by Michael Duca

(photo credit SF Gate of Jered Goff)

BERKELEY–This will probably the last year in college for Cal Bears quarterback Jered Goff when he puts a couple of years of experience together plus a couple of years of learning head coach Sonny Dykes System and everything should click this year Goff in his junior year should be in the NFL by this time next season. Cal should be either number three or number two in the Pac 12 north.

The Bears going to be pretty competitive with Stanford but behind Oregon. The footwork of Goff has improved dramatically over the last couple of years. His ability to do multiple reads and even trying to check off receivers and these are things your expected to do when you move up a level in the game. When the game gets faster the natural tendency of everyone is to try and play faster.

The player would try and do things faster to try and catch up with the game. Of course no matter how many times your told that’s the wrong way to do it you still have to prove that’s the wrong way to do it. Eventually you have to realize you have to let the game come to you. So it’s something that’s happened to him and he has let the game come to him.

I like Goff’s toughness he comes from a tough sports lineage as his father Jerry Goff, Jered’s dad was a major league catcher with the Montreal Expos and the Pittsburgh Pirates and is 51. You just can’t grow up a catcher’s kid and be soft. It’s possible and maybe Giants catcher Buster Posey’s little girl will.

Last year Cal’s offense averaged 31 points a game and the defense averaged something silly like 39 allowed. There was that memorable shootout with Washington State in Pullman that wound up with both teams over 60 points. It sounds like an arena game but it was a real outdoor football game.

One of the most important contributions that Dykes is making towards the program this year is towards Cal’s image under the final year of former coach Jeff Tedford and the previous athletic director Sandy Barbour there was a little too much emphasis on winning and too little emphasis on education for student athletes to the point that the best public university in the nation found it’s worse graduation rate for it’s sports teams.

The students couldn’t even make themselves feel better as an alumni but were at least winning championships, they were either winning championships or not getting anybody to class to graduate. It’s just a few short years Sonny Dykes has reversed the trend and has got Cal into the upper half of the Pac 12 and around the norm national for graduation rates. That’s not the goal that’s the weigh station. Dykes strongly supports classroom success as being as integral as on the field success.

Michael Duca does Cal Bears podcasts for http://www.sportsradioservice.com