Monday Practice Report: Garbers, Brown, Davis Held Out

Quarterback Chase Garbers, running back Christopher Brown Jr. and safety Ashtyn Davis, all of whom left Saturday’s loss to USC with injuries, were spectators at practice on Monday. Their status for Saturday’s Big Game is unkmown.

In addition inside linebacker Evan Tattersall who was removed from the field on a stretcher, was discharged from a local hospital Saturday night and has been at home the last two days. He is expected to report to Memorial Stadium Tuesday, but is unlikely to practice. 

Significantly all four are listed as “week to week” on the injury report which means they could play either Saturday or in the Nov. 30 season finale at UCLA.

The remainder of the “week to week” injury report list consists of wide receivers Kekoa Crawford and Jeremiah Hawkins, who have been there for a while, and defensive back Branden Smith.

As for Garbers who made his first start after missing four games with a shoulder injury, head coach Justin Wilcox said he was not ready to announce Saturday’s starting QB. Despite what the injury report said, Wilcox used the term “day-to-day.”

“It is going to be up the doctors if and when they clear him to participate,” Wilcox said. “Again it was an unrelated (to his previous ailment) injury and he has not been cleared to participate yet. If he is cleared, depending on when that is, we’ll see where we go from there.” 

Wilcox said that backup Devon Modster was “out there throwing the ball today. He did a nice job.”

Wilcox said that if Brown can’t go the Bears would use a combination of running backs. “Obviously DeShawn Collins did some nice things (against USC). And then Marcel Dancy and Alex Netherdda,” Wilcox said. “I don’t know that one guy would play the entire game if Chris is unable to go.”

Wilcox said that the Tattersall’s situation has been “all positive” since he was released from the hospital.

“It was a scary moment for everybody in the stadium,” Wilcox said. “Our team, our fans and all involved. He’s doing better and he’ll be back tomorrow and he’ll start the protocol from there.”

He added that Davis, “would be day-to-day this week as well.”

Regarding USC’s ability to gash with the Bears with big plays, Wilcox repeated what he said after the game that there were not a lot of broken coverages. 

“What showed up was the one-on-one matchups at the end of a play, whether it’s defensively speaking, pass rush, we didn’t get a ton of wins in production there,” he said. “And then when we were able to make them throw it on time it was the one-on-one kind of jump balls, deep balls. By far the biggest issue was those one-on-one down the field throws. We just didn’t make enough of those plays and they did.”.

The Big Game hoopla has already begun with a couple of rallies in San Francisco Monday.

Cal made available two local products who are familiar with the Big Game tradition and will be playing in one for the first time: tight end Collin Moore from Novato and linebacker Ben Hawk Schrider from Berkeley.

“I remember going to friends’ house and their parents were Cal grads and they would be in Cal sweatshirts,” Moore said. “Then I’d go to another friend’s house, and they’re from a Stanford family and they’d be in Stanford sweatshirts. They’d wear them to class the next day and I’d watch them from afar. A lot of tension going on in the room.”

He rooted for Cal in earnest when Jared Goff came to Berkeley. “Being from Marin, there wasn’t anyone in Marin who wasn’t watching the Big Game just because of what Jared did.”

With his Berkeley roots, Schrider saw a lot of Big Games first hand. “I rushed the field when I was a little in 2004, that was a big moment,” he said.

He said he began attending BGs when he was about four and continued through high school, regularly in Berkeley, occasionally at Stanford.

Even when he went to other schools, Chattanooga and then Richmond, he kept track.

“I remember last year our season was over,” he said. He hosted a few friends in his apartment and used two TV sets. “I wanted to watch Cal-Stanford and they wanted to watch Georgia-Alabama. I wanted to watch the important game.”. 

Related:

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Five Plus One Factors, Cal vs. USC