Read a story in Vanity Fair about the ongoing writer's strike In Hollywood. It coincides with the Directors Guild, and the actors union SAG-AFTRA. They bargain separately but they all sort of need one another to provide scripted programming. The fear in Hollywood is that one or more of the unions may not agree to a contract until July, possibly even late in the year. The longest writer's strike went 153 days. Without these unions the tv landscape becomes reality television, sports and news. If Kliavkoff can wait til summer, and tv desperately needs fall programming, seems like sports on Friday night pacific time becomes very, very valuable. Maybe Kliavkoff has a Hollywood card in his deck? Maybe Amazon sees an opening to put on Pac 12 games at a time when the casual viewer has no Law and Order, and no Succession.

What's the status on hiring a dedicated MBB reporter? Is that in the works? Any estimate on timing? Now that Cal has a staff that actually engages with the media and is actively out on the recruiting trail, I imagine there is much more to report.

Caleb Mitchell Irving, a three-star DL out of Dallas, is one of the more intriguing prospects on the visitor list for next week. I talked to him in-depth tonight about his recruitment and feel the Bears have a really solid chance to land him. Purdue and UTSA are the other finalists.

Full interview:

the field is set.

LBJ crowned himself after hitting a long 3 against a depleted Utah team to seal the win and clinch the 7 seed. What a f'ing clown... pathetic.

Seems like the 4-5 matchup could be interesting. Dubs vs Kings should be a fun series as well.

Login to view embedded media

I'll admit that even I am having a hard time following all of the questions/ suggestions about the Collective (CAlegends.com) on the various Cal message boards, so I thought I'd try to capture some of the more recent ones in one place for all of you.

In case it helps:

1. Collective is doing well. Will write a bit more on that in a separate post below. For those of you who have gone on to the site and made a donation, bought a subscription, purchased merchandise, or booked a shoutout, thank you! Your support is tremendously appreciated.


2. Still working on getting the players to create accounts on the site. This is a work in progress. Students are busy people and, aside from our starters, too many of the players on our teams haven't yet created a profile. And until they do you can't interact with them and I can't contact them. We're working on this - I plan to meet with the entire football team next week to encourage them to make profiles but just know that until they do we can't move forward with them.

3. We added (based on user feedback) the ability for fans to make credit card donations to fund NIL opportunities for specific players - we've added the starters by name to the drop down menu. Previously this level of flexibility to direct donations to players (as opposed to teams) was only available if you were sending a wire or a physical check. If you want to fund a position group instead you would still need to do that via wire transfer.

4 Still working on the ability for fans to be able to donate from within their profile (rather than having to log out or open a new window to do so). For some reason this is proving very difficult for our web developer to do. Still pushing - sent another message this morning. But in the meantime logging out or opening a new window still works. Sorry that's clunky.

5. If you aren't getting confirmations from us, please check your spam folder. 99% of the time when someone says they didn't get a confirm that's why. Even my confirms go into my spam folder. Gmail is not a fan of our service. Probably because Larry and Sergey went to Stanford.

6. Don't forget we have merchandise https://teamlocker.squadlocker.com/#/lockers/california-legends-collective
Honestly a lot of this is better than what UA is offering for the team. A good chunk of all the money you spend on merchandise will go straight back to the collective. So shop till you drop.

One of the more exciting things we are working on with Beastmode is creating separate clothing lines for individual players (jerseys, etc.) while allowing them to have some design input. This is a huge differentiator for us and something our competitors can't easily replicate. Will take some time (mainly because the students are busy with the whole school/football thing at the moment and their input is needed) but it's definitely coming. In the interim, we are going to do some fun stuff with Marshawn and our logo for the Hall of Fame dinner next month. Stay tuned.

7. Shoutouts. I will now write one of my lengthy, overly complicated and probably unnecessary rants. For those of you who find these tedious I'd suggest you dip out now.

One of the most popular things on our site is proving to be the shoutouts from players. They are also the bane of my existence since they require multiple interactions from the fans, the players, the fans again, the Collective and the payment processor. Ugh.

The way these work is you select a player and request they record some sort of brief video message. The player then has to accept the request. This is important to keep in mind. The player has to literally go in and say "yes, I'll do this." If they don't, the request will expire in four days. And if the request expires (they are busy, they are at practice, they are in class or studying, they are eating, sleeping, being a teenager, etc.) you will have to make another request.

How that system works is not within our control - the vendor who created this system sells it to a lot of other organizations so the "offer, acceptance, recording, fan acceptance of the recording, payment" thing is not something we can easily change. So if you have suggestions on how it should work better, well so do I. But neither of us is getting what we want there. So just realize that this isn't Amazon. You don't click "Buy it Now" and have a binding contract for delivery of a service. There's a lot that can go sideways or the player may just decide he or she is busy and not take you up on it. Don't take it personally. And keep your eye on the prize. The point of all this is to make the players feel some love and to allow them to monetize their name, image and likeness in a (hopefully) minimally taxing way for them.

