Counting Down Cal's Top-50 Transfer Athletes: No. 46 David Reese

The transfer portal era in college athletics seems like it’s been with us forever. Likewise, most fans can recall less turbulent times when transfers happened, they simply didn’t look like a stampede to the 1849 California Gold Rush.

We thought it was time to rank the best transfers Cal teams have attracted, most of them in recent seasons but also including a few OGs from yesteryear.

We limited our ranking to transfers from four-year colleges.

Here is the next athlete in our countdown:

46. David Reese

Sport: Football

Arrival year at Cal: 2023

Previous school: Florida (Plagued by injuries that wiped out his 2019 and ’21 seasons altogether, the one-time four-star linebacker recruit finished five years with 10 tackles and an undergrad degree)

Contributions at Cal:

— The 6-foot-2, 230-pound Florida native arrived at Berkeley for the 2023 campaign and stayed healthy enough to deliver an All-Pac-12 honorable mention campaign with 36 tackles, eight tackles for loss, 6.5 sacks and three passes defended — all career highs.

— In 2023, he also was chosen to the National Football Foundation’s Honor Society as a post-graduate student.

— Reese played 12 games in 2024 and contributed 22 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, 6.5 sacks and two passes defended.

— Having already played portions of six seasons — but getting credit for chronic injury issues and given the 2020 COVID waiver — Reese was cleared to play a seventh season over an eight-year span. He transferred to Syracuse, where he had 27 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks for a 3-9 Orange team.

Standout performance: Reese enjoyed his best stretch of football for the Bears over the final four games of the 2023 season, totaling 18 tackles, seven tackles for loss, including 5 1/2 sacks, and three forced fumbles. In a 33-7 rout of UCLA that earned the Bears bowl eligibility in the regular-season finale, Reese had a career-high three sacks and forced fumble. He was honored as the Pac-12 Defensive Lineman of the Week, the Bednarik Player of the Week and was named to the Pro Football Focus College Team of the Week.

Impact on his team: The Bears took a chance on a player whose promise had largely been derailed by injuries, and Reese responded with the two most productive seasons of his career. But Cal was just 6-6 in both regular seasons before losing a bowl game each time.

Previously on our list:

No. 47: Xavier Carlton

No. 48: Mady Sissoko

No. 49: Kayla Williams

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