With no updates on the status of Saturday night’s game against Arizona State, Cal called off its previously scheduled post-practice press conferences Wednesday evening.
Head coach Justin Wilcox and a couple of players were scheduled for Zoom calls with the media. In a statement, the Cal public relations department said, “We continue to have conversations with the medical health professionals on campus and with the CIty of Berkeley. We have no further update on the status of Saturday’s game at Arizona State and will have our next media availability once we have a final determination.
The Bears season opener against Washington scheduled for last weekend was canceled when one member of the Bears defensive line tested positive for the coronavirus. The entire position group was placed in quarantine and has been unable to practice with the rest of the team, Because no one else in the group has tested positive in the last ten days, Cal was hoping the City would lift the quarantine and allow the players to rejoin the team and the ASU game to proceed. So far that has not happened
In a media call that was held in the afternoon, defensive coordinator Peter Sirmon (above) said there had been no major shuffling of positions to make up for the missing defensive linemen.
“We are always looking at flexibility….We have discussed that. At the same time with numbers being down, we are battling to keep a team, and keep guys safe and healthy and get ready for a game,” Sirmon said in the afternoon Zoom interview.
“We have not gone through a wholesale change of guys moving into positions. The way we are preparing is the eventuality of getting the quarantine players back to play their natural positions.”
There has been one move. Redshirt sophomore Erick Nisich has been moved back to defense from the offensive line. Nisich began his career on the defensive line in 2018 and moved to offense last year.
“We are very optimistic about Erick,” SIrmon said. “He has spent time in the defensive line before and that’s what made him a candidate to come on back and join us. He’s athletic. He moves extremely well for a guy his size. He has heavy hands and does a great job of striking blocks. We will continue to train him. He is a bright, thoughtful, hard-working guy and he has size.”
Just leave the one guy who tested positive behind and take the guys that tested negative and get on a plane for Phoenix. Say we couldn't continue to wait for an answer and given the negative tests for over a week our medical advisors (and lawyers) gave us the go ahead.
I like that we are considering position changes to fill gaps. By my count, and including walkons, with this switch we have 18 OL and 10 DL. We do not know if there will be lingering effects of COVID on the DL player who is infected. So the switch seems very prudent. You want them to be able to play at full speed.
Here is the phone number for the City of Berkeley Mayor's Office (510) 981-7100 and City Manager's Office (510) 981-2489 to ask why they are managing COVID-19 quarantines differently that the State of California and other municipalities in California.
Also, here is Gov Newsom's number to ask him to intervene and provide more consistent guidelines for the four Pac12 school players and staff: (916)-445-2841.
Donate to Cal's NIL at https://calegends.com/donation/
And on a side note, Coach Sirmon needs a much different lighting source for his videos. He looks like a zombie or something.
They all look terrible. Cal insisting on super imposing over their logo. Wont watch anymore of these videos. Coaches are super pissed and should not be doing interviews.
