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We’re here with Travers Family Head Football Coach Justin Wilcox. If you guys have questions here on the first day of the early signing period. Go ahead and let me know in the chat and we’ll get started. We’ll go ahead and get started with Jim McGill from Bear Insider Hey, Justin.
Just taking a look at the list of signees. Ja’ir Smith was a new addition. Can you talk a little bit about him? Yeah, really talented guy. We’ve known him for a while. Originally from North Carolina, but played out here at CSM, and we really like his skill set. He can run.
We think he’s got a shot to be a real good nickel and corner for us. So he can do a lot of different things. And I’m really pleased to get him in the fold. It has a pretty heavy emphasis on the defensive backfield with five so far that are signed
Can you talk about what position the other four guys are slotted for, too. Yeah, so if we went down through them, let’s see here. So we talked about Ja’ir, Dayday we like at safety. He’s a tall guy, he’s still thin so he’s got to continue to fill out. He’ll be a midyear guy.
Isaiah Crosby, real fast, really, really fast. Safety prospect. Brooklyn we think can do some different things. We’d like to see how Brooklyn Cheek, who’s coming out of high school, how he develops and Marcus Harris obviously a corner coming from Idaho to play corner Thanks. You guys
Go ahead and get your questions in the chat. We are going to try to be as efficient as possible today. We’ll go to Thomas Dunn from Write for California. Good morning, Justin. A lot has been made about the cliche about finding diamonds in the rough, but
Who is some one player in particular from this class so far that you feel like was really overlooked nationally that you’re really excited about? Oh, that’s a that’s a great question and always a hard one because you never quite know.
I mean, if if we all sat here last year and said, well, hey, it’s Cade, you know, Cade’s a guy that came in and obviously played great football for us. We’ll find out. Thomas I mean, you know, I think there’s some guys in here, you know, position-wise, sometimes there are certain spots
At running back, DB, receiver where it might be a little smoother transition. You know, sometimes with the linemen it’s a little bit more difficult. Tight ends the same just because of the physical part of the game. So some of these skill players,
You know, when you look at the wideouts and the running back, Jamaal Wiley, you know, those DB’s, you know, those are probably if you’re if your guessing it’s one of those. But heck, it’s just so hard in this era to know how
Those guys are going to transition because so much changes in their lives. And that’s the fun part. You know, you get them here and you you think you look and see what they might become and then you get to watch them come here and work and achieve those things.
Thank you. We’ll go to Steve Kroner from the Chronicle. Hi, good morning, Justin. you know, in this era of the phrase I know you use a lot roster management with so many people coming and going at different times, I know it’s hard for you to say specifically, but if you were going
To just an educated estimate, what percentage of your roster that you’ll have in late August is what you have now, after today? Yeah, after today, I would say so we got 20 signed, There’s another, there’s a handful of guys that we can’t comment on yet, but that will be joining us in January.
So I don’t know what percentage if you said January through June, you’re probably looking at anywhere from five, I don’t know, 15%, 10%, 15%. You’re going to add, uh, you know, another group of people. And so overall, if you’re looking at maybe maybe a third of your roster
Total, including today, is going to be turned over, give, give or take each year. Right now you’ve got about two thirds of the roster. You’ll have mid to late August. Yeah, that’s probably close. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, fair enough Good luck. Yeah, Thanks. Okay, we’ll go to Jeff Faraudo. Justin, you
Signed two quarterbacks, one of them a four-year guy who you looked at I think a year ago, Chandler Rogers and and then the other one from up in Seattle. Can you talk about each of those guys and kind of where they fit into things Yeah. EJ
Up in Seattle recruited him for a long time. He’s played a lot of quarterback. We think he’s got the the traits he’s been down here a bunch and really just looking forward to getting him here and and starting to work with him. Obviously, that position, there’s a lot of development and
You know, the transition to college and the offense and all those things, you never exactly know how that’s going to go for each individual. But he’s got the physical traits and we’re looking forward to getting him here. And then Chandler, as you mentioned, we recruited Chandler before.
He was very he’s been a very productive player in college. And so we’re we’re glad Chandler is joining us. And you know, it’s likely that will it will target one more quarterback just because in in this era of college in college football
You’ve got to have, you know, four to five quarterbacks in that room. And what’s the competition in the spring going to be like with with the two veteran guys? Well, there’s always going to be competition. You know, we bring guys in here for that reason.
You know, we’re trying to bring as many talented guys onto the roster as possible and let the competition sort itself out. So at every position there’s going to be a pecking order to start with and then the competition will play itself out.
Can you talk also about Trevor Rogers, the local wide receiver from the East Bay? Yeah, Trevor is a really productive guy. He’s been in our camp. We’ve known him for a long time. His brother played for us, did a did a heck of a job for us for a number of years.
So he’s got really good size and, you know, obviously comes from a really good program and we know him well. So we’re excited about him. I mean, he’s a he’s a talented kid and it’s nice to keep a local guy home Okay, we’ll go to Matt Moreno from Cal Rivals
A few Texas offensive linemen joined the group. What can you tell us about that? Those guys? Yeah, you know, we’ve we’ve actually had a lot of success with Texas guys joining our program and we got a few o linemen. They’re all right there kind of from the Austin area.
You got to Syris and Tyler and Aiden and Tyler comes from Westlake. Great, great program. Syris from Taylor there. Another great program. And Aiden, who just recently did a visit. He’s a massive guy. Aiden is humongous. A real mature guy. So, yeah, it’ll. Tyler’s coming mid-year.
He’s had an injury that he’s been working through. So we’ll be we’ll be glad to get him here and assist him with that. And then the other two will join us in the summer. Okay, we’ll go to Steve Kroner back to see if Yeah just following up on Matt’s question there.
