2012 Cal Football Recruiting Preview: Targeting Wide Receivers

by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 22, 2011 3:30 PM PST in California Golden Bears Recruiting

In last week's Cal football recruiting post, we looked at the potential offensive linemen recruits for the 2012 class. This time, we look at the second big area of need, which is in the receiving game.

Here are the upperclassmen on deck in the receivers game that need to be replaced.

Senior wideouts: Marvin Jones, Michael Calvin, Coleman Edmond
Junior wideouts: No one, unless Keenan Allen decides to declare early.

That means we're probably looking at least two and possibly up to four wide receivers to take in. Who are the candidates?

Recruits with Cal offers

Bryce Treggs, St. John Bosco (Bellflower, CA), 5'11", 175 lb

Offers: ASU, Cal, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, San Jose St., Furd, UCLA, Washington

(via BrycesFan1555)

Video: Junior highlights (see above) | Junior midseason highlights | Sophomore highlights | 7 on 7 summer highlights | Workout/Passing League highlights | Los Angeles Times feature
More news: Father Brian went to Cal, and is Bryce's receivers coach at Bellflower, 3.5 GPA | 4th best California recruit in 2012 class, according to Cali High Sports | Brandon Huffman of Scout considers him the best pure route-runner in this year's West class

Thomas Johnson, Skyline (Dallas, TX), 6'1", 180 lb; Current Texas verbal, so our chances with him aren't so good

Offers: 18 Divsion I scholarship offers, including Auburn, Cal, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, USC

(via 247SportsStudio)

Video: Junior highlights (see above) | Highlights as both quarterback and athlete in sophomore season

More News: Attended the same school as Cal cornerback Steve Williams; transferred to Skyline in 2010 ($); missed most of his junior season with high ankle sprain, although he did manage to put up seven catches for 143 yards in a Texas playoff game; considered 9th best football player in Class of 2012 in Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Stefon Diggs, Our Lady of Good Counsel (Olney, MD), 6'1", 185 lb

Offers: 14 schools, including Cal, Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Miami (FL), Michigan, Pitt, Virginia Tech, West Virginia

(via rrosen24)

Video: Junior highlights (see above) | Dominated the Army All American Combine, intrigued at the thought of playing with high school teammate and Michigan 2011 commit Blake Countess | Nike Camp highlights | Diggs's performance against De Matha, school of Cal safety Michael Coley

More news: Would be interested in being a Charles Woodson-type and playing both ways ($), but hasn't decided yet | Does play both ways, as evidenced by a three interception, crucial 4th down reception performance against St. Xavier; check out the postgame interview as well.

Jordan Payton, Oaks Christian (Westlake Village, CA), 6'2", 190 lb, soft verbal to USC

Offers: Has been committed to the Trojans since last March, so hasn't received many offers. There are miscellaneous reports he might be interested in Cal, and he does have an offer, but nothing concrete yet.

(via ALLSTARAPPROACH)

Video: Junior year highlights (see above) | Edison passing tournament with his high school teammates | Sophomore highlights | Lots of sophomore clips courtesy of one Trojan fan, although quality is mostly poor | Quick soundbytes after catching 10 passes for 181 yards and three touchdowns in playoff semifinal | Lots of ($) video on Payton's Scout profile

More news: USC commitment story; he was the Trojans first commit from the 2012 class | Cali High Sports feature, was named player of the week for his aforementioned three TD performance in the semifinals | potential US Army All-American candidate, along with Cal offensive lineman target Jordan Simmons.

