round.”

There have constantly been reports of Jackson being a “me-first” guy, but it is difficult to tell if these are true. Jackson’s teammates have always been complimentary of him. Hopefully, Jackson himself can be trusted, and he ends up being a superstar in the NFL.

Montgomery leaves Cal

Originally posted on March 18: Jonathan Okanes over at BearTalk reports that James Montgomery is leaving Cal. At one point, Montgomery was listed as the starting running back for the 2008 Bears offense. Fortunately, the Bears have plenty of depth at running back though it is highly untested.

EDIT by ERIC 3/27: Walk-on QB Bryan Van Meter has decided to leave the team to try rugby. Van Meter would likely have been a backup behind (in no particular order) Kevin Riley, Nate Longshore, and redshirt freshman Brock Mansion.

EDIT by ERIC 4/1: More on Montgomery’s situation in our Spring update.

EDIT by ERIC 4/8: Sadly, Montgomery’s hopes to become a Florida Gator did not work out — he has decided on the Cougars with a verbal commitment to Washington State. Montgomery will have to sit out one year, according to NCAA transfer rules.

Recruiting Update

After 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.

4 star WR commits to Cal

The news out of the weekend isn’t all bad. As a consolation, 4-star wideout Marvin Jones committed to Cal over the weekend after taking in the Cal-OSU game. Scout.com reports that Jones met with Tedford after the game and gave his verbal commitment. Scout and Rivals.com list Jones as a 4-star recruit, with Rivals listing Jones as one of their top 100 prospects in the nation. On an amusing note, Jones chose Cal over Oregon partially because of the amount of rain in Oregon.

This is our first huge commitment of the year and should be great for the team. Jones is 6′2″ and 180 lbs, while running a 4.5 40. He gives us another big and fast receiver who could potentially play as a true freshman next year. Matching him up with Nyan Boateng should keep the Cal receiving corp from a dropoff after this year’s superstars graduate or head to the NFL.

Memorial Stadium a scary place for opponents?

According to ESPN’s Bruce Feldman, Cal’s Memorial Stadium is the 10th scariest place to play in the nation.

10. Cal, Memorial Stadium
Autzen Stadium is probably noisier than Cal’s Memorial Stadium, but there is a little magic to this quirky place. Since 2003, the Bears have faced five ranked teams at home and knocked off four, including an upset of USC in 2003 by a then-unranked Cal squad. Of course, Jeff Tedford deserves plenty of credit for that, too.

This mention shows Cal’s growing home field advantage. Though not normally mentioned as a difficult place to visiting teams to play, Cal continues to have great home seasons each year. Hopefully that trend continues this season with USC at home.

Cal picks up Arizona DB

Marc Anthony, a DB out of Arizona has committed to the Bears.  He is a 6′0″ 185 lbs player who primarily plays cornerback. Rated as a 3 star recruit by Scout.com and as a 4 star recruit by Rivals, he is a great get for the Bears.

Anthony is a big cornerback and has the ability to compete physically against the big receivers in the Pac-10.  Yet, he retains enough speed (4.5 40) to keep up with the speed of the conference.  Also, his commitment shows the continually lengthening arms of Cal’s recruiting as Tedford again reaches into another state to pick up a top recruit.  Something interesting of note is that Anthony is a cousin of true freshman DE Cameron Jordan.

Anthony will come in and improve Cal’s young DB corps which already looks quite solid.

The law in the restraining order ruling

(Note: I am a second year law student. By no means am I saying that I am a full expert on the law or that I am completely accurate. It means that I know some about the law, and that I have studied injunctions and restraining orders which are along the lines of what Cal has requested against the tree-sitters. This is just my interpretation of the events.)

On Wednesday, a judge denied Cal’s request to remove the tree protesters. What makes this case interesting is that Cal requested quick action, which makes the standards of winning the immediate injunction a bit more difficult for Cal. From what I can gather from the Chronicle article and from the Scout.com article, Cal wanted an immediate injunction because propane tanks have been spotted up in the trees for cooking purposes, and there have been human excrement spills from the trees. This is based off a broader request for an injunction to remove the protesters.

