Cal's Commits

Today is National Letter of Intent Day. This is the day that high school kids put pen to paper to commit the next few years of their life to a particular college. And to play football. That's part of the deal too. Many high school football players have already verbally committed to play somewhere but none of that is official until they sign and fax those letters of intent. Here are the players that have committed to play football for the University of California at Berkeley.

Gabe Cherry, DT, Centennial High School (Bakersfield)
Taariq Johnson, TE, Buena Park High School
Jeremiah Hawkins, WR, Buena Park High School
Chase Garbers, QB, Corona Del Mar High School (Newport Beach)
Alex Funches, DE, Trinity Valley CC
Biaggio Ali-Walsh. RB, Bishop Gorman High School (Las Vegas)
Michael Saffell, C, Edison High School (Edison, CA)
Elijah Hicks, CB, La Mirada High School
Poutasi Poutasi, G, Desert Pines High School (Las Vegas)
Gavin Reinwald, WR, Elk Grove High School
Daniel Scott, S, St. Francis High School (La Canada, CA)
Kyle Harmon, LB, Freedon High School (Oakley, CA)

Gabe Cherry, Taariq Johnson, Elijah Hicks, and Alex Funches have signed their National Letters of Intent and are already enrolled in classes. We'll see today if the remaining nine will follow through with their verbal commitments. It's a big decision. It's important that they make the right one.

Cal fired head coach Sonny Dykes on January 8. All but five of the above committed to Dykes and his program. When Justin Wilcox was hired a few days later Cal did the right thing by honoring the commitments. A handful left to other colleges but seven remained. Hicks made the interesting move of flipping from Notre Dame to Cal a couple of days after Dykes was fired and a couple of days before Wilcox was hired. Hicks committed to Cal and a football team without a football coach. Wilcox received verbal commits from Poutasi Poutasi, Gavin Reinwald, Daniel Scott, and Kyle Harmon during campus visits last weekend.

If star rankings are an interest, Hicks and Taariq Johnson are rated as 4-star players from Scout.com. The rest are two- and three-star players. None of that really matters when they hit the field. The star system is a very rough stab at potential. Judging football talent is difficult enough going from college to the pros when most of these kids are really no longer kids. It's far more difficult to accurately judge football talent in high school kids. But stars are the rage for a lot of people.

As former Oregon Duck and NFL offensive lineman Geoff Schwartz put it, "Happy National Fax Machines Still Exist Day."