Darius Powe, Lakewood (Lakewood, CA)

Offers: Arizona, Cal, Colorado, Nebraska, Oregon, UCLA, Washington

Video: Sophomore highlights | More sophomore highlights

More news: Greg Biggins considers Powe a big receiver with strong hands and makes dynamic plays | Cali Hi Sports echoes those sentiments | Attending same school as Cal commit Todd Barr

Derrick Woods, Inglewood (Inglewood, CA), 6'1", 180 lbs

Offers: Arizona schools, Cal, Florida, Idaho, Miami (FL), Oregon schools, Furd, UCLA, USC, Washington

(via utrhighlightvideos)

Video: Junior highlights (see above) | More junior highlights | Sophomore highlights

More news: Considered the 14th best recruit in the state of California by Cali High Sports because of his strong fundamentals | Woods talks about increased attention with Rivals ($) | According to this WeAreSC feature, has played multiple positions in high school, including quarterback, tailback, wide receiver, safety; could once play hoops but decided to focus on football after arriving at Inglewood | According to Biggins ($), he likes the local LA schools, but wouldn't mind going outside the region.

Additional receivers to watch out for

Malik Gilmore, Lakewood (Lakewood, CA), 6'3", 195 lb

Offers: Duke, Michigan, Notre Dame, San Diego St., Utah, Washington; has expressed interest in Cal

(via malikabooboo)

Video: Junior highlights (see above) | More clips from ScoutTV ($)

News: Will be attending Cal's Junior Day next month | MCL tear his sophomore season, prefers to stay on the West Coast | Teammate of Darius Powe, considered the best receiving duo in the Southland by their head coach; former teammate of Todd Barr

Davonte Neal, Chaparral (Scottsdale, AZ); 5'10", 175 lb

Offers: 16 D-1 schools, including the Arizonas, Arkansas, Auburn, BYU, LSU, Oregon St., Penn St., and the LA schools. Ron Gould is his primary recruiter, but Cal has yet to offer Neal.

(via bchesin)

More news: Transferred from Cesar Chavez to Chaparral before his junior season | Has a whole blog dedicated to him by a big Davonte Neal fan (odd) | Greg Biggins is a big fan ($)

Nicholas Rothstein, Jesuit (Portland, OR)

Offers: None, but interested in several academically-inclined schools

Nicholas Rothstein (via bluechipsports)

Video: Junior highlights (see above) | Offensive Skill MVP in National Underclassmen Combine as a sophomore, can play defensively, great vertical and broad jump | One-on-one work

More news: Invited to 2011 US Army All-American Combine, has visited Oregon on a few occasions but is interested in checking out Cal and UCLA | Made the ESPN RISE All-Nike Camp team at Oregon State this summer

Richard Smith, Long Beach Poly (Long Beach, CA); 5'9", 170 lb

Offers: UCLA, Washington

(via LBPOLYfootball)

Video: Junior highlights (see above) | More junior highlights ($) | FightOn247 Interview | Had 8 receptions for 184 yards against Mater Dei in playoff loss

More news: Poly head coach Raul Lara thinks Smith could be "the next DeSean Jackson" | Photo compilation video after being named Moore Offensive Player of the Year | Smith really wants to stay in the Pac-10 ($), so we'll likely be familiar with him one way or the other.

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Some added details

There are some claims Smith has a Cal offer, but I cannot confirm nor deny that statement. We are interested in him though.

There are a bunch of other names, but at the moment I’m focusing on the people who definitely have interest in Cal and/or the coaching staff has interest in.

Email: bearsnecessities@gmail.com

by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 22, 2011 3:48 PM PST reply actions

Keenan Allen will have to play in 2012

He’s only a sophomore in 2011. Thus he’s got at least two more years

In other words, Go Bears!

by royrules22 on Feb 22, 2011 3:58 PM PST reply actions

Again

This is projecting for the 2013 season, since most of these guys probably won’t see the field until then.

Email: bearsnecessities@gmail.com

by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 22, 2011 3:59 PM PST up reply actions

Bryce Treggs

Brandon Huffman of Scout considers him the best pure route-runner in this year’s West class

Like father, like son. Brian Treggs was a pretty good route runner in his day. Brian was also very good at running the bubble screen and Bryce looked pretty good at that in the video shown above.

