New Cal LB Tristan Jernigan Discovers Bagels in Berkeley

Cal linebacker Tristan Jernigan is from Mississippi by way of College Station, Texas, and he made an interesting culinary discovery when he came to Berkeley:

Bagels.

“I had never had a bagel until I came to California,” Jernigan said.

Fellow Cal inside linebacker AJ Tuitele is from Las Vegas by way of USC, and he enjoyed a dish from Alaska.

“Eating deer, never heard of that,” he said, “but, hey, eating deer, I’m going to try it.”

Cultures collide in the Cal football program, which finished its fourth practice of spring ball on Wednesday, which was the first day in full pads.

The seven players listed as inside linebackers on the Cal spring roster come from six different regions of the country – two from Southern California, one from Nevada, one from Mississippi, one from Arizona, one from Alaska and one from Northern California.

The Bears’ roster as a whole has players from 21 different states plus three from foreign counties – Australia, Germany and Nigeria.

“Knowing the different cultures and where they came from, I just love it,” said Tuitele. “From down South, West Coast, East Coast, Alaska. Just different cultures,”

And, of course eating deer.

“We all try different stuff,” Jernigan said. “Coach BG (linebackers coach Bob Gregory) always brings in bagels on Saturday morning.”

So far Jernigan is just toasting his bagels, maybe with some cream cheese. Maybe something more extravagant later.

But he has not lost his love of soul food he developed growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi.

He gives high ratings to two Oakland soul food restaurants – Y’s Choice and Ron Ben’s, which is owned by former Cal and NFL star Marshawn Lynch.

But the immediate challenge for the group of linebackers and linebackers coach Bob Gregory is to meld these players from different backgrounds into a cohesive unit.

Gregory must rebuild the inside linebacker position, which was a strength for the Bears under head coach Justin Wilcox but has lost nearly all of the position’s impact players from last season.

Cade Uluave, a first team-all-ACC selection in 2025, transferred to Utah, and Luke Ferrelli, the 2025 ACC freshman defensive player of the year, is now at Mississippi. The only returning inside linebacker who received significant playing time in 2025 is Aaron Hampton, who started one game last season for Cal and recorded 15 tackles off the bench against Virginia.

And four newcomers – Texas A&M transfer Jernigan, USC transfer Tuitele and Oregon transfer Kamar Mothudi as well as freshman JD McKinley – seem to be the most likely candidates to fill the void.

Each of the four was asked to describe his skills.

McKinley:

“I expect for myself to be very, very smart in terms of game and play, knowing formations, route combinations, basically pick apart an offense. I feel like through the development of my game that’s going be my biggest asset.”

Mothudi:

“Physical, exciting, strong hands. I love attacking and being at the point of attack.”

Tuitele:

“Fast, physical, play sideline to sideline. I love to tackle. I love to hit. Very aggressive. Good in the pass coverage too. Now days, there’s more passing, so you need more coverage linebackers. So that’s what I bring to the table.”

Jernigan:

“Very energetic, very physical. Talented with speed. I can do about anything. I’ve got a lot of stuff to work on because I’m young, but that just comes with the game.

The inside linebacker position will begin to sort itself out in the coming days, as players expect most of the remaining 10 practices to involve playing in full pads with lots of live hitting.