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Filling in for Rob, who should be able to cover the final few open practices. Wednesday's scrimmage wasn't quite as full throttle as Saturday's full scrimmage, instead focusing on particular situational work.
Sonny Dykes confirmed starting safety Damariay Drew is out for the rest of spring with injury. Drew was carted off the field after Monday's practice. Khari Vanderbilt filled in as his replacement. This is not a particularly deep position, so Drew's status going into fall will be something to monitor.
Another bump in the road, my journey has never been easy but its always made me stronger
— damariay drew (@DDrew27) April 6, 2016
The wide receivers were like the main stars of Wednesday, particularly true freshman Jordan Duncan, who showed out. Ross Bowers found Duncan deep for a 60+ yard touchdown, got a Chase Forrest grab in a two minute drill scenario, and got another touchdown from Zach Kline. Duncan totalled over 130 yards on four catches. Welcome to the Bears Jordan!
"With Chad [Hansen] out, Carlos and I knew we had to step up today," Duncan said. "That was the mindset. We just need to stay consistent. With a good day like this you've got to keep building. I'm proud of the guys that came out here and competed today. We've got the talent to do it. We've got the playmakers to do it. We've just got to stick together. When one person is out, the other person needs to come in and do just the same. We've just got to stay consistent."
Carlos Strickland (five catches, 60 yards, one touchdown), Bug Rivera (six catches, 132 yards, one touchdown) had nice days, and both Brandon Singleton and Jordan Veasy hauled in scores as well.
Here are quarterback stats.
Forrest completed (8-11, 105), Gilliam (6-6-105) and Kline (4-11-89) threw for two touchdowns each while Bowers (5-9, 104, TD) and Rubenzer (2-6-29) also received quarterback reps.
Based on live tweets from Rivals and Scout, the defensive player of the day looked like Noah Westerfield. He sacked Luke Rubenzer along with Devante Wilson, got another pressure that led to a Tony Mekari sack, and also batted a pass down. He also had another pressure, showing off why he was named a starting defensive end on the first spring depth chart.
More defensive counting stats:
The Cal defense also made several big plays including a pair of sacks from DeVante Wilson and single sacks by Trevor Howard, Tony Mekari and Russell Ude. Evan Rambo had an interception while A.J. Greathouse helped the defense keep the offensive out of the end zone on the final drive of the scrimmage with a pass breakup on the final play of a goal line standout after Hale's 64-yard run had given the offense a first down at the 11-yard line.
Here's Sonny Dykes's post-practice interview.
"We've got more depth than we've ever had," head coach Sonny Dykes said. "When you sit down and look at the fact that we've been able to scrimmage 220 plays in five days means we've got depth. In the past we might do 25 or 30 plays and that's all we could do. Just the sheer number in volume of the plays that we've been able to run has been very encouraging."