Bear Bits: Preseason Polls, Position Changes, New Looks

Man, college football season can't get here soon enough.

We're just a few days away from Fall Camp starting (players report on Sunday and the first practice starts up on Monday). With things revving up, here are a couple of bits of info to read ourselves.

Gibson Makes the Move to Safety
With Cal's change to the 4-3 this season, I had been wondering what types of position changes they would need to make in order to handle the wealth of riches at the linebacker position. Only allowing for three linebackers on the field at once seemed counterintuitive given the talent with names like Scarlett, McCain, Forbes, Fortt, Jefferson, Broussard, Barton, Nickerson, Gibson, etc all in the mix and deserving of playing time.

At closer glance however, the move seems to make a bit more sense in that it actually allows for more of those players on the field at once. McCain and Scarlett have the frame to man the DE positions, leaving Jefferson, Forbes and Fortt as the three "true" linebackers. So it effectively looks more like a 2-5-4 from a personnel standpoint though Scarlett and McCain seem to have the builds (now) to handle the end positions.

So this thinking led me to Jason Gibson. The redshirt sophomore has become a bit of a forgotten man after having missed out on his entire RS frosh season due to a broken foot injury during preseason camp. It's easy to forget that Gibson was an US Army All-American and a consensus Top 10 OLB prospect by nearly every recruiting service out there as a high school senior.

He had been making a push at one of the inside linebacker positions last year before the aforementioned injury. Well it looks like he'll be switching positions again as Rivals is reporting that Gibson has now made the move to safety.

At 6'2 and 220 pounds, he won't have an issue with size, and one of his strengths coming out of HS was his speed and athleticism. I haven't seen him play enough for me to know how good his coverage skills are, but I know the dude can hit and tackle.

I don't see this necessarily as an indictment of either Michael Lowe or Alex Logan as I think Gibson would be better suited playing closer in the box like Avery Sebastian. I also think this move simply makes more sense in terms of 1) shoring up depth at the safety position and 2) trying to get more talent on the field. Given his lack of experience at the position however, it remains to be seen how much Gibson will see the field this year. It should be an interesting story to follow as it progresses however.

Preseason Rankings Are Out!
And Cal is nowhere to be found. Very little surprise here. I believe the over/under on Cal's wins this season is stuck right around 4. So most coaches or pundits seem to think very little of us. You can view the Coach's Poll here.

What also isn't surprising is how many of Cal's upcoming opponents are on featured in the poll however. Check out the following:

Northwestern #22 (home)
Ohio State #2 (home)
Oregon #3 (away)
Furd #4 (away)
UCLA #21 (away)
USC #24 (home)
Oregon State #25 (home)

I don't care how many of those teams are overrated, that's still arguably one of the toughest schedules in the country. It's hard to make the case for many tougher schedules out there.

With that said, there's major opportunity there. Upset anywhere from 2 or 3 of those teams and you're going to start getting some attention from pundits and recruits. Oh, and the added bonus of a bowl season being all but assured.

Hard Knocks: Cal?
It looks like the PAC-12 Network is trying to emulate a Hard Knocks style show. The show will cover Cal and ASU this season.

As a fan, I'm ecstatic. Let's face it, the Bears can use any help they can get in terms of generating interest among the casual fans and recruits. Of course, it's not hard to imagine that the show pegs the Bears as a Miami Dolphins type of team should the Bears struggle throughout the season, but the eternal optimist in me hopes that isn't the case.

New Cal Video Out
And finally, I leave you with Cal's new promo video. It looks like they've updated it within the last 24 hours and have fortunately gotten rid of the awful "vintage-y black splot" filter effect on the last version. Don't know what all that was about.