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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 4, 2015Sonny DykesSONNY DYKES: It's been a long process. You know, from the recruiting standpoint, I think this is the class certainly that we know the best. We know their backgrounds. We've had a chance to get to know them. We had a chance to get to see them play over the years. We've had more of an opportunity to watch them grow up and develop. And all those things that are really important for the process. Because recruiting is an interesting thing. A lot of times you see guys as sophomores and you say, boy, this guy is a really good football player for a 15 year old. And then you see them as juniors and you say, well, you know, he's the same as he was as a sophomore. And then you see them as a senior, you say, well, he hasn't changed much. Others you see they're not real good, you watch the sophomore film and the junior, and by the time they're seniors they're really good. That's what you want. Kids to continue to get better, have a high ceiling, continue to get better. We've had a chance to see a lot of these kids grow up. Really know them as people, really think that they fit. Our mission as a university and our mission as a football program. And so that's exciting, it really is. It's a big day for us. And it's been a lot of work. I was really happy with kind of the ebbs and flows of the recruiting class. We set out to sign 22. And I think we're going to end up signing 22, 23. And so we were very pleased. We set out to sign a quarterback. We signed one. We signed one running back. We're going to sign five or six wide receivers. Three was our offensive line number from the beginning, we're fortunate enough to get three. Five or six was our number for DB, we're going to end up with five or six. Then D line was the same thing, we felt like we needed to get a punter. So the numbers all fell into place. That's a little bit unusual. Typically because of the way the ebbs and flows go, you end up with too many of one position or that type of thing, and really felt like we addressed the needs of this recruiting class. For us, obviously, defensive back was probably where it started. We had to get depth at that position. We were able to sign six, seven guys, depending on how you count some of the athletes as defensive backs. So that's exciting. What we set out to do was get bigger. When you look down the list of the DB's we signed, you don't see anybody that's under six feet tall. We needed to get longer, longer arms, able to get off blocks. We see a lot of quick screens now. Our corners have got to get off blocks, and our safeties have to get off blocks. We needed length at that defensive back position. So I felt like we certainly addressed that need. And obviously we needed to get some guys that could come in and give us some depth and play. And compete for jobs. We went out and signed Antoine Albert has a lot of experience as a junior college corner. We were hoping to have him in January as an enrollee, and then ended up a class short, so he's going to finish up and report with us in the fall. He's got good length. Has played a lot of football. And again he's physical. That's what we need at that corner position. The two other corners, Psalms and Rambo, one is 6‑3 and the other is 6‑4, or corners have not been 6‑3 or 6‑4. So we're excited about those guys. That's where it started for us. Obviously defensive line, we were able to sign 66 of those guys. Wilson, and we've been pleased with what he's done so far. The strength and conditioning staff is raving about his athleticism, work habits, they're excited about him. Same thing, we needed to get some length, Trevor Howard is 6‑4, Johnson and Saffle, and DeVante 6‑6, and Luc Bequette is more of an interior guy. We probably started Luke, he was probably six foot and a half inch. Now he's probably 6‑2 plus and he's 17 years old. We think he has an opportunity to get taller as an interior defensive lineman. And so that was the next group for us that was important to sign. And then obviously wide receivers are going to be big. We're losing a pretty hefty number of wide receivers after this year. So we needed to have the next guys to come in, learn, get their feet wet, compete for some jobs, push the guys in front of them and be ready to play the following year. We were really pleased with that. You always build your football team on the line. So between defensive line, signing six, and offensive line, signing three, we're able to build for the future. Big day for our program. The great thing is you're going to see all these guys. There's not guys that are going to sign with us today that are going to disappear because of academics. I feel pretty certain about that. Academically we're light years ahead of where we've been in the past. I'm really pleased with what kind of student athletes these guys are. We know these kids. We know what they're all about. We know how they handle good things and bad things, how they deal with adversity and overcome it. From that standpoint we couldn't be more pleased. Q. There's a pretty distinct geographical difference. When you came to Cal how much of an idea did you have that you would end up targeting that region like this? SONNY DYKES: You do what you have to do. That's the funny thing about going some place is ‑‑ we haven't really changed our focus. Our focus is the Bay Area. You'll see there's not a ton of guys from the Bay Area on this list. There's a couple, but there's not what we want. That's where we start. You always have to be able to recruit your backyard. Yeah, as I said earlier, there's an academic element that's clearly involved in that. For us there's a pretty distinct shift that's going on with the direction of our program when it comes to recruiting. Maybe than has been around here in the past. So what happens is we're to the point now if we bring in a hundred transcripts, probably 20 of them are going to be what we're after. So as a result, you know, we've got to look at a whole lot more kids. And with that we're going to spend more money traveling. We're going to have to increase recruiting staff just to evaluate kids. We're going to need more people to continue to build a bigger recruiting effort. I mean there's going to be a lot of expense associated with that. But that's what we've been mandated to do, so that's what we're going to do. Q. How do you weigh the value of possibly losing ground with the local kids? SONNY DYKES: I don't think that's the case at all. They either fit or they don't. The worst thing we could do is bring in a bunch of kids that don't fit. It doesn't matter where they come from, the important thing is finding guys that are good students, good people. And as I said, I understand Cal what this is about. Again, when ‑‑ you have to cast a little bit bigger net. It was a little more of necessity. I don't think any of us really had any intention of it going the way that it did. We started looking at transcripts and started saying we better find more. And then we better find more. We better find more. We better find more. And we better increase our budget. We better hire more people, and we better do some things because it's a whole different approach. Q. Is recruiting the southeast a sustainable plan? Do you have concerns, you lost a couple of guys in the last couple of weeks from down there, that maybe they don't have quite the link to you guys that a local guy might have? SONNY DYKES: It's interesting, in a lot of ways ‑‑ part of that was just the nature of some of the players we got in on. For example, when we started recruiting Nick Buchanan, who I believe ended up signing with Florida today, was a commitment earlier. He had press tier and college was his only other offer. All the recruiting experts said you guys are morons, this guy can't play, he's got press tier and college. By the end he had Penn State and Florida and Georgia and a lot of other options because he's a really good student and a really good football player. Because some expert didn't necessarily know much about him ‑‑ but I think that was more of the product of him just having a lot of options. Some of those kids having options.       Chris Williams ended up signing with Florida. He had a lot of ‑‑ we got in the mix with him and felt pretty good about it. I think he had central Florida was the only other school that offered him when we did. Same thing, everybody said he wasn't very good. He got 22 offers in the last two weeks. So when kids get a rush like that toward the end, I don't think it really matters if they're local. I don't think it matters, I think what happens a lot of times they have better options or what they see as better options. Russell could have gone anywhere in the country he wanted to do.  He was the defensive lineman out of Atlanta. Russell was probably our strongest commit through the whole process, never wavered.       Trey Turner was somebody, same thing, