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 a 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.

Signing Day

EDIT: No recruiting surprises — all commits are official. Cal’s 2008 class is rated #35 in the nation by Rivals and #32 by Scout.com.

Today is Signing Day, when verbal commitments from high school and junior college recruits are finalized in official letters of intent.

Coach Jeff Tedford usually lands one surprise recruit at the last minute, so we’ll keep you updated on the progress of the 2008 class.

In the meantime, you can see the list of received LOIs in real-time on the Cal Bears website, as well as the list of verbal commitments on Scout.com.

4-star RB Deboskie commits

Photo: Rivals.com

Today, running back Covaughn Deboskie made an announcement of his commitment to Cal at the Army All-American Bowl (see video). He favored Cal in the recruiting process over the past several months, and news of his unofficial commitment has circulated for a few days.

Deboskie is a 4-star recruit out of Chandler, AZ; he is 6′0″/195 lbs and reportedly has a sub-4.4 40-yard-dash time (see profile on Scout, Rivals). An excellent student with a GPA above 4.0, Deboskie plans to enroll at Cal in the spring and participate in spring practice.

He chose Cal over ASU and Stanford with offers from Florida, Michigan, Alabama, Clemson and Georgia Tech as well.

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.

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.

Jordan, Tennessee, Best

ESPN’s Bruce Feldman put up a piece on Cal and Robert Jordan with some interesting bits of information. Jordan, a cousin of Marshawn Lynch, is apparently also related to #1 draft pick JaMarcus Russell from LSU to the Raiders. (If you weren’t aware: earlier this month, a certain SEC coach, bashed the Pac-10 and the Bears in an often-repeated but ill-founded claim:

“I would like nothing better than to play USC for the [national] title,” Miles reportedly said in a speech to a heavily pro-LSU gathering in New Orleans. “I can tell you this, that they have a much easier road to travel. They’re going to play real knockdown drag-outs with UCLA and Washington, Cal-Berkeley, Stanford — some real juggernauts — and they’re going to end up, it would be my guess, in some position so if they win a game or two, that they’ll end up in the title [game].

This coach was LSU’s Les Miles.) So,

Russell was actually with Jordan when they learned about Miles’ comments… “[Jordan] said ‘J, what’s up with your coach?’ And he was like ‘Ah man, he’s a hothead don’t listen to him,’” Jordan recalled.

Predictably, Feldman talks about Cal-Tennessee next:

Jordan and a few of his Cal teammates though say they don’t feel any additional pressure to uphold the Pac-10’s honor in their big rematch against Tennessee in the season opener…

“I think about that game everyday, at every workout about how their crowd and their players were able to talk to us and all that,” Jordan says. “We do represent the conference, but really we’re playing for us. Last year we let ourselves down.

“We really weren’t focused on football. We let the media hype it up… Now we’ve got a veteran team. It’s not going to be like that. We’re going to keep fighting regardless. I’d be real shocked to have another outcome like that again. I don’t see how that could happen again.”

Said DeSean Jackson, Cal’s star WR-KR: “It is a little bit of extra pressure on us as far as how people think of the Pac-10, but all we can do is just play hard.”

Cal QB Nate Longshore, admits he watches the UT game, start to finish, all the time. “Everytime I watch it, I see something different,” he says. “It’s interesting to see the whole flow of the game and how turnovers affect teams and things like that in retrospect. Like instead of just going down and losing a yard, we try and make a play and they get to gang-tackle us and that builds momentum for them.

“There’s so much that you wanna do over, but at the same time you have to treat it like another game.”

The article ends with this about incoming freshman Jahvid Best:

A little debate about who is the fastest Golden Bear: Jackson or incoming freshman TB Jahvid Best, the player Longshore touted as the guy who is going to really surprise some people this fall.

“He is ridiculous quick,” Longshore said of the 5-foot-11, 182-pounder, who once won a Gold Medal in the 200m at the 2005 USTAF Junior Olympics. “He could beat DeSean in a race, no doubt in my mind. No doubt. He’s the fastest I’ve ever seen.

WA d-lineman commits

Trevor Guyton, a highly rated defensive lineman out of Redmond (WA), has committed to the Bears’ 2008 class. He is a 4 star prospect according to Scout and a 3 star on Rivals.Guyton turned down offers from Nebraska, Oregon, and the Pac-10 schools in Washington and Arizona when picking Cal. He has a very positive attitude and appears to be an excellent fit for the Bears. With the departure of NFL talent Brandon Mebane and no DT’s taken in last years’ class, this fills a great need on Cal’s roster.

Honors for Jahvid Best

Jahvid Best, one of the headliners for the Bears’ 2007 recruiting class, is getting some big recognition as he graduates from high school.

He’s been honored with NorCal Athlete of the Year from CalHiSports:

Best’s numbers and awards could take up an entire book, and when the new Cal-Hi Sports Record Book was updated recently for this web site, Best’s name was there in more than a few places, both in the football and track and field categories. …

However, when we talked with [Coach Chad] Nightingale, all he could do was rave about Jahvid as an athlete, and a person. What he is most specially proud of is Best’s top times in the 100 and 200 which at 10.36 and 20.65 are fourth and second fastest in the nation this year respectively, and qualify Jahvid for status as a 2007 Track and Field All-American. “You know,” said Nightingale. “Those 100 and 200 marks are a few ticks better than Reggie Bush,” he gushed. In fact, they are. Bush’s best marks were 10.42 and 21.06. “Plus, he’s a little bigger than Reggie.” Nightingale said grinning. And that is also true.

He also received the Boys Track Athlete of the Year honor from the Contra Costa Times:

His time of 20.65 seconds would have won every California state meet in history prior to this year. But he faced Long Beach Poly’s Bryshon Nellum, who set a state meet record (20.43). Best’s time was also under the previous state meet record.

To give you an idea about the quality of those times, they would have placed Nellum and Best second and third, respectively, in this year’s NCAA 200 final.

Congratulations to Jahvid. Needless to say, we’re excited about what he will do in his next few years at Cal.

Cal lands big TE

Spencer Ladner (6′7″/235) has given a verbal to Cal. He comes out of Kansas City, MO and lists Cal’s reputation as the #1 public school in the nation as a primary reason for choosing Cal. He is rated as a 3 star TE by Scout.com and a 4 star recruit by Rivals.

There’s a couple reasons that this signing means a lot. First, this guy is BIG. Just for reference, Lebron James is 6′8″/250. Craig Stevens is 6′5″/254. With a year in the weight room, Ladner can be a great endzone target or a blocker in the Tedford tradition. Second, Ladner comes from Missouri. This shows that Cal’s reach on the national recruiting front has grown even further after last year’s record number of out-of-state commits. Third, this confirms that Cal’s reputation as an academic leader will continue to land some top recruits.

EDIT BY ERIC: Also, it’s noteworthy that Ladner turned down offers from traditional powerhouse schools like Michigan and Oklahoma, showing that Cal is really on its way up in terms of nationwide recruiting.