Musgrave, Sirmon Evaluate Spring Day Two

The Cal football team had its second spring practice session Friday and both offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave and defensive coordinator Peter Sirmon spoke with the media via Zoom afterward. They sounded pleased with what has been happening.

When asked about his quarterback group, Musgrave said that because the way the players are set up on the field because of covid protocols actually means more practice opportunity.

“The way we are configured on the field is that we are on two spots so we have two seven on sevens going on simultaneously,” Musgrave said. “Two sets of team work. So nobody is standing around, which is great.  Spring football is for everybody to improve, everybody, coaches, players, So everyone is getting to coach, everyone is getting to play. The quarterbacks are all getting equal reps and they are all doing a great job.

Musgrave said he expects the quarterback depth chart to remain unsettled until fall camp. However, Chase Garbers is clearly No. 1 and has done nothing to change that in practice so far.

“Chase is doing great, had a couple of good days,” Musgrave said. “Today we’ve stepped it up a little bit. On Wednesday things were pretty straightforward and vanilla. Things started to escalate today between the offense and the defense, That’s a good thing. That’s how we get better. Chase was right in there battling with everybody. We had some good line checks that he’s on top of. Today we were working on some new pass concepts that we feel will really fit us. We embarked on those today. He had his moments like all of us on offense. We all take all our lumps from time to time and learn from them.”

And on defense SIrmon sees a positive attitude that starts with the older players.

“What we’re looking for when I go out there, ‘What’s the culture? What’s the attitude? What’s the energy?’ I think that is very indicative of where the program’s at,” Sirmon said. “We have a group of older players who have come back as ‘super seniors’. They are not practicing like ‘super seniors’. They are practicing like they’re young, energetic, eager. That’s where you get everybody excited, everybody taking to coaching.”

Sirmon is in the unusual position of supervising the man who is his boss.

“Right  now we have got a pretty good DB coach back there, so I expect him to get those DBs ready,” Sirmon said with the hint of a smile “And I will continue to be hard on him We have a certain standard of playing DB back there, So I hope we can play up to that standard and coach up to that standard.”

That standard is set by Justin Wilcox, who until a replacement for Marcel Yates is hired is the interim DB coach.

“I am being a little funny here on this Zoom. I wouldn’t be doing that if he were sitting here in the room,” admitted Sirmon. “It is great to have Justin with us, it really is. What it forces you to do, it forces you to get better with your language and your coaching progression. He has a different perspective on our defense because he is not in the room every single day. So I think it is an easier opportunity for poking, not some holes in things, but how can we coach this better. For him to be day-to-day with the players, they get to ask him questions, and if things aren’t as concise and as clean as he wants us for our defense, he’s challenging us to coach things better. It’s been actually very healthy for us because it does make us all better.”

Closer to the line of scrimmage Sirmon said that inside linebacker Kuony Deng would be moving around..

“We are going to explore a couple of different options with Kuony,” Sirmon said. “He has a really good understanding of playing that inside linebacker spot. And then we are going to continue to develop him at the outside linebacker spot. We would like him to play both positions if possible. His body type tends to be a very tough block on the outside part of the field. During the spring he will be taking the majority of reps at the outside linebacker position. 

“Kuony playing outside linebacker is not something that’s never happened, You go back and watch the film of the Stanford game. He played outside linebacker. This is not a monumental shift for him, playing out there in the spring. As we wrap up the spring and evaluate the roster, we know there is a lot of position flexibility with him. We want to continue to get some of the less experienced linebackers more reps. And we’ll continue to do that.”

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