Cal Football: No Surprise Here - Cam Bynum Moving On; He's High on '21 Golden Bears
It will likely be a surprise to no one that Cal senior cornerback Camryn Bynum is moving on to what he hopes will be a career in the NFL.
“My last Cal game was against Oregon,” Bynum confirmed this week. “Right now I’ll be moving on to go play in the NFL and prepare for the combine and the draft.”
Bynum, named to the All-Pac-12 first team this week, opted out of his senior season several months ago when the conference canceled its fall schedule. Then he returned to school after the Pac-12 did an about face on its season.
For Bynum, this is not that.
“The first time it was a tough decision,” he said in the video above. ”Right now, I knew after the COVID season that just passed I’d be done and moving on. I don’t think it took any thought. There was no debate about coming back. Everybody knew I’d be out after this season.
“I’m thankful for the time I had, but it’s time to move on now.”
The question is whether Bynum believes returning for what turned out to be a four-game season was actually worth it. Was it better than sticking to his original plan of leaving school to prepare for the NFL draft?
“Regardless of whether it helped me out for the draft or not, that’s not up to me. But as a football player, I know I improved on a lot of things.” Bynum said. “There were a lot of good things I was able to do and learn during this time back. I progressed more as a player actually playing football and playing this season than I would have if I was just at home training and watching the games on TV.
“I’m glad I was able to go back and play and get real reps.”
Bynum also discusses his plans for preparing for the NFL combine and the draft, and offers his thoughts on the state of the Cal program going forward.
“I know they’ll be really good next year. We got a taste of how good we can be. Especially that Oregon game where we had a lot of the team together,” he said. “This season was crazy because of COVID. Hopefully it’s not like that next season. We were able to see a lot of flashes of good and a lot of flashes of bad to fix during the offseason.
‘I think the leadership is in really good hands, a lot of people coming back. The coaches have a chip on their shoulder. The culture’s in a good spot so I think that’ll carry them further than any talent would. Really high hopes for the team.”
In the video below, Bynum talks about what it means to him to have been chosen to the All-Pac-12 team.
“Every year I don’t go into it thinking about any of the accolades but every time I hit that field I want to get better every single day,” he said. “Seeing the progress on paper with these accolades, it’s pretty cool just to see that all the work I’ve been putting in has been helping me progress toward something.
"That makes me glad I came back for another season. Putting any draft stuff aside, I was able to come back and be able to develop more as a player.”
And in this next video, Bynum acknowledges this season was unlike any he’s experienced:
“We had to be thankful for every time we were on the field,” he said.
“I’ll never forget this season. How much crazy stuff was going on? How I declared for the draft, moved out of my apartment but then in a couple weeks had to go back,” Bynum reflected.
“Looking back at this, this was a crazy experience. But I think it helped build me as a person, build my character, build my ability to change and keep my knees bent and be ready for sudden changes in life and I think that will carry over to anything.”
Bynum worked hard during our conversation to avoid excuse-making about this season, and a 1-3 record was not what the Bears had in mind.
But he points to the Bears’ 21-17 win over Oregon — the eventual Pac-12 champion — as evidence of what the team could be at its best.
“That was our only game we got to play pretty much with a full team and we were able to play really well,” he said. “We had our best game of the season.”
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COVER PHOTO BY KYLE TERADA, USA TODAY
