The Next Episode

During the bye week, Coach Tedford said he wanted to get a look at some of the younger players. There is a nice article in the SF Chronicle highlighting some of the younger players and how they performed recently.

Skyline High-Oakland grad Shea McIntyre was the leader in that category. The freshman linebacker made two crushing hits and recorded a sack during a four-play stretch. He came back a series later and almost tallied another sack.

Linebackers Matt Russi and Michael Mohamed combined on a sack, and defensive tackle Mika Kane forced a fumble on a sack.

Some offensive players caught Tedford's eye, too.

"Obviously, James Montgomery and Tracy Slocum ran really hard," he said, "and Drew Glover made some nice catches."

Montgomery, a highly-touted tailback out of Rancho Cordova, and Slocum, a freshman from Fresno, appear ready to extend the Bears' successful running attack well into the future.

On a screen pass that appeared to be headed for a loss of yards, Slocum broke about five tackles. He actually never went down, but coaches blew the play dead 11 yards later as he carried a number of would-be tacklers.

Glover, a sophomore from Bishop O'Dowd -Oakland, caught two long passes from redshirt freshman Kyle Reed (McClymonds-Oakland), including a diving catch for a 50-yard gain.

Quarterback Kevin Riley, a freshman from Oregon, completed 4 of 5 passes for 42 yards, including a 19-yard connection on which Julian Arthur made a nifty leaping catch.

(Read the entire article.)

My thoughts:
1) The running back position looks solid for years to come. With Forsett coming back next year and Montgomery and Slocum looking solid, the Cal running game should keep rolling along. Also, there are two highly touted running back recruits coming in next year: Brandon Jackson out of the state of Oregon (read more) and Shane Vereen (see profile) from Valencia in SoCal.

2) It looks like Kyle Reed and Kevin Riley are going to battle it out next year to back up Longshore. Unless Longshore decides to head off on his LDS mission, then they will be battling for the top spot. With Brock Mansion coming in next year, the QB line of succession is looking good.

3) Freshman linebacker Shea McIntyre got a nice blurb. Linebacker appears to be the hardest position for players to crack the starting line up. Cal started the season with 2 freshman All Americans, Follet and Felder, as back ups. Worrell Williams is only a sophomore. But I think we can expect to see McIntyre get into the rotation next year if he keeps up this hitting.