Cal OLB Cameron Goode Explains Why He Returns for a 6th Season
Outside linebacker Cameron Goode was probably Cal's best player in the shortened 2020 season, and his decision to return for an extra season in 2021 as a result of the unusual virus-affected NCAA ruling should benefit the Bears significantly next fall.
A fifth-year senior in 2020, Goode has recorded 27.5 tackles for loss and 14.0 sacks in his 26 career games, and in just four games last season he had 8.0 tackles for loss and 3.0 sacks. His 2.0 tackles for loss per game ranked tied for second in the Pac-12 in 2020, and it earned him second-team All-Pac-12 recognition. Goode had 14 tackles for loss in 2019, ranking second in the conference in that category at 1.21 tackles for loss per contest.
So why did he take advantage of the NCAA rule that did not count the 2020 season against a player's college eligibility, rather than enter the 2021 NFL draft?
"For a long time I was really on the fence," he said Saturday in the video above. "I was hearing all kinds of different things in terms of [NFL draft] projections. So I figured one more year, especially with COVID shutting training facilities down, [eliminating NFL] Combine and stuff, just one more year would be really beneficial."
Goode probably would have been taken in the late rounds, if he was drafted at all, had he entered the 2021 NFL Draft. One of the major uncertainties among pro scouts regarding Goode was the position he would play in the NFL.
"That was one of the main reasons I came back, just because I'm a 'tweener and they're not really sure where to play me so . . . I feel like adding this weight and strength will give teams more of a view of where I'm going to be playing at," Goode said in the video below.
Would he be an edge rusher in the NFL, as his statistics seem to suggest, or will he be a linebacker? Goode said the pros want to see him in pass coverage more to see whether he can handle that aspect of a linebacker's responsibility?
Goode did not resemble someone who would be playing in the front seven when he arrived at Cal weighing somewhere between 195 and 200 pounds.
"On visits to the school, when [college] coaches used to come to the school [to recruit me], my head coach gave me a hoodie to put on just so I looked a little bigger," Goode said.
Now Goode is listed at 245 pounds and wants to add five pounds to that. And Cal is toying with the idea of playing Goode at its Star position, a hybrid safety/outside linebacker position that is best suited to an outside linebacker who can cover pass receivers on occasion.
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