Unable to meet and interact with their fans and the student body in person, the Cal Athletic Department used technology to do the next best thing.
To make sure that interest in the Golden Bears football team does not vanish during the period of sheltering in place, Cal held a Virtual Fan Fest on Saturday.
Chief Revenue Officer Joe Mulford and Head of Marketing John Corwin “were looking for ways to engage our Cal Football Community virtually,” Mulford said in an email. “ Once we figured out the backend software to make the production you saw we felt comfortable with launching it to our fans.”
The hour-long event on the Cal Athletics Facebook page featured Zoom interviews with assistant coaches Burl Toler III and Angus McClure, broadcaster Yogi Roth and athletic director Jim Knowlton as well as some innovative videos and even a performance by the band, each member playing his or her instrument from home and the whole thing synchronized amazingly well to sound almost like the real thing.
The event did draw a crowd, virtually. “We have had close to 6,000 people watch on facebook with a reach of over 23,000 fans,” Mulford said. And it got some notice outside the Cal community. “We have heard from schools in all Power 5 conferences, and numerous pro teams asking the technical questions of how we produced a broadcast and seamlessly used our great videos, along with live interviews during a live broadcast,” Mulford said..
Nasser Al-Rayless, who has the title of Cal Athletics Emcee, on Saturday was just that, interviewing the guests and introducing the videos.
While everyone answered his questions more or less completely, the most important question was the one without a definitive answer. When will we know what the fall sports landscape will look like, most specifically football?
Knowlton’s short answer was in about five weeks.
“We are going to continue to watch what is happening in the medical world, testing is going to be important, tracing is going to be important, being able to social distance,” Knowlton said. “I think the whole United States is trying to figure out how do we work our way to back to some type of normal and do it in a safe way. It is happening so quickly and changing so rapidly that we would be foolish to make decisions too early. Chancellor (Carol) Christ has put a mark on the wall. And 15 June is when we make some of these hard decisions.”
In the meantime department executives and coaches have not been idle. Toler, the wide receivers coach, and McClure, who handles the offensive line, detailed how they are using high tech to keep tabs on their players and interact with them. Knowlton is doing the same with the department in general.
“I didn’t want the pandemic to completely consume us,” Knowlton said. “I wanted to continue to work hard on everything from facility master planning ...so that when the lights do go back on, and they won’t go on with a light switch, more like a dimmer, we are going to be in a better spot than we were before the pandemic....We are focusing on how we get back to school and how we get back to athletics and do it in a safe and healthy way.”
He conducts Zoom interviews with the entire department every other week.
Nothing in the world, including obviously Cal athletics, is going to be the same when the lockdown ends. Without saying anything specific Knowlton left a clue as to something that might lie ahead. He said the department was creating models to answer various questions, one of them being “How many people do we bring back.”
That seems to indicate some personnel reductions might be coming to the Athletic Department.
Both Toler and McClure were effusive in talking about the prospects of their respective units. They are both holding regular online meetings.
Before the campus shut down, the football team held four spring workouts. Those make up the core of the virtual coaching.
“We were able to film four practices. of themselves running specific routes and formations,” Toler said. “They know what the huddle sounds like, they know what the hand signals are. They have got that under their belt. And know they can look at themselves on film.”
McClure, too, makes use of the filmed practices. “We have eight hours a week of online meetings,” he said. “And I am able to dissect for them, ‘Where are your eyes, where are your feet, where are your hands?. How are you bringing your hips?. Are you finishing? Are you running to the football when the back escapes downfield?’ You can really break that down and analyze.
“It has been a great forum for the younger guys to ask the older guys questions. Maybe Brayed Rohme can talk to Jake Curhan about his stance on third and long. We can have those discussions in the meetings.”
Specifically, Toler seemed hesitant to single out any particular player, rather saying he was pleased with the whole group during the abbreviated spring. He did say, “Jeremiah Hawkins had a great early spring. He’s focused, kind of a chip on his shoulder, which I love. ….I would put money that he is the fastest guy on the team.”
Makai Polk, who came on strong in the latter part of his freshman year, came in for praise as did seniors Kekoa Crawford and Trevon Clark and junior Nikko Remigio. Toler seems particularly high on incoming freshmen Justin Baker. (“The Touchdown Maker”) and Jason Mangum, who was on campus and participated in the four practices.
From his brief rundown, it seems as if virtually every receiver can be used in the slot or as a wideout.
Versatility is also a hallmark of the offensive line, where McClure will continue Steve Greatwood’s practice of having everybody play multiple positions.
“We can move guys around to different positions and experiment,” McClure said. “I think they’ve adjusted extremely well to the terminology, to the techniques. They are really enjoying Coach (Bill) Musgrave’s offensive system. It is a lot of fun for offensive linemen, It’s a prostyle system in which the athleticism for the offensive linemen is going to show up.”
There is a great deal of interest in how Will Craig and Gentle Williams, who sustained season-ending injuries a year ago, are progressing. McClure was asked specifically about each.
“He’s a great athlete that can play multiple positions,” McClure said of Craig. “HIs natural position is left tackle. I think he has done an outstanding job getting himself ready for the season. Even in this time of uncertainty, we have bi-weekly meetings and I have been checking in on his progress. He has been doing extremely well. I get the videos of him running about in Granite Bay, stretching out his legs and ankles and feet.
“Gentle is an experienced player who can play multiple positions. He is a great athlete. For all you football fans out there, he reminds me of Guy McIntyre who was a great guard for the 49ers. Gentle has a great ability to pull, to run, to read on the run and play with great leverage.”
McClure got a real look at the type of student athlete under his tutelage when he assigned the linemen to read the book “ The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy
“It is a powerful book and I knew I was at Cal when I started having the players give reports,” he said. “I was impressed. They did an outstanding job in the presentations and they really dove in and enjoyed the book and got a lot of benefit from it.”
Roth, who has done several Cal games for the Pac-12 Networks was effusive in his praise of Justin Wilcox, not only his coaching skills but his personality.
“He just makes everybody in the room better,” he said.
Roth also was asked which players he was particularly high on going into the season whenever it happens.
He mentioned quarterback Chase Garbers and cornerback Cam Bynum, no real surprise there. But he also included linebacker Kuony Deng, who he said has the potential to be the best in the conference.
Showing that even the truth can sometimes be misleading, Knowlton mentioned that the college basketball season was ended just hours after Cal had defeated Stanford in the Pac-12 Tournament.
“Mark Fox said to me, “After beating Stanford we were nine wins from the national championship.”
That is seeing the glass half full.
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