Cal Football Fall Camp 2019: Notebook #1

Cal Football began its fall camp on Friday to prepare for the 2019 College Football season. First day of practice, so there won’t be a lot to talk about, but we will be at every single practice we can. Just to give you guys a heads-up, notebooks format will be changing from years past. With that said, let’s get right to it.

• Most of the day was for walkthroughs and acclimating the entire team into the routine of football practice again. For the older guys it meant getting back into game shape and sharpening their instincts, for the new guys it meant learning and absorbing as much of the play book and assignments as possible.
• No depth chart or any line-ups yet. Coaching staff was moving everyone around seeing what groups could work together.
• C Mike Saffell was working the rust off after spending a long stint on the sidelines and to transition into a new position on the line. He had a few bad snaps, which he jokingly blamed on brand new balls being used. You can see that in the podium interview below.

• Once again to start camp, tackling fundamentals and drills were a point of emphasis. It wasn’t live tackling, but learning leverage and form was taught across the board.
• Defense worked on their calls and audibles. Communication drills to change the scheme based on what they were seeing the coaches change the offense set. This will leans into the fact that Coach DeRuyter has talked about adding more and more disguises and little wrinkles to their base package to keep opponents from memorizing just the tape.

• The QBs had a decent work day, running through read-option and decision making along with some passing situations. It only being the first day of camp, no QB stood out. Both were working through the playbook, reads and repertoire with the WRs and RBs.
• The first INT of camp was awarded to Evan Weaver. Josh Drayden could have had it earlier in the day but bobbled it as he dove and just could not turn to collect the ball as he fell.
• Best play of the day would have to be given to a quite perfect touch pass from Devon Modster to Jordan Duncan. Threw to the sidelines just over the defender in the flat to land right into Duncan’s hands.

That’s pretty much it for the first notebook and day. We are in the books. Get ready for daily reports for the next 3 weeks!