To get an injunction immediately, Cal has to show that its case is much stronger than the protesters’ case. This is determined by comparing four factors on a sliding scale basis. This means that if one factor is very strong, and the other factors are mediocre, the one strong factor will win out. If all are factors not really in favor of either side, then there will probably not be an injunction granted. The factors are:

1. The applicant is likely to be successful on the merits of the case

2. The applicant will suffer irreparable harm without the injunction

3. The harm to the opposing party (protesters) from the injunction is outweighed by the harm to the applicant without the injunction (balancing of the harms)

4. That public interest favors the injunction.

I will try to give my own analysis and then compare against the court’s ruling.

On factor 1, it seems as if Cal has a good chance of winning an injunction based off of the merits of its case. For one, it is clearly Cal property that the protesters are on. Also, there is a health and safety issue involved with with the propane tanks and the human excrement falling from the trees. From my perspective, Cal should have no problem winning the overall injunction and thus are likely to be successful on the merits of its case.

2. This is a weak one for Cal. Cal’s strongest claim that they will suffer irreparable harm is that there will be a fire caused by the propane tanks and that the trees will burn down. However, the likelihood of this seems pretty slim as the protesters clearly want the trees to remain. Plus, Cal does want to remove the trees, so will it really be harm to them if the trees burn down? Kind of… only if there is damage elsewhere.

3. This is the one that probably wins it for the protesters. They have a much greater chance of being harmed by an immediate injunction than does Cal if an injunction if not granted. The protesters currently are living in the trees. Their lives and their possessions are there, and they fear that if they abandon the trees, Cal will immediately cut them down. While I am not saying that I believe that Cal would do so, the protesters do believe it. If the trees are indeed cut down, then the protesters will have lost all that they have been fighting for, hence causing great harm to them. Cal on the other hand, would have the fear of fire in the trees for an extra month. Seems like the protesters clearly win this one.

4. Public interest in this case is pretty split. There is the City of Berkeley and the protester supporters that want the protest to continue in the trees. On the other hand, there is Cal and its students fighting to take the protesters out of the trees… pretty much a wash.

After considering the four different factors, it seems like a close split. Cal clearly wins factor 1, but the protesters clearly win factor 3. The other 2 factors are pretty much neutral. With a pretty even split, the court probably chooses to side on the conservative side and to let the status quo stand.

Hence, though it seems unfair that Cal cannot have court approval to remove the protesters from the trees, it may not be just a bias against Cal; it is probably well-rooted in law. Chances are at the actual trial coming up in October, Cal will win an injunction against protesters and will be able to remove them with full court support. Even now, Cal has the law on its side as the protesters are on Cal property. However, with Cal seeking every peaceful measure involved, it will simply have to wait another month for the court injunction.

The court itself does say that Cal has a decent chance of winning its case. However, it simply did not show enough of a danger from fire or from the human excrement. As a result, the protesters are not removed immediately. Seems spot on to me.

So why does this neutrality tilt towards the protesters? This tilt is to protect their due process rights to be heard. Basically Cal is asking for an injunction against the protesters without their side being fully prepared to argue their case. This would bypass their due process rights. To justify the bypassing of the protesters’ rights, Cal must show an overwhelming case of harm, which it simply does not have.

Reed to transfer

Kyle Reed is looking to transfer after losing the backup QB battle to Kevin Riley. Reed, a redshirt sophomore, will have 2 years to play 2 years after the transfer. According to Yahoo, Reed has already contacted San Jose State.

Although this is kind of sad that Reed is giving up on winning the starting QB job in the future, there are some benefits that come from this transfer. It opens up more possibilities for QB recruits in the future, and allows Brock Mansion, Riley, and Beau Sweeney to compete for the starting QB job after Longshore leaves. This takes out a bit of the logjam at the QB position. Also, this transfer speaks volumes to Cal’s recruiting in the past couple years. Reed was a 4-star recruit coming out of high school and was an elite 11 qb. That he cannot even crack the playing field at Cal shows that our level of talent has risen tremendously since the days when Kyle Boller stepped into the starting QB position as a freshman.

Tennessee QB update

According to ESPN, Tennessee QB Erik Ainge has a broken pinky on his throwing hand. He is still expected to start for the game, with backup sophomore QB Jonathan Crompton ready to step in.

While reports show that Ainge seems to be throwing fine, it seems like a broken pinky would have a significant effect on how Ainge throws the ball. This is an unfortunate injury as it would have been good to see the Bears play the Vols at their best. The Vols will now be missing their starting RB (Larry Coker), and will be playing with a hurt QB.