These past two weeks have been a little too chaotic for my taste.
And while it was a crazy couple of weeks for the fans, think what a circus it must have been for the recruits. Imagine getting convinced by a coach that Berkeley is the place you want play your college football at, only to have him come back just weeks later telling you to disregard all those selling points.
And sure, a couple of guys couldn’t see past Tosh Lupoi’s shadiness and decided to take their talents elsewhere. They didn’t really want to come to Berkeley, and, honestly, Cal’s going to be better off without them.
But more decided to stay. Not even a boat filled with Jumbacos and seal pelts could lure them away from their dream school.
And these guys weren’t just a bunch of nobodies that no one else wanted. These were highly sought-after recruits who decided that the only place they wanted to be was Berkeley.
This class is going to become one of the strongest in Cal’s history. It’s full of guys who bleed blue and gold, who are going to kill themselves every single day in practice if it means helping out their team.
It doesn’t take 5-star recruits to make a program competitive on a national scale. Did anyone hear Boise State’s name get mentioned at all this recruiting season? No, but I guarantee we’ll be hearing all about the Broncos come September.
All it takes to win is a bunch of guys who are willing to commit their hearts and souls to their football program. It takes guys who want to play for their university, not for a defensive line coach. It takes guys like Alex Mack, Marvin Jones and Avery Sebastian — guys who will do anything for their team. And this class is filled to the brim with guys like that.
Stanford figured this whole philosophy out a while ago, and look where it’s taken that program. There’s no reason that Cal can’t and won’t follow the same trajectory.
Coaches can do all the recruiting they want, but the players are the guys who can really show a recruit that they should want to come to a program. Excitement is contagious, and when players love their school and love their team, the word gets around.
So would you rather have recruits talk to a guy who will eventually go on to play in the NFL but will announce his alma mater as Long Beach Poly? Or would you rather he talk to a guy who’s waited his whole life for an opportunity to come to Cal and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world?
Cal football is on the rise, and fans and recruits alike are starting to take notice. The fact that people are upset with a top-25 recruiting class just confirms that.
The Bears are adding 17 players to their roster, all of whom have a shot to make an immediate impact and want nothing more than to help their new team out. Is it the most glamorous class ever? Probably not, but it might be the grittiest and most dedicated one we’ve ever had in Berkeley. They’ve been to hell and back, and when it might have been easier to just jump ship, they decided that Berkeley was where they needed to be.
And for that, there’s no reason to be anything other than excited.
Comment Policy
Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. The Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regard to the readers, writers and contributors of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Click here to read the full comment policy.
I know Marshawn Lynch makes visits back to the Bay Area. I was wondering if Rodgers or Jackson ever do any promoting of California?
This recruiting year had to many controversies, we shall see how Cal does next year.
Agree, it was still a damn good recruiting class with a lot of talent and admirable personal qualities. Again, we see shadiness in college football, this time it was just close to home, actually perpetrated by one of our own. I’m not usually the vindictive sort, but at least right now, I feel like the disgraced Tosh Lupoi should be outcast and deplored any time he sets foot into Bear Territory ! He obviously didn’t have what it took to exemplify Bear dignity.
It was also the treachery of Sarkisian that waited till after the Army All American game in which to entice Tosh with the candied apple. Why is it that we constantly see these moral less coaches coming out of USC ? Must be the class they are all required to take- Backstabbing 101.
I’m speculating that this rather polyannish piece is intended to assuage the violent reaction to Jack Wang’s article on the recruiting meltdown (reminicent of the student reaction to Paterno’s firing). The basic idea here is that good old college spirit will make for a winning football program. Wake up and smell the coffee. What we are seeing this year is the Pac-12 catching up to the national reality that college football is no longer an amatuer endevour. Now with the money from the new TV deal flowing we can see that it’s all about the benjamins. A couple of years ago it was Cam Newton being shopped around to the highest bidder. Oh, but that was in the south not here. Well, it’s here now.
There is no substitue for elite talent and coaching. And expect to pay.
If only the players bleed blue and gold Cal would be at the top you say. Really? What is Cal offering? What’s the compensation to the players? No money. A chance to go pro? Maybe. National attention of a dominant program. So far not much positive there. A great education? Only 54% of Cal football players actually graduate. What exactly do the players owe Cal?
If being a powerhouse football program is the priority then it’s time to burn your bridges to the old, traditional Cal and get comfortable with what the beast needs to eat to thrive.
And please, hold the platitudes.
There are only about 10 schools in the NCAA that have as many or more players in the NFL that Cal does. There is only one team in the Pac-12 that has more than Cal and that is USC- So yes Cal does offer an excellent opportunity for players to be drafted into the NFL. As far as money, the highest paid CB for years was Nnambi Asomugha from Cal. Last years SB MVP Aaron Rodgers. The only reason that fewer college players don’t graduate is because of early departure, that is due to stupidity, the same stupidity that says that 97% of all NFL player end up spending all the money they have earned within 10 years after they retire. Please tell me how many players in the NBA have college degrees, in the NCAA now, all you have to do is attend 1 year of college before being eligible for the draft, before that the NBA was taking players right out of H.S.
OK- so now we know what excuse Tedford will use when Cal doesn’t make a bowl game next year- People that defend Tedford will say it is because of what happened this year during the recruiting. I for one thought Cal was on the road to going to a Rose Bowl beginning in 2003 when things started to look promising, but since A Rodgers we have steadily gone down hill- Longshore, Riley, and now Maynard.