Cal Football: Bears Hold a High Spot in This Quarterback U Ranking
Remember when Sonny Dykes was the head coach at Cal? He had only one winning season in his four years at Cal before he was dismissed, but he did recruit and develop some pro-worthy quarterbacks.
His quarterbacks enabled Cal to rank tied for fourth in the nation in this “Quarterback U” assessment by 247Sports.com.
It’s a fairly narrow view of the quarterback position, considering only which schools produced the most NFL draft picks at the quarterback position in the past five years. But whenever Cal is high in a ranking of this sort, we are happy to bring it to you.
Dykes developed Jared Goff, who committed to Cal when Jeff Tedford was still the Bears coach but stayed with his Cal commit when Dykes was hired. Dykes lured Davis Webb from Texas Tech and made him into a pretty good quarterback, and he recruited Chase Garbers to Cal. Garbers committed to Cal when Dykes was still the coach, and Justin Wilcox had to convince him to stick with his commitment.
Garbers might have pro potential but he is not included in this assessment of quarterbacks from colleges. Only Goff, now with the Rams, and Webb, currently with the Buffalo Bills, are considered, with Goff drafted in the first round and Webb in the third.
***Click here for a story on where Garbers ranks among college quarterbacks this year
The 247Sports.com used only five years of NFL draft data to determine its rankings, which means Aaron Rodgers is not included.
Here are the 247Sports.com rankings:
Here is the grading system 247Sports.com used:
While we’ve still assigned seven points for any first rounder produced, one point for any seventh rounder produced and all of the corresponding point values in between, there is some gray area at quarterback regarding what it means to produce a draft pick. Alabama evaluated, recruited and developed Jalen Hurts for three years before he transferred to Oklahoma and was drafted one year later. For our purposes, we have given Oklahoma six points for a second-round draft pick but credited Alabama with five points for the evaluation and recruitment (so a minus of one point per the transfer school).
Here is what 247Sports.com said about Cal:
Points: 12
Draft picks: 2
Sonny Dykes and his former offensive coordinator Tony Franklin deserve a lot of credit for producing No. 1 pick Jared Goff and third-rounder Davis Webb at Cal. Dykes is poised to put up big numbers at SMU this fall with Shane Buechele returning at quarterback and he even has a four-star committed to him in Preston Stone out of the 2021 class. Cal is doing OK itself. The offense under Justin Wilcox has struggled at times but when Chase Garbers was in last fall, things clicked. He’s got a chance this fall to play himself into the next drafted Cal quarterback since Dykes’ departure.
Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53
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