Desean Jackson...Too Fat?

("Desean's a fatty! Desean's a fatty!")

The nitpicking, I mean “evaluation” of Desean Jackson has started. Ok, well it’s been going on for a while now, but it’s beginning to pick up steam as we approach the one week mark until the draft. Also, more and more journalists are beginning to a look at Desean as he begins to make his rounds of visiting NFL teams around the country.

The latest visit to the bay area San Francisco 49ers has some scout reviews, again, highlighting Desean Jackson’s weight. For as much flack that he got for showing up at the combine at a weight that many scouts considered too “light” at 169 lbs, now they’re thinking the guy might be too heavy for his frame after he gained a whopping 6 lbs.

“The pass rush isn't the only area of concern for the 49ers. They'd love to land a pass receiving threat to add to new offensive coordinator Mike Martz's aerial show. That makes Cal's DeSean Jackson another possibility, and he'll be in today for an interview as well.

Jackson's people say he has gained a little weight, to 175 pounds from 169, which has concerned some scouts. He returned Wednesday from visiting the Rams, and he also was brought in by the Eagles and Bucs. He has recovered from the quadriceps and thumb problems that hampered him last year at Cal.

After posting the fastest 40-yard time (4.35) at the combine among wide receivers, he has moved up to a likely first-round selection. Despite a disappointing senior year, he returned six punts for touchdowns in his Berkeley career, an ability that further endears him to the 49ers.”

Read the full article here

I can understand NFL scouts' concerns...somewhat. These are million dollar investments they're talking about here, so they have to make the right choices. And when it comes to the draft, which is the closest thing to a modern day meat market that you will find, a few lbs can make the difference between a player making it through 13 years, or 4 games before hyperextending a muscle and being out for the rest of their rookie year, or career.

But 6 lbs? Sheesh. You heard 'em Desean. 169 lbs is too light, and 175 is too heavy. You're going to need to get to about 172.8 lbs to guarantee a first round pick.

P.S. I don't think Desean falls to the Niners at their spot in the first round, but who knows?

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Wednesday (4/16) Spring Practice Notes

Seeing as I'm not part of the media, and don't have their exclusive rights to go check out the regular closed Cal practices, I have to count on Jonathan Okanes for my Spring football practice notes.

But I think the bloody guy had a kid (Congratulations!), so I was expecting to be deprived of any Spring Updates until I stumbled upon the story on the Scout front page. You can check out the full article here, but I thought I'd share some of the more interesting tidbits:

Trends:

"Now at the halfway mark through the spring practices of 2008, several trends have emerged:

1. The defense is ahead of the offense,
   
   
2. Riley continues to mix the occasional poorly thrown pass in with many good
   tosses,
   
   
3. The O-line is a work in progress and Coach Michalczik has his work cut out for him,
   
   
4. Tad Smith and LaReylle Cunningham catch almost everything thrown in their direction, and
   
   
5. Bryan Anger sure can crank out the boomers - but the occasional shanks continue.

6. Brock Mansion enjoyed his best practice to date. He benefited from extended reps as he took snaps for both second and third team offensive plays.

   Mansion's throws were crisp, and he displayed good escapability skills, several times turning broken plays into positive yardage.

7. Rulon Davis played several downs in the middle as a defensive tackle, at least once stunting to penetrate a gap."

My thoughts:

• Good to hear about Mansion. Even though he's struggled mightily so far in the Spring, I've still got a lot of hope in the kid, and the sooner he can grasp the offense, the better.

• Davis playing at DT is a surprise, considering how much he can provide at the DE position if he stays healthy. I also thought he was better served to be force off the edge and guarding lateral runs as opposed to stuffing the middle, but who knows?

• Anger shanks punts? I guess I never noticed while he was booting balls into Tilden Park.

• Not surprised to hear about Cunningham's performance. The guy's got hands. His lack of blazing speed and solid catching abilities seem to be pointing to him to the slot receiver position...

• Thanks goodness we're finally getting some defensive pressure on the line. It always leads back to the question though of whether our defense is playing really well, or if our offensive unit is struggling. I guess we won't REALLY know until the Fall...
  

