Cal Sports Report

Cal LB Hunter Barth Is Transferring to Stanford

Barth had a good chance to be a starter for Cal in 2025, but he entered the portal and will join Cal's archrival Stanford
Jake Curtis|
Hunter Barth
Hunter Barth | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

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California Golden Bears

Cal inside linebacker Hunter Barth, who started three games for the Bears in 2024 and had a good chance to be a starter for the Bears in 2025, announced on social media on Monday that he has entered the transfer portal.

Then later Monday, Rivals reported that Barth is transferring to Stanford.

Cal faces the Cardinal on November 22 next season at Stanford, and Cal running backs will be trying to get past Barth. In Cal's victory over Stanford in 2024, Barth made one of his three starts for Cal and recorded a career-high-tying seven tackles in that Big Game win.

Cal dismissed head coach and former Cal quarterback Troy Taylor last month, and the Cardinal's interim head coach for the 2025 season is Frank Reich, who was a head coach for two NFL teams.

This is a significant loss for Cal since Barth has played in 40 games in his four seasons at Cal and played in all 13 games each of the past two seasons. He started at inside linebacker in Cal games against Oregon State, Syracuse and Stanford.

He has one season of eligibility remaining since he played just four games as a true freshman allowing him to redshirt the season.

In 2024, Barth recorded 38 tackles, including two sacks and four tackles for loss, and also forced two fumbles. He had seven tackles against Syracuse and seven tackles against Stanford, and he recorded two sacks against Wake Forest.

Barth worked with the first-team defense during most of the Bears’ spring workouts.

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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