You guys certainly seem to have had kind of a pipeline from Texas. I’m old enough to remember when Cal really didn’t get many, many players at all from Texas, the first significant player I can remember in a long time was Justin Forsett. Yeah.
Did he kind of open the pipeline or is there, what’s the, how has that kind of transpired that Cal is is recruiting Texas fairly heavily? Yeah, I remember that. I was here when Justin, I remember Justin coming on his visit and boy, he
He was a heck of a player and even better human being. I don’t if you ever got a chance to meet Justin Forsett. He’s a special guy. But yeah, we’ve, we’ve had a lot of success with guys from Texas, you know, and you know, sometimes it’s a connection and then they,
You know, you get a couple, two or three guys and then all of sudden you’ve got five and then you got ten because a lot of these guys know each other from high school. And if there’s a comfort level, It’s a direct flight. You know, education is important to him.
So we’re going to continue to do that. I also think they do a great job. You know, California does Texas does a great job developing their their high school players. They invest in high school football down there. So, yeah, it’s been it’s been good for us. Okay, we’ll go to Jeff Faraudo next.
Justin, Brett Johnson did not play in the bowl game and I’m wondering if you can enlighten us to what his status is. Has he moved on or? Yeah, yeah. Brett was unable to play. He had an injury that he’s dealing with and so we’ll see where that goes.
You know, we were talking to Brett daily, He’s got some things he’s working through, and when there’s time to make an announcement, we’ll make an announcement. But nothing as of right now. So nothing has been decided yet? Correct. All right, thank you. Okay, we’ll go to Back to Matt Moreno.
Yeah. You guys were able to (unintelligible) really, really impressive off the list and you had a bunch of top schools on the list. What kind of degree was that for you guys on the greens? You know what? What can you expect from him as a, as a playmaker?
Big He’s a really quick, shifty guy. He actually grew up up in Seattle, Tacoma area and knew EJI from way back when. So there was a connection there. But a really good high school at Guyer and very productive player
And adds a element of kind of that speed and quickness in that slot position. okay, we’ll go to Jim McGill. Justin, you talked about some of the portal transfer guys. Can you comment on any of the others? A or B or. Rush or Teddy.
Yeah, so, Rush we just just got a note right now. Rush we can. Aiden we can talk about Aiden comes from Notre Dame. He’s a he played high school in Colorado. Huge guy, 300. and I mean, he’s big, he’s real big, and he’s a real smart guy.
So we had a great visit with him. We’re glad to have him. And then Rush played at Montana State. We’ve had a number of Montana State guys here, had really good success with those guys transitioning into the program. So big offensive lineman, good football player and really, really excited about him, too.
Okay, We’ll go to Thomas Dunn from Write for California Justin obviously with recruiting it involves a lot of administration with scholarship math. I was wondering with the emergence of guys like Jack Endries and Trond Grizzell in the current state of the program as it is,
As well as the past emergence of guys like Ashton Davis and Patrick Laird. What’s your strategy regarding how you manage the scholarships now from a year to year basis? Yeah, we want to, you know, reward the guys who have put the time in and
Earned the right to be on scholarship and there’ll be some some changes there. And those two guys will be at the forefront of that. Obviously, we want to do right by by them. They’ve earned it and really proud of them and we’re going to continue to do that.
We take the walk on program very, very seriously. Thank you. okay, guys, probably time for a couple more questions. If you have another one go ahead and put in the chat. now, if you could, Jeff Faraudo Go ahead, Jeff. Yeah. Are you able to comment yet on either BJ
Canady or or Jamaal Wiley? Yeah. Jamaal, big running back out of Houston, really good, good football player and very productive, about 220 pounds. So can carry the load. And BJ, I saw him he’s from Topeka big dude really big, plays defensive end kind of reminds us
A little bit body type wise of Xavier but he is a big big guy loves the weight room is a workout guy his sister actually goes to the school across the bay She’s a very talented athlete so he’ll have family close by. And is Wiley at that position, a guy who can
Possibly come in and play right away? You know, it’s possible for all of them, Jeff, you know, we’ll see. We hope that all of them come in prepared to play and we’re going to work like crazy to get them ready to play.
And then we’ll see how the the competition helps us sort it out. And can you run down the whole list of guys who will be here midyear that will be at spring ball. Let’s see here, Tyler, Josiah Martin, BJ, Luke Ferrelli, Carlsbad, the inside linebacker, real explosive guy. Eze
From Byron Nelson High School inside linebacker really athletic. Dayday from Pacifica the safety Crosby midyear Ja’ir Smith midyear Aidan coming from Notre Dame is midyear. Marcus who’s transferring in from from Idaho is mid-year and Chandler Rogers is mid-year and there will be a couple more that we can’t talk about quite yet.
All right, thank you. Okay, we’ll probably wrap it up here with a final question from Matt Moreno. Camden, I believe, was the longest tenured kind of commitment in this class. He worked through a couple of coaching changes at his position. What can you tell us about him?
And what does it say about him that he was able to kind of withstand coaching changes and still have the faith in you guys? Yeah, I think he chose the school for the right reasons. It’s been a long time. We’ve been recruiting him big, athletic guy.
He’s been in our camp a couple of years ago, it seems like. So we got to know him well. He’s a he’s a Cal guy, you know, he’s going to fit in. And now we got to help him develop, you know, physically and as a football player.
But I mean, he’s every bit of 6-6 and probably 240 pounds, and he’s athletic. So now we just got to help him continue to grow as a player. But really excited about Camden. Okay. Guys, thanks a lot for joining us.
And we’ll be back in touch in the New Year with the next availability. Thanks.