Which brings me to the broader point on shoutouts. Shoutouts are cool for fan engagement. They are a good way to show some love to players down the roster in football or in some of the Olympic sports who otherwise would not have a lot of money sent their way from the Collective. Highly encourage all of you to book something from a player who you think might otherwise not be getting these opportunities. What they are NOT is a great way for us to raise significant money needed for our stars. Ott, for example, is getting hit with a lot of these. I think that's great as it's showing him some love. But he wants to focus on getting ready for the WSU game and will probably not be able to even address most of these until next week - at which point I'm guessing they may have expired (player has to accept within 4 days).

And of course all of this relates to the fact that shoutouts are relatively time intensive endeavors for the players. Requires them to log in, record, probably re-record a few times, upload, etc. So if you want to support the players I'll just say that the best way is to give targeted donations (https://basepath.co/collective_checkout/callegends?donation=true ) and direct that to a team or a player. I can then bundle them together and find a single event (commercial, speaking engagement, etc.) where the player can be paid a sizable amount of money for a one time event.

I don't mean any of this to sound ungrateful. I'm super appreciative of those of you who have booked a shoutout. Or bought merchandise, bought a subscription, made a donation, etc. Thank you! You are making a big difference. I just want to make sure the Collective accomplishes it's goal. Which is first, second and last to allow our players to profit from the name, image and likeness and hopefully allow these same players to get to the Rose Bowl.

Go Bears!

Sounds about right

Login to view embedded media

Cal​

New commits: QB Ben Finley (NC State), RB King Doerue (Purdue), RB Isaiah Ifanse (San Jose State), WR Taj Davis (Washington), WR Marquez Dortch (Mississippi State), OL Matthew Wykoff (Texas A&M), DB Patrick McMorris (San Diego State), DB Marcus Scott II (Missouri)

Don’t sleep on what Cal has been doing in the transfer portal this spring. The Bears have flipped their roster quite a bit this offseason and found some players who’ll make an immediate impact. McMorris was one of the best safeties in the Mountain West, having twice earned first-team all-conference honors. Wykoff and Davis will likely start right away, too, and Finley could push TCU transfer Sam Jackson for the starting quarterback job. Adding Doerue and Ifanse, who broke Montana State’s career rushing record (3,742 yards), will help complement Freshman All-America back Jaydn Ott.

---
Personally I think the class is solid. But it's hard to get too excited given we didnt hit on some of the talent in the most important position we were trying to replenish through the portal. Still a work in progress potentially but either way, should be interesting to see how the new talent gel during practices.

Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media
Cal has its first 2024 commitment. Pasadena High tight end Camden Jones is headed to Berkeley. Here's what he told me about the decision.

"Cal and the coaching staff seemed fired up to offer me from the jump. I met Geep Chryst one day then the next they offered me which was amazing and a huge shock to me. I like everything about the program plus I love the Bay Area."

Are you a child? Do you live with children? Have you ever met a child? Are you just immature? Ok, maybe not that one, but for the rest you are in luck. I am pleased to announce that California Legends will be hosting its first one-day football camp on Saturday, June 17. Get pumped!

Camp will be for kids grades 4-8 and will take place at Oakland Tech High School in Oakland, a short drive from the Berkeley campus. Registration will occur at 8:30 am and camp will end at 4:00 pm.

The camp will be coached by the star Cal players of the 2023 football team. Jaydn Ott will be coaching running backs. Sam Jackson will be coaching quarterbacks. Jackson Sirmon will be coaching linebackers. Brett Johnson will be teaching your children how to be BRETT JOHNSON. The list goes on and on.

Price for the camp is $149 with all proceeds going to the players in furtherance of our NIL efforts.

Head on over to https://calegends.com/ca-legends-football-camp/ to register your kids/grandkids/random neighborhood kids today while slots are still available.

Go Bears!

Login to view embedded media
Former USC commit Jason Robinson Jr. is one of the top-rated offensive prospects the Bears are in pursuit of for the 2024 class. He already visited Cal earlier in the spring, and he has already set up an official visit with the program for June 23. DeSean Jackson has been one of the former Long Beach Poly players Robinson has looked to for advice, and that has played a role in how Robinson views the program. That, plus continued pursuit from Burl Toler III and the staff in Berkeley has put Cal in a strong position with him heading into the summer. Notre Dame has gained steam as a potential likely landing spot, but I was told this week by someone involved with the recruitment that the Bears should very much be considered a legitimate threat to land him when all is said and done. Robinson has found a lot that he likes about the program, and that pushed him to make it one of his first official visit stops in the process. Syracuse will host him June 9 before the Bears get him out to Berkeley on June 23.

