He seems pretty positive while dispelling some media rumors. If anyone is connected it’s the presidents and chancellors. I would hope that we’d hear more from a few others in his position but I realize they are technically reassessing their media contract so they’ll likely play their cards closely. But this info is better than the ridiculous tweets that tell us nothing. And it also shows that the people who count are heavily involved in working on moving forward.

Jesse is getting going on camp preview content. I took most of the weekend off, sorry. One of the last chances for true lazy days off before six or seven months of grind time. We’ll ratchet things up.

I guess the ACC affiliation remains in play. If not, perhaps the PAC poaches San Diego State and Houston to improve its media footprint

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I caught up with new Cal commit Tiu Afalava at the South County passing and linemen tournament in Orange County yesterday. The linemen work was not the typical stuff you see at events (no 1v1s or drills) but it did give me an opportunity to see him in person and get a feel for his athletic ability. He was definitely one of the top guys in attendance and performed well in the events he participated in. He's going to add some more weight but doesn't strike me as someone who is too small for the position. He told me he's around 265-270 right now.

He moves well and has plenty of explosiveness, and overall looks like a solid prospect. He's definitely a smart kid and someone who is happy to be joining Cal's class.

The full interview from yesterday's event is above.

Here ya go:

Four-star DB Rodrick Pleasant put out a top 6 of Boston College, Cal, Oregon, Penn State, UCLA and USC. (I don't understand how BC became a recruiting powerhouse on the west coast all of a sudden).

As I've mentioned before, Pleasant doesn't give much away about where things stand, which is absolutely his prerogative to do. I'm just saying, as such, I really don't have much pulse on where things stand at all.

Our guy Jeff McCulloch talked to him twice in recent weeks. I'll just post the full Q+A here for you:

Q. Let’s talk about Cal, what do you like about them?

A. Berkeley is a nice place. Coach Tre (Watson), Coach (Justin) Wilcox they obviously have been recruiting me for a long time and I think they are building something special there."

Q. Have you visited?

A. Yes, I have.

Q. How was that visit?

A. It was nice. It was a nice place. They blew me away so it’s a nice place.

Q. Do you plan on visiting again at some point?

A. Yes, during the season.

Q. What is your most important factor when it comes to committing?

A. Some place I know that’s going to make me a better football player, a better man, and mold me to be a better person at the end of the day. Some place I could live and know they are going to let me play football and run track, so that’s the biggest thing for me right now.

Q. When did you last visit?

A. I went to the game where they played Sac State (Sacramento State)

Q. What stood out?

A. It was good. It was nice. Just being around the staff there. They showed me they really care about me more than just football.

Q. Was there any memorable moment at the visit?

A. Just being around the coaching staff and feeling the vibe.

Q. Who is talking to you the most there?

A. Coach Tre Watson and Coach Brown (Terrence Brown) … Coach Wilcox.

Q. How is your relationship with them?

A. I talk to them a lot. It’s a great relationship, great guys, great people.

Q. What are those conversations like?

A. We talk about football, life, family, just everything. Some things bigger than football

Q. Is Cal somewhere you can see yourself playing?

A. Yes, potentially yes.

Cal at 46 is not bad at all and would seem to indicate that we have some attractiveness in the new world of expanding collegiate mega athletic conferences that is seemingly being played like the game of Musical Chairs

Oregon TE Spencer Webb died yesterday after hitting his head during a cliff-diving accident just west of Triangle Lake, less than a mile from Eugene. He was 22 years old.


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The list of active, long tenured pro Bears getting shorter and shorter. Very few left from the Tedford glory era.

One random thought - create a mega conference of the coastal schools. It looks like Clemson and FSU may defect to the SEC. If so, the ACC is going to blow up anyway. How about the Coastal conference...coastal west cal/furd/ convince usc to stay/ucla/oregon/osu/uw/wsu, coast east - uconn/syracuse/duke/unc/uva/va tech/ga tech/miami. Phuck Fox and ESPN...have Amazon and Apple bid for it. This is where Cal and Stanford could actually flex their alumni muscle. Give sweet heart deals to USC and maybe UNC to keep them loyal.

Ignore the ambient noise of the Stony Point HS weight room in the background of this interview, lol. I definitely came away from this thinking Cal is a more serious contender for Cook than I previously believed.


