Cal Football: Bears Eager for First Fully Padded Practice on Wednesday Morning

Coach Justin Wilcox said the session won't look much different than recent workouts.

Cal will practice in full pads on Wednesday morning for the first time this spring, and coach Justin Wilcox knows his players are excited.

“They’re eager to get into pads,” he said Monday after the Bears’ fourth practice.

“They’ve been fired up since we started. We’ve had to slow them down a few times during these team periods and 7-on-7, which is a good thing,” Wilcox said. “It’s much better to have to slow them down than speed them up.”

The Bears have practiced a couple times in shoulder pads and Wilcox stressed moving into full pads is not a signal that anything goes in practice.

These are not the old days where coaches sometimes would have their players show off their toughness and aggressiveness with full-contact practices that often lead to injury.

Most tackling will happen in controlled drills, rather than anything-goes scrimmage work.

“To be honest with you, most of the shells practices are going to be real similar in terms of what we do. There’s no live (tackling) in shells, obviously, without having the lowers on,” Wilcox said. “We will do a number of the same type of drills but we will include some tackling.”

So the benefit of what will happen Wednesday morning?

“They need to get used to playing with their pads on.”

It's likely players coming off injuries, including maybe defensive end Brett Johnson, will be limited in what they're allowed to do.

Quarterbacks are off-limits for defensive players in all practices, but the Bears do drills that simulate the pressure they will see on pass plays during a game.

“We have pressures in on defense. We got some normal down-and-distance blitz work in doing those team periods,” Wilcox said. “It’s not like it’s been just four-man rush . . . they’ve had to identify and get the ball out at appropriate times. We’re getting really good evaluations on that now.”

Wednesday’s practice at Memorial Stadium, open to the public, begins at 9:45 a.m. and will run for about two hours.

Cal opens its 2022 season on Sept. 3 at home against UC Davis.

Cover photo of a Cal workout in Memorial Stadium

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo