Cal Football: Coach Justin Wilcox Loves the Golden Bears' Linebacking Corps
With barely 100 days to go before Cal’s 2021 football season opener, coach Justin Wilcox no doubt has a checklist of issues that require addressing.
Concerns over his linebacking corps rank low on that list.
The Golden Bears will arrive at their Sept. 4 game vs. Nevada well-equipped at linebacker.
Cameron Goode and Kuony Deng both made the decision to return as “super” seniors, taking advantage of an NCAA ruling that gives them the opportunity for a do-over of last year’s season that was impacted (and shortened) by the COVID-19 pandemic. The two outside linebackers are both sixth-year seniors.
At one of the inside spots is a sophomore the Bears hope will become super in his own regard. Muelu “Mo” Iosefa, still just 19 years old, showed great promise last fall in his debut after arriving from Miliani, Hawaii.
In the interview shown in the video above, we talked with Wilcox about three players who will anchor the Cal defense. Here are his thoughts:
CAMERON GOODE (6-4, 245, senior, Spring, Texas): Goode redshirted as a freshman in 2016 then started the first nine games a years later, collecting 46 tackles and returning an interception 32 yards for a touchdown to help clinch a win over Ole Miss before an injury ended his season.
He had a pick-six vs. North Carolina as a redshirt sophomore in 2018 but again had his season ended by injury, this time in the season opener vs. the Tar Heels.
Finally healthy, Goode totaled 57 tackles, including 14 for losses, in 2019, and he added eight more TFLs in four games a year ago. He will enter his senior season with 125 career tackles, 27.5 TFLs and 14 sacks in just 26 games.
“Boy, he looks good,” Wilcox said last week. “You’ve seen the physical development. Also the mental part of the game. He’s a smart guy, he understands what offenses are trying to do, how they’re trying to manipulate the defense . I think he’s just primed for a big year.
“Cam is a talented guy. He can really run, he’s got long arms and range. He’s a very good tackler. I just think he’s got a ton of skills and I’m really excited for him. He’s done a heck of a job in terms of working himself into being that 6-foot-4, 240-pound outside linebacker — he can rush, he can drop, he can do a lot of different things.”
Wilcox said he and Goode joked recently about how much smaller he was his first season on the field for the Bears and how his development since then has been a key to his production.
“That’s a big part of it, and he’s worked hard at that,”Wilcox said. “Right before he got hurt (in 2017), he was playing well. He was productive his entire freshman year. He had a pick-six that really helped us win the game at Ole Miss.
“Toward the end of the season, I think he was playing about 203 pounds, 202. At outside linebacker. You’re dealing with tackles that are 330 pounds when you’re playing the position he plays. But over the course of the years, you’ve seen his body develop and he still can run. He can really run.
"He’s about 240 pounds right now and he can set an edge in the run game, rush the passer, drop into coverage. And his work ethic and his attitude have been really, really good. Again, I’m excited for him.”
Kuony Deng
Photo by Kelley L. Cox, USA Today
KUONY DENG (6-6, 245, senior, Aldie, Virginia): Deng arrived at Cal from Independence Community College in Kansas before the 2019 season and was paired at inside linebacker alongside Evan Weaver, who went on to be named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year and consensus first-team All-American that season.
But Deng was hardly a bystander. While Weaver had 182 tackles, Deng racked up 119, along with eight pass breakups and seven quarterback hurries to earn honorable mention All-Pac-12. He was shifted to the outside last season and led the team with 31 tackles to go with two forced fumbles and 2.5 tackles for loss in four games.
Wilcox is giddy about the pairing of Deng and Goode at OLB.
“Now you’ve got a guy on each side, another guy who’s about 240 pounds. He might be a little bit taller, even,” Wilcox said of Deng. “But the wing span, the throwing lanes, the pass rush, the ability to set an edge. Kuony was a really productive inside linebacker. He can do a number of things, which is obvious.”
NFL scouts likely envision Deng, at 6-6, as more of an outside linebacker so the move could benefit him long-term.
“We think for him and for us it really allows kind of a win-win,” Wilcox said. “With the way our defense is structured, he’ll do more than one thing. He’ll be rushing the quarterback, he’ll be setting edges in the run game, he’ll be dropping into coverage.
"It just allows him to show off his skill set and it also allows us to do some more different things on defense.”
Mo Iosefa (55) celebrates fumble recovery vs. Oregon
Photo by Kelley L. Cox, USA Today
MO IOSEFA (6-3, 235, sophomore, Miliani, Hawaii): A first-team all-state high school star on the islands, Iosefa found his way onto the field quickly for the Bears last season. He had five tackles each in the Big Game vs. Stanford and the Bears’ season-ending upset of Oregon, when he also made a key fumble recovery.
“Mo has the physical tools to be a very, very, very good player. I think he also has really good instincts,” Wilcox said. “He sees things that you probably don’t have to coach him on. There’s certain guys that just have that in their DNA, and Mo’s got that.
“He’s still learning a lot as a player, that transition to college . . . football every day and the demands of all that. But he’s a very talented young man and really the sky’s the limit for him. The more he plays, the better and better he’s going to get but I think he’s a guy who can find his way to the ball and be really productive for us.”
Wilcox said a player’s high school performance often suggests whether or not he had those instinctive qualities.
“The first thing to look for is productivity. The linebackers, if they’re really productive in high school, they’re probably going to be productive in college . . . if they have the physical tools to do it,” he explained. “There are times when see a high school linebacker and he’s got all these physical tools, and then you watch the game and he’s got like three tackles, four tackles. That doesn’t add up.”
Wilcox said that defensive coordinator Peter Sirmon, who played linebacker in college, knows how to read a player’s potential.
“That’s one of the things that in the recruiting process he’s really clued in on — making sure that the production matches the physical tools,” Wilcox said. “I think Mo really has both of those.”
.
Cover photo of Cameron Goode by Jayne Kamin-Oncea, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