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High three-star quarterback prospect Chris Parson is a bit different of a quarterback than what the Bears have offered this cycle, but he is plenty talented. The 6-foot recruit from Ravenwood HS in Brentwood, Tennessee has added Cal to his offer list this morning as he continues to look at his options while remaining committed to Florida State. He has been committed to the Seminoles since last July, but the QB coach he committed to (Kenny Dillingham) has since left Tallahassee for Oregon. Parson is friends with Cal target Mikal Harrison-Pilot, so it is certainly not a bad offer for the Bears to make at this stage with the Texas athlete strongly considering the program right now and in line for an official visit.

Parson was just invited to the prestigious Elite 11 finals in LA later this month where he will be able to compete among the top quarterbacks in the class. Parson has not hinted that he is looking to back away from his pledge to FSU, but the Seminoles just last week offered four-star Purdue quarterback commit Rickie Collins. The plan is for that program to take two quarterbacks, but in today's recruitment game that tends not to sit well with prospects. Obviously, for an offer to happen there has to have been some conversation going on, so clearly Parson is at least open to listening to other schools.

It will be interesting to see where the process goes from here, but Cal is jumping into the mix. Parson has a diverse offer list with options all over the country Miami, Iowa, TCU, Kentucky, Oregon State, Mississippi State, Louisville and Virginia Tech are some of his other offers.

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Here is my interview with Brad Spence. I ended up not being able to get to Klein, Texas, but we were able to connect on the phone. He gives pretty concise answers so this is what I got:


Sorry for the delay in getting stuff posted ... I hit a wall last night after finishing up my last two interviews of the trip. I had driven from Dallas to Tulsa overnight Thursday for a 10 a.m. interview and then immediately went 3.5 hours down to Wichita Falls. By the time I finished there, I had nothing left in the tank (personally -- plenty of expensive gas in the car still . This is the first day I haven't been driving significant miles and doing interviews, so I'm finally catching up. But I slept in today after not getting more than 5 hours of sleep any night since last Sunday and took a while to lock back into work mode. I'm writing up the Cam Cook story now too and doing a full update on the database, removing the guys who committed elsewhere the last couple days.

having trouble loading any thread with an embedded tweet. worse on my iPhone and safari, but "hiccups" on my MacBook and safari

Our guy Jeff McCulloch talked to him a day after the Cal offer so it was still too fresh to elicit many deep opinions. But nonetheless ...

Ryan Yaites, the three-star CB from Texas, says he still expects to end up at LSU, where he has been committed to since April. But his Cal official visit last month really opened his eyes and the Bears seem like a legit option if anything changes.

This has been postulated by a lot of randos on the tweeter but it appears this so coming from real sources now:

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The incompetence at all levels displayed by the PAC and its members has been nothing short of astounding

With the impending doom of college sports as we know it (or more specifically Cal), curious what other sports you are all getting into outside the big ones (NFL/NBA/MLB/Soccer). Lowkey I selfishly also wanted to make an OT thread to discuss other things besides our impending doom since that seems to be the only thing we are all talking about here.

I recently got into F1 after watching the Netflix series. What a fun sport when considering all the behind the scenes work that goes into racing. Also seems like we are finally catching up with the rest of the world on it.

Other sports- tag on ESPN. Great sport to drunkenly watch at the bar. Everyone knows the rules but damn it’s hilarious watching people do it competitively.

I think this one is going to be a tough pull for Cal ...

(surprisingly, as Joe Kapp's backup)

It also, as we now know, may be the *last* Rose Bowl team, at least in its current form.

So I got a chance to write that story -- one more Novel. (It's a patreon link but it's free and unlocked.)

rests in the hands of Carol Christ and Jim Knowlton.😬😬😬😬😬😬

Hope you all have a great holiday.

If anyone knows what's going on it's Wilner.

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Jaeden Moore took official visits to Cal, Washington and Arizona in June plus he took an unofficial visit to Oregon as well. He's keeping things pretty close to the vest at the moment and didn't give me a ton of information, but I did catch up with him to talk about the recent official visits. Cal had him on campus last, which is always a good spot to be, and it's clear there is a comfort level with the Bears that is different than the other schools in pursuit.

Oregon could definitely make things tricky here moving forward, but it feels like he is getting closer to making a decision now that he has been able to see the unofficial top contenders in his recruitment. His planned OV to Washington State didn't happen and is not likely to happen.

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