Throwback Thursday: Cal Vikings

Over the past couple of days the Minnesota Vikings have had a little visit with former Green Bay Packers linebacker Desmond Bishop. The Vikings wanted to get to know their former opponent on more friendly terms and see if that injured hamstring is put back together nicely. I remember Bishop well as the hard hitting middle linebacker of the University of California Golden Bears from 2005-06. His visit got me thinking about the very small number of Cal players that have continued their football playing days in Minnesota. The Vikings joined the NFL in 1961. Even though Cal has been mediocre, at best, for most of the last 52 years, I would have guessed that my school would have put at least ten players in a Minnesota Vikings uniform. Nope. Eight former University of California football players have worn a Minnesota Vikings uniform for a game that counts. Eight! My goodness, that's a tiny number. Here they are:

John Beasley
Joe Kapp
Ed White
Darryl Ingram
David Wilson
Todd Steussie
Duane Clemons
Ryan Longwell

That's it!

Eight! Ingram and Wilson only spent a year with the Vikings. Quarterback Joe Kapp is certainly an important figure in Vikings history, seeing as he led the team to their first Super Bowl appearance, but he only played in Minnesota for three seasons. Clemons was a first round pick that never played like a first round pick. He lasted the four years of his rookie contract and was gone. For the record, I was hoping for Clemons' Cal teammate Reagan Upshaw in that 1996 NFL Draft. Upshaw was taken about four picks too soon. Beasley, White, Steussie, and Longwell are the only Cal players to make a sustained impact for the Vikings. Tight end Beasley was a steady receiving presence as Minnesota moved from a sad, expansion team to a dominant contender. White was one of the best guards in the league through much of the '70s, making three straight Pro Bowls with the Vikings. Steussie was a first round pick that actually played like a first round pick. He made a couple of Pro Bowls.  Longwell was a terrific kicker for six years in Minnesota. Playing in a dome may have extended his career but few kickers have ever been as accurate.

In the Vikings 52 years, Cal has had a few stretches of very good to great football. They had some dynamite offenses in the mid '70s, a couple of years in the early '90s, and for most of the past decade under head coach Jeff Tedford. Even the bad teams have produced NFL players like Steve Bartkowski, Gary Plummer, Hardy Nickerson, Ken Harvey, Ron Rivera, Tony Gonzalez, Nnambi Asomugha, Sean Dawkins, and Deltha O'Neal. None found their way to Minnesota. I would just expect that more than eight players would make the Cal-Minnesota voyage in half a century.

Some NFL teams just tend to direct their attention toward certain colleges. Right now the Vikings have five players from each of Notre Dame and USC. Neither team has been particularly great in recent years. Notre Dame did make a run this past year but none of the five Irish Vikings were on that team. I don't particularly care for USC as a rule. No non-USC Pac-12 fans cares for USC. That's putting it nicely. I do, however, like the USC players on the Vikings roster. I like the Notre Dame players too. Having five players from Notre Dame and USC on the Vikings now is far better than the state of affairs in 2001. That was a horrible year for so many reasons. The least of which was too damn many Stanford players on the Vikings roster. There were five. Ouch!. Only special teams mad man Chris Walsh proved to be better than your typical Stanford slacker.

Right now, the roster of the Minnesota Vikings is just like it has been for nearly all of those 52 years. There is no Cal player to be found.