Berkelium97 will have a full report tomorrow (and it's going to be epic), but here's some tidbits for the football junkies via Tedford (through Jon Wilner and Ryan Gorcey). It's clear running back is the biggest position of uncertainty going into fall camp, which starts August 6th. Here are the bullet points, focused on the offense.
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Zach Maynard is the starter right now. Unclear who the backup is--the two deep says Brock Mansion, other reports indicate Allan Bridgford.
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Isi Sofele is the starter right now, which appears to make everyone uncomfortable but me. What would make me uncomfortable is Sofele garnering the type of snaps Justin Forsett and Shane Vereen took their senior season.
- Covaughn Deboskie-Johnson has a nice looking blog. He also claims on his Twitter feed to have lost a bit of weight that was causing him to slow down this spring. It'd be nice if this was true, because he's the second most experienced runner we have. If not, we'll probably be seeing another contender get their opportunity.
Let's take a look at these contenders after the jump.
Brendan Bigelow is ready to practice, but I doubt he's played much football in two years or in summer bridge. Bigelow is too valuable to the long-term plans of Cal football to jeopardize him doing much more than scout work practice at this point; despite his talent, I doubt he's up to speed on reading blocking schemes at the next level. This feels like blueshirt, even with the uncertainty at running back.
Dasarte Yarnway is healed from the ACL injury that kept him out of spring practice. Yarnway struggled with the brief playing time he received his RS frosh year, but he was never healthy. Hopefully these injury concerns do not impact his ability to perform at a high level.
All the Cal frosh are on campus except C.J. Anderson, who still has minor issues to work out. Given that he should've been here by January, it might take a little longer for him to acclimate with the team climate since he probably didn't participate for the majority of summer bridge.
Just a hunch, but with Bigelow and Yarnway healing and Anderson lagging, Darren Ervin might very well get a chance to make the two-deep (or at least the three deep). He enrolled early and has been practicing with the team since the spring, so he'll have a leg up on all the other runners in this freshman class.
Tedford is comfortable with WR, TE, and OL. There should be no real change from the spring depth chart.
Sam DeMartinis has wrapped it up. DeMartinis started spring camp and would have likely been in the rotation in the fall at tackle, but Mitchell Schwartz and Matt Summers-Gavin are the incumbent starters outside, and DeMartinis decided to take his degree and move on. On the other hand, DeMartinis was not on the two-deep--Bill Tyndall and Tyler Rigsbee are listed as the backups--so perhaps he figured he wouldn't play at all. It's been a pretty quiet career at Cal for one of the top tackles from the 2007 recruiting class, but it's nice to see he earned his degree in legal studies and should have plenty of options going forward outside of school.
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