Stanford, SJSU, Cal ‘Tailgate’ at Levi’s to kick off season

SANTA CLARA >> Levi’s Stadium, the site of the next college football national championship game, played host to a milder affair Monday.

It was the Touchdown Tailgate, formerly known as Bay Area College Football Media Day. Coaches and select players from Cal, San Jose State and Stanford were on hand to talk the talk.

Whether any of them walk the walk back to Levi’s for the national championship game Jan. 7 is a remote possibility for all, but some more than others. The online gambling site Bovada lists Stanford as a 50-to-1 shot. Cal is 1,000-to-1. San Jose State is not on the board. (Alabama is the heavy favorite, followed by Clemson, Ohio State and Georgia.)

A man can dream, though.

“For us to reach that pinnacle of the sport,” said Stanford coach David Shaw, “will accomplish one of the goals from the beginning of this program, which was to show that you can have biology majors like Bryce Love, engineering majors like Andrew Luck and David DeCastro, and still have a consistent winning football program that can reach the top of college football.”

Let’s have a closer look at the local landscape.

CAL

Senior running back Patrick Laird, the Bears’ greatest offensive weapon, remembers where he sat on the running back depth chart when he arrived on campus in the fall of 2014.

“I was seventh,” he said. “There was a list of running backs and I was at the bottom. And it wasn’t alphabetical.”

Laird, a former walk-on from the San Luis Obispo area, enters fall camp Friday as the Bears’ only proven ball carrier. Given the chance to play after injuries last season to Tre Watson and Vic Enwere, Laird rushed for 1,127 yards and caught 45 passes, scoring a team-best nine touchdowns.

From the outside, Laird’s performance was the single biggest surprise during coach Justin Wilcox’s debut season. But not to Laird and those on the inside..

Wilcox saw something in Laird as soon as the team began its winter workouts last season. “Whatever the competition was, he was in the final four. You name it. You just saw it over and over again,” Wilcox said.

As a result, Laird was put on scholarship a year ago at this time, and awaited his chance. Having never rushed for more than 23 yards in a game, he posted five outings of at least 100 yards, including 214 vs. Oregon State.

• Don’t expect junior Ross Bowers to easily give up the starting quarterback job, even with South Carolina transfer Brandon Mcilwain providing competition.

“Ross has the advantage of all the experience, and Ross has improved a significant amount from a year ago to right now,” Wilcox said of Bowers, who passed for more than 3,000 yards and 18 TDs last fall as a first-year starter.

• Wilcox said all six players who missed spring workouts while recovering from injuries will be available when Cal holds its first practice Friday morning. Expected to participate at some level will be safety Evan Rambo, linebacker Gerran Brown, cornerback Elijah Hicks, defensive end Zeandae Johnson, wide receiver Brandon Singleton and offensive lineman Semisis Uluave.

• Perhaps the team’s biggest position area of concern is defensive line, where end Luc Bequette is the only returning full-time starter.

— Jeff Faraudo SAN JOSE STATE

Defense is a major theme for the Spartans, who gave up more points than any team in the nation and ranked 129th (of 130) in yards allowed.

On average, the Spartans allowed 41.2 points and 499 yards per game

Senior defensive tackle Boogie Roberts, who will anchor the line along with senior Bryson Bridges, knows they are marked men given the porous run defense from last season. The Spartans gave up 285.4 rushing yards per game, worst in the nation.

“We know teams are going to run on us and that’s to be expected,” Roberts said. “With me, Bryson and the guys, we just believe we’re going to do it and surprise people.”

• The secondary has its fourth coach in four years, Aric Williams.

“You learn something new with each person and you roll with it, like life,” said cornerback Dakari Monroe who has been around for all four position coaches. “With coach Williams, I continue to learn.”

Williams has another role with SJSU, which might be more important in the long run. He was hired to help recruit in Southern California.

• Coach Brent Brennan remains upbeat as ever. If he is discouraged by a rookie season that saw the Spartans go 2-11, it never shows. He believes.

“I can’t tell the players anything that I’m not. Live it and be it. I’m that way here and I’m that way at home,” he said.

— Victor Aquino STANFORD

Shaw reiterated that quarterback K.J. Costello, who missed all of spring practice with a hip injury, should be “100 percent and ready to go” in time for the season opener Aug. 31 against San Diego State.

“He’s not getting hit yet,” Shaw said, “but he can throw it, he can sling it, he can do everything we need him to do athletically. He can run, he can move, he can jump – so now it’s conditioning his body for the season.”

The junior started the final six games last season and threw 14 touchdowns and four interceptions. Shaw said that presumed back-up Davis Mills (knee) had a more extensive injury but also has had more time to recover.

• Shaw said his biggest concern is the development of the defensive line, which lost stalwart tackle Harrison Phillips and is the least experienced position group.

“We’ve got some talent in that room,” Shaw said. “But how far during training camp can these young, inexperienced guys get before we play that first game? Can they really grow and mature?”

Shaw said that other unsettled positions were safety, cornerback, left guard, and depth at wide receiver behind JJ ArcegaWhiteside and Trenton Irwin. Options at wideout include sophomore Connor Wedington, junior Donald Stewart and redshirt freshman Osiris St. Brown.

Few things have less meaning than preseason media polls, but Irwin found one use for it – motivation. Irwin knows the exact number of first-place votes that went to Washington and Stanford in the media poll released last week. The media overwhelmingly picked the Huskies to unseat the Cardinal, which has won the North Division four times in the past six years.

“If anything, it’s probably better for us going into fall camp to have 40 votes (for Washington) to 1 vote (for Stanford),” Irwin said. “You gotta have a chip; you gotta have a reason to go do what you do. They don’t think we’re there, and it just gives us something to prove wrong.”

— Harold Gutmann