©
Cal’s Offense Fits WR Tobias Merriweather Better Than Notre Dame’s Offense Did
Tall, speedy transfer Tobias Merriweather feels more comfortable in Cal’s push-the-ball-downfield passing attack than he did in Notre Dame’s dink-and-dunk style last year. And, by the way, he had an odd experience with Brian Kelly’s home visit.
Somewhere between South Bend, Indiana, and Berkeley, California, Tobias Merriweather grew an inch and lost nine pounds. What’s more important, though, is that he left the Notre Dame offense of 2023 to become part of a Cal attack that seems more suited to his skills.
And then there’s the story of his strange home visit from Brian Kelly, then the Irish’s head coach. But that’s another story, which we will address later. Let’s get back to the here and now.
The physical change – and inch taller and nine pounds lighter since he transferred from Notre Dame -- was merely a difference between Notre Dame’s 2023 listing of Merriweather at 6-foot-4, 204 pounds and Cal’s current listing of him at 6-foot-5, 195 pounds. Merriweather himself says he’s a shade under 6-foot-5 with a weight that vacillates around the 200-pound mark.
What is not in dispute is his speed.
Merriweather was the 200-meter champion in the Washington state 4A (largest schools) track meet as a senior at Union High School in Camas, Washington, in 2022.
“He’s shown that he can run,” said Cal wide receivers coach Burl Toler III, who recruited Merriweather out of high school. “He has that stride, he has that strength. Stretching the field is something we’re going to ask him to do a lot.”
At Notre Dame, Merriweather was not asked to stretch the field a lot.
“It’s a lot different run-and-gun, West Coast offense [at Cal] compared to our more pro style at Notre Dame,” Merriweather said. “We’re throwing the ball deep, that’s our main goal [at Cal]. We all love that as receivers, but it’s a lot different than our more dinking, just get down the field, get first downs, that’s our Notre Dame philosophy.”
Being a deep threat is to Merriweather’s liking, and it was obvious in his limited results at Notre Dame.
He caught only one pass as a freshman in 2022, but it was a 41-yard touchdown pass against Stanford in the fourth quarter that put Notre Dame ahead.
Merriweather, who began the 2023 season as a Notre Dame starter, caught just 14 passes as a sophomore, but he averaged a team-best 20.3 yards per reception. Stats suggest he is a big-play receiver.
During Cal’s spring practices, Merriweather and Trond Grizzell typically have been lining up on the outside in Cal’s first-team offense, with Mikey Matthews in the slot. And Merriweather has been running a lot of deep routes.
“Just big, long, fast,” Cal offensive coordinator Mike Bloesch said of Merriweather. “Really like the presence he provides on the outside. . . . So I like where he’s at, but more excited about where he’s headed.”
Cal was one of a number of colleges that offered Merriweather a scholarship coming out of high school, along with Michigan, Tennessee, Washington, and, of course, Notre Dame, to name a few. He had already committed to Notre Dame when Brian Kelly came for an in-home visit in the fall of 2021, and it was a strange visit because Kelly was Notre Dame’s head coach when he arrived but, according to Merriweather, he wasn’t the Irish head coach when he departed.
Merriweather tells the story of that Kelly home visit in November 2021:
“I came home from school and [Kelly] was outside on the phone when I pulled up from school. We went in, we talked. There was no more recruiting; I was already committed at that point. So [he says] ‘I can’t wait to see you on campus.’ Coach [Tommy] Rees and Coach Del [Alexander] were there at the time.
“And mid-dinner [Kelly] walks out the back and he’s like ‘My son’s calling me,’ which I don’t think was his son anymore. Then he comes back in, finishes dinner or whatever, and after he leaves I go to work out. And I go upstairs to change and I see rumors, LSU, and I text one of the [Notre Dame] coaches, and they’re like, ‘That’s not real, don’t believe it.’
“I come back from my workout, and my family’s all still there, and they’re just like, ‘We got to talk,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, nice.’ At that point [it became known] he changed to LSU. And I remember I wanted to de-commit on the spot. My dad said, ‘Stick it through, just see what happens.’”
Merriweather followed his father’s advice, and eventually realized it was the best decision, but immediately after finding out Kelly had left for LSU, his emotional reaction suggested otherwise.
“Obviously it was an emotional decision from my standpoint,” he said. “The guy comes to my house, eats my food, then he’s on the phone, and just leaves after telling me, ‘I can’t wait to see you in a few months,’ so I was like, ‘I’m done.’ But obviously the wise decision was to wait and see what happens, and that’s what I did.”
Hiring Marcus Freeman as head coach made Merriweather’s decision to stick with the Irish easier, and the whole ordeal made him realize what college football is all about.
“It’s really opened my eyes, I think, to the whole process of like coaching, how much of a business it is,” he said. “I learned from a young age that college football is a business, and even me transferring is a business decision, so I learned how this all works.”
Follow Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53
Find Cal Sports Report on Facebook by going to https://www.facebook.com/si.calsportsreport
