Cal Bears Football: linebackers bringing the heat

Devin Bishop gets his first sack of the
season. (AP Photo/ Tony Avelar)

---

Related Articles

• Cal Bears' first week is rewarding

• Cal moves to No. 9 in Examiner.com poll

• Cal receivers feeling a Daft

• Tedford happy, but not satisfied

One of the biggest questions for Cal coming into the '09 season was whether or not they could replace Zack Follett, Worrell Williams, and Anthony Felder.

After their first game under the gun, it seems that the major question on defense has been answered.  The Bears' linebackers accounted for 2.5 of Cal's six sacks against Maryland and had 44 of the 85 tackles registered with Mychal Kendricks (12), Mike Mohamed (9), and Devin Bishop (7) as the top three tacklers of the team.

At Tuesday's media luncheon, three of the linebackers, (Bishop, Jarred Price, and Kendricks), were on hand to field questions.  The theme from all the comments was that this linebacking corps is just getting started

When posed with the question of how the linebackers fared against Maryland, Bishop said,  "I think we all did pretty good and I think we can do nothing but grow and get better."

Growing and getting better would make this one tough defense to score on, but there's more to it than that.  Besides improving, this crew believe they have much to prove.  "We have a lot to prove as a linebacking corps," said Kendricks.  He went on to say, "This is the first game.  People haven't seen anything yet.  We're just getting our feet wet.  There's a lot of stuff we have to improve, and with those improvements comes better play, better plays, leave the fans in awe."

So if the fans were already in 'awe' on Saturday night, they definitely have much more to look forward to if these Bears linebackers actually do get better than that.  The JUCO transfer Price definitely thinks they can do a better job than they did against Maryland.  "I think we could play better," he said.  "It was good because we won, but besides that, we still had a lot of mistakes and a lot of stuff can be corrected.  We're working towards to build that up so we won't make mistakes--in a bigger game."

Jeff Tedford agrees with his linebackers--they have much to improve on.  "They played well," Tedford said when asked what he thought of the play of the unit versus Maryland.  He continued by saying, "There's areas where they can improve with their fits and the discipline and things like that, but they played hard, and they ran well and I think they're just gonna' keep improving every week."

Even though Cal lost three of their four starting linebackers, Coach Tedford continues to point out that they didn't loss all of their linebackers, so they still have plenty of experience at the position.  "Mychal Kendricks, Devin Bishop, DJ Holt, all those guys played last year," said Tedford.  "Now their experience is showing up and we do have depth there as well, and they are very athletic, they can run."

This group of linebackers may be the most athletic that Bear Backers have ever seen wearing blue and gold.  Even with the loss of three starters, Coach Tedford acknowledged that they are more athletic at the position.  "Our speed has improved there," he said about the linebackers.

Kendricks described the starting four this way, "DJ Holt is thick and can move well.  Mike Mohamed has leverage over everyone and we have Eddie [Young]--strong, very strong upper body.  Personally, myself, I just got stronger."

The mentality of the defense is of the attacking variety.  Not only are they competing against their opponents, but they are also competing with each other to get to the quarterback or ball carrier first.  "That's a thing we had during camp was like we was competing on the edges," said Bishop.  "That drive to compete, drives us to try to get that sack and whoever gets it, gets to talk about the next guy."

One of the things that should scare opponents is that from the coaching staff down to the practice squad, everyone has a 'team-first' mentality.  That statement is no less true of the linebackers.

Kendricks, who got a taste of being on the outside, was moved to the inside.  He was asked if that was going to be his permanent position and he responded, "I think I found a home at inside backer, but if they told me to play tackle I'd be willing to."

During camp, Bishop was relegated to backup duties, but you won't find him complaining about it.  When asked about the situation, he replied, "I knew that however I could help the team out, that's the best way to go and I'm a follower, 100%."

With such a good performance on defense, the only thing in a negative light that anyone wanted to know about was the touchdown run by Maryland's Da'Rel Scott in the second half.  Don't look too deep into the answer, because from the head coach down the answer will basically be the same--miscommunication.

That's one of the things they intend to improve on.  Cameron Jordan may have said it best when he said, "There's always way to get better and stuff, but that's definitely been corrected and will be corrected today."