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Cal Player Gary Doxy testifies in Berkeley Shooting Trial

Cal Player testifies in Berkeley Shooting Trial
Current Cal defensive back Gary Doxy testified on Friday as a witness during the trial involving the death of Meleia Willis-Starbuck, almost three years ago. Apparently, Doxy was walking near Dwight and College when a few of the players began talking to Willis-Starbuck and her girlfriends, and began arguing.


"The fight began with team members flirting with Willis-Starbuck and her friends. When the women rejected the advances, the football players became angry, with one saying one of the women looked like Chewbacca." (Inside Bay Area)

Dang, Chewbacca? I'd be pissed too if someone said one of my lady friends looked like this:

According to Doxy, he and some other players stood back while the players who had made the insults later apologized. Willis-Starbuck proceeded to argue with the players however, ultimately calling a good friend to come, for help. That friend, Christopher Hollis, came blazing with a pistol, shooting 4 rounds at the group, grazed Doxy who made a run for it, and ended up inadvertently shooting his friend Willis-Starbuck in the chest, killing her.

I'm not making this up. Read the report here:
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#1 Biggest OffSeason Story - Kevin Hart Recruiting Hoax

("And uh...I decided that uh...I'm going to be playing football for the University of California!")

This story tops the list of the Top 5 Biggest Offseason Stories for the Cal Bears team. Some of you guys are probably disappointed, because of all the stories, this one was probably the least significant in terms of the implications for the program, but the story was just so freakishly bizarre that it easily had the most national attention of anything that happened to Cal in the past few months.

Plus as Rod Benson might say, it's too "coddamn" funny to not blog about, even if it's a bit old.

So here's the skinny for those of you who missed it:

Kevin Hart is a 6-foot-4, 305-pound offensive line high school senior from Fernley, community outside of Reno. In early February, Hart called a news conference in front of his entire school, family, and TV crews from Reno (no student from Fernley had ever been offered a scholarship by a Div 1A school, so this was a big deal). With his high school coach holding the mic for him, Hart announced that after much deliberation between Oregon and Cal, that he was going to be a Golden Bear. The crowd erupted in applause as Hart donned the Cal cap, stood and waved to the crowd before thanking his family and supporters.

("I'm so proud of you...")

There was one minor detail missing though: Cal had never offered Hart a scholarship. In fact Cal had never even heard of Hart. Neither had Oregon. Or Nebraska, or any of the other schools that had been allegedly recruited Hart. In fact, I'm sure when a reporter asked Tedford to comment about their new recruit Kevin Hart, Tedford responded: "Who the $%#& is Kevin Hart?"

This, despite Hart telling reporters that Cal coach Jeff Tedford “and I talked a lot, and the fact that the head coach did most of the recruiting of me kind of gave me the real personal experience.” (Register Guard)

So someone was definitely wrong here. Law officials immediately began investigating. Hart claimed that he had been duped by a false recruiter. And the sketchiness of the facts and details began to cloud up the matter even further. From the details of reports given, I've been able to piece together a reenactment of what the type of conversations that took place between Kevin Hart and the investigators. And I'm not making any of these facts up.

Investigator: So you're claiming then, that a man falsely represented himself as a middle man recruiter for big-time college football programs?

Kevin: Uh yeah, totally.

Investigator: And he told you that these schools were offering you scholarships?

Kevin: Yeah, I just had to pay him fifty bucks or something.

Investigator: Wait-you paid him?

Kevin: Well yeah.

Investigator: But he never once put you in contact with any of these schools? You never spoke with any recruiters or coaches?

Kevin: No, that's what he was for.

Investigator: So you never spoke to actually spoke these schools, but you assumed you had scholarship offers from them?

Kevin: That's what he said.

Investigator: But...okay, well give me his number so we can call him.

Kevin: Uh, I don't have it.

Investigator: You don't have it? Like you lost it or you never got it.

Kevin: Never really asked.

Investigator: Address, business cards...anything?

Kevin: Ummm...psshh I don't know that sheee-et! Keepin' it Real! Haha, you ever hear that Chris Rock bit?

Investigator: No, I--well do you at least have his name?

Kevin: Uhhhh....Kevin.

Investigator: His name is Kevin? Last name?