I caught up with him to discuss his previous visit to Cal and look ahead to his official visit now that he has a better feel for the Bears after seeing the program up close in March.

"They got really good connections over there at Cal with former players and alums that have been there," he said "So, that's a real good thing they got going on over there. Then another thing is really being able to come in and just ball. Anywhere I go I'm gonna be able to ball and take a spot, but I feel like that's somewhere I'll be that man."

He released a top 10 less than two weeks ago featuring Cal, Utah, USC, Washington, Colorado, Penn State, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Florida State and Syracuse. Utah is also set to receive an official visit once the season begins.

Login to view embedded media

Matt and I went to watch Cal four-star WR target Kwazi Gilmer last weekend in 7v7. I'll have a video package to post in here later as well. Gilmer is taking OVs to UCLA, Michigan State, Stanford, Washington and then Cal the last week of June. He shared a good anecdote about why his connection with Burl Toler is so strong and covered his recruitment overall:

Easily my favorite video game of all time and what got me really into college football as a kid. Great news. Probably the only chance Ill be able to experience Cal getting 20 5 star recruits and winning the National championship game.

Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media
Purdue RB King Doerue has committed to the Bears today. Cal loading up on transfer RBs this offseason. Remember, Byron Cardwell missed the end of spring ball with a knee injury and Justin Williams-Thomas didn’t participate at all.

Doerue rushed for over 1,100 yards plus 10 TDs at Purdue but only played in four games last year because of an injury.

Ryan and I are both at a passing tournament currently but will get more later.

Cal is hosting Colorado WR transfer Montana Lemonious-Craig right now for a visit. He, of course, had the game-winning catch vs. Cal in Boulder last season. Overall, he caught 23 passes for 359 yards and 3 TDs as a third-year sophomore in a moribund passing offense. He also was the star of Colorado's spring game, only to enter the portal a day later while Shedeur Sanders posted a wild video from the locker room with MLC in the background. Of all the Colorado transfer departures, his surprised the folks over there the most.

This is a really intriguing one for Cal!

Login to view embedded media

I wish our AD would resign...

Login to view embedded media

Login to view embedded media
King Large (fantastic name) added an offer from Cal this week after hearing from offensive line coach Mike Bloesch. The junior at St. John Bosco in Bellflower has started to see his recruitment pick up in recent weeks, and he's hopeful that the offer from the Bears adds to the momentum. Even if it doesn't, he's had his eye on Cal for a while now and is hoping to nail down an official visit date as he talks more with Bloesch and the Bears over the next couple weeks. Oregon is his other Power Five offer and he visited there last month while he has an official visit planned to Colorado State set for late June.

He still has some things to fine tune, but I watched him yesterday at the SJB spring game and there is definitely some talent there. He's played both tackle and guard and was working exclusively at left tackle yesterday. Bosco was the top high school team in the country last year, so Large has some quality experience under his belt already.

Here's what he had to say about his conversation with Bloesch on Wednesday that ended with his new offer:

"It was real great. A real great man. I've always had an interest in Cal seeing as they're one of the top public schools in the nation. I've always had interest in them seeing as they're Pac-12 and also really good in my major, business."

Watch some ISO clips of Large in action at yesterday's spring game below:

Login to view embedded media

Perhaps this is obvious, but after listening to Coach Spav talk about his passing philosophy, I thought he said the receivers were able to break off passing routes in order to "get open." I wonder how the QB reacts in an offense where the receivers are allowed to just find open space. I'm assuming the QB has to wait a bit, because they can't know for sure which way a receiver is going to break. Seems like the QB can't really anticipate and throw a pass In anticipation of a receiver's move. Is that right? Does this scheme have a name? It doesn't sound like the "run and shoot" but maybe it's just the norm for the run/pass option? thanks for any thoughts.

Nice one! Story coming ...

Here's the list as I know it:

Login to view embedded media
-34 catches for 458 yards and 5 TDs last season for North Texas
-Three years of eligibility remaining
-Decommitted from Arkansas yesterday

Login to view embedded media
-47 catches for 606 yards and 4 TDs over the last two seasons combined
-Two years of eligibility remaining

Login to view embedded media
-Played 114 snaps last season as a backup left tackle
-Three years of eligibility remaining

Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media
The Bears pick up an offensive line transfer with Houston second-year freshman Trevonte Sylvester announcing his pledge to Cal this afternoon.

Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media
Jaylon Tyson has announced his commitment to Cal giving Mark Madsen an integral piece to the rebuild in Berkeley. He averaged 10.7 points and 6.1 rebounds last season at Texas Tech and had been one of the top available transfers. Just a huge addition for the Bears.

Login to view embedded media
didnt see it posted here