If memory serves, Bryce is about the same size as his dad was in his playing days at Cal. Brian might have even been a little shorter. I realize it’s high school film, but Bryce looked a lot more physical than I remember his dad being.

I was impressed with Bryce’s video. Would love to see him wearing his dad’s old number 3 at Cal.

Yes, I am an Old Blue. Now get off my lawn.

by Ohio Bear on Feb 22, 2011 4:43 PM PST reply actions 2 recs

It would be nice to have this legacy on the squad to go along with Richard Rodgers’ boy…

Speaking of which, isn’t Hardy Nickerson’s son rising in the recruiting ranks?

"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is
research."

by Auricursine on Feb 22, 2011 10:57 PM PST up reply actions

Keep it locked in @ CGB. I promise good stuff is happenin’.

Vote #CGB for the best college football blog http://goo.gl/qhTFe #Cal #GoBears

by solarise on Feb 23, 2011 12:21 AM PST up reply actions

damn lol love seeing comments like this from you solarise

by heckyeah on Feb 23, 2011 9:49 AM PST up reply actions

Me too!

The internet's most successful troll!
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com

by TwistNHook on Feb 24, 2011 8:46 AM PST up reply actions

Suggestion, Request

I’ve thought for a while… you guys do these GREAT previews of possible recruits all the way thru the process, highlighting various players as they become known. At the beginning, there are folks shown that eventually end up going to other schools, and then they drop off the reports. By the end, only Cal commits are shown, which is appropriate for certain posts that are discussing only the landed class as it looks now.

However, I’ve been interested in knowing what happened to ALL the Cal-possible guys out there. How many did we lose that we really wanted and where did they go to?

Perhaps it’s not desired or appropriate to “highlight” those guys that are goners, but it would be interesting for me to see a list of, say, all the guys that at one time or another were shown on CGB as a recruit prospect, and then a “result” column. Some sort of excel table, perhaps? Perhaps columns like:
Name, position, size, stars
Date first featured
School ultimately committed to
Date committed
Notes: (like, “continued to recruit to the end b/c it was only a ‘soft’ verbal to school X”) or (“did not have the academic profile desired for Cal, so we stopped recruiting”) or… whatever… (on that last note, maybe we don’t want to go there…. “not a fit for Cal”)

Anyways, regardless of that, it’s lots of fun to follow the work you do on these prospects.

by concordtom on Feb 23, 2011 7:27 AM PST reply actions

We'll take your request into consideration

And see if we can do anything with it.

Email: bearsnecessities@gmail.com

by Avinash Kunnath on Feb 23, 2011 1:13 PM PST up reply actions

What’s the objective of a study like this?

Vote #CGB for the best college football blog http://goo.gl/qhTFe #Cal #GoBears

by solarise on Feb 23, 2011 2:58 PM PST up reply actions

We’d get a better idea of which schools we’re losing out to, and maybe it will help us compare which guys we wanted that were “misses” or guys we offered that became stars elsewhere?

California Golden Bears: 2nd place is nothing to sneeze at!

by atomsareenough on Feb 23, 2011 4:44 PM PST up reply actions

Just interesting to see misses vs hits, and all the guys that were interested at some point or another?

by Missing Barry on Feb 23, 2011 7:45 PM PST up reply actions

Yeah, I’ll agree with atoms and barry…
Just interesting to see who we lost out to and what happened to those guys.
Not trying to diss Cal for missing on players, or to diss those players if they don’t pan out elsewhere, but just looking at the overall recruiting ‘game’ and seeing how it plays out in it’s entirety.

Not everyone that attends Cal is going to pan out, and players that go elsewhere may or may not pan out. We are going to initially go after a WIDE range of players, and it’s just interesting to see… if you featured 100 football players for the 2012 class, and we land 20 of them, where did the other’s go.
No big deal.

by concordtom on Feb 26, 2011 9:08 AM PST up reply actions

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