Golden Nuggets: Multiple Pre-Season Accolades for Patrick Laird

Football

• A few days ago, Patrick Laird was named to the Maxwell Award watch list. This award is given to the best player in college football. Not the Heisman, but very prestigious anyway. Now wouldn’t that be something?
• More recently, Laird was named a candidate for the Doak Walker Award, given to college football’s best running back.
• Laird was humble about the honors. (From the Daily Cal article)

“All these people have been saying congratulations, but in my mind… it’s not really an accomplishment in itself,” Laird said.

“At the end of the day… I’m just excited to just play football this year, try to win some more games with my team,” Laird said.

• Jon Wilner picked the Bears to finish 4th in the Pac-12 North. I think we’ll be seeing “4th” a lot from the “experts” so should I even keep posting these?

Men’s Basketball

• Trace Travers goes through the Cal Basketball roster and notes the improvements he’s seen from each player. Some of the players, plus Wyking Jones, spoke to the media as well, including the Big 3.

The Boise State transfer also noted the difficulty in sitting out a year, not being able to affect the game physically.

”It was real difficult for me, because I’m with my teammates every day,” [Paris] Austin noted, “Small things that I could help them with, I wasn’t able to do that on the court. At the same time, I felt like it was a really good learning experience for. I was able to become a better person, a better basketball player. I became mentally better, I was able to learn things about the game, and I was able to learn the team better.

• Congrats to Jacob Orender (3.38 GPA) and Nick Hamilton (3.74 GPA) who made the NABC Honors Court!

Soccer

The (Men’s) World Cup may be over, but some recent Bear greats will be playing some pro games in the near future because...

• Abi Kim will represent Team USA in the Under-20 Women’s World Cup next month in France. (Darn, too bad I’m leaving Europe today) Congrats! August 6 will be the first game of the tournament.
• Jose Carrera-Garcia, who graduated after last season, will get a shot in the pros! He signed with Celeya FC in the Ascenso MX, the second tier division of the professional soccer league in Mexico.

Videos

• Heads up, Cal Rugby legend Danny Barrett returns to the Bay Area when the Rubgy World Cup Sevens happens at AT&T Park this weekend.

• Missed this one last week, Pac-12 Network recapped Cal Athletics’ best moments (well, some of them) of the 2017—2018 season in 90 seconds. Re-live it here!

Fara Björn!