Kevin: Kevin....(thinking) Riley. Kevin Riley.

Investigator: Kevin Riley? Wasn't he the guy who f'd up on the last play in that Oregon State game?

(another investigator pops his head in)

Investigator 2: Yeh but tore it up in the Armed Forces Bowl!!! You catch that?

Investigator: Armed what? No, okay I think we're about done here.


Again, I'm not making this stuff up. Okay, I'm sure Hart never quoted Chris Rock. But once you heard Riley's name mentioned (even though they said there was no relation), you knew something was definitely up. And yes, he claimed to have paid the recruiter, and thought it was normal for him to accept a scholarship for a school that never directly recruited him.

And sure enough, the truth eventually came out. Kevin Hart made the whole thing up. He admitted he had never been recruited and apologized to everyone. I read later that he had done it all as a dare. Wow, ballsy.

There's just so many things one could have said about this whole bizarre saga. It's one of those things that spiraled out of control, and could have and should have been stopped at numerous occasions. Didn't the coach think it was strange that Hart had accepted a scholarship without ever being contacted by the school for interviews or transcripts? Where were the parents on this?

Then again, you have to think that given that Fernley had never sent one of their students to a Div 1A program, they weren't really aware of how this was supposed to go. They were just too happy for him. And ultimately, that may be one of the factors that drove the poor kid to do something so stupid. I mean, he had been a star at his school, and was realizing that his dream playing ball at the college level was probably slim. It makes you wonder what these kids might try to pull off with the pressure to make it to the next level.

Last I heard, the school district was debating whether or not to press charges. Don't do that to the kid. He's been ridiculed enough. Heck, just try and imagine what it was like even going to school the next day.



Anyway, this about wraps up the offseason biggest stories. Look for more good stuff in the next couple of weeks, especially with the draft approaching. Thanks again for reading! Read the rest of the post and comments here >>

Other Pac-10 QB Battles Decided

In my post highlighting the QB battle between Nate Longshore and Kevin Riley, I had mentioned that all signs pointed to Coach Jeff Tedford not making his decision until the end of Fall practice, most likely just a few days prior to the opening Michigan State Game.

Well it looks like some of the other highly publicized QB battles around the Pac-10 are already beginning to get settled.

The Baby Bears at UCLA have appeared to have settled on Patrick Cowan over Ben Olsen and Kevin Craft. While nothing appears to have been announced publicly, the word is that Cowan will be taking the first team snaps throughout the rest of practice and through the year. If the decision holds, then it will cap off a two year saga in which Ben Olsen has beaten out Cowan twice for the starting job, only to go down midseason, each season to injury, paving the path for Cowan to take over, only to battle his fair share of injuries.

(Sorry Ben...btw doesn't he look like Dwight Schrutte from "the Office?")

Interestingly, it's a decision that appears to have been made by both new head coach Rick Neuheisel and new offensive coordinator Norm Chow. Again, you have to wonder how much our new OC, Frank Cignetti will get to say about our own matter.



In other, and most likely more publicized news, it was announced that Mark Sanchez has beaten out Mitch Mustain for the starting QB spot over at USC. While one would have expected for Sanchez to have been the obvious starter because of his experience with USC's offense and the starts he had under his belt from last season, it was considered an open QB battle with Arkansas transfer Mustain. Mustain had accumulated an 8-0 record as a true frosh for the Razorbacks, before being pulled after one series against South Carolina and replaced in the game and for the rest of the season, by then sophomore Casey Dick. Mustain then transferred to USC at the end of the season, to patiently wait his turn for the chance to win a starting QB spot. You have to wonder why he went to a program as stacked as USC, but that would be beating another dead horse.

(That's one dirty Sanchez. What? It's after a game, he's got to be dirty.)

This has to make one wonder which would be the correct path for a head coach in deciding on a quarterback. Get it out of the way early on, give your QB and your team time to gain confidence and trust with one another, and risk being too hasty? Or thoroughly thinking through the decision to avoid regret, but risk having the QB and the team not having enough time to thoroughly embrace and prepare for the QB as the leader of the team. Who knows.

Either way, congrats to both QBs, and we look forward to facing you guys in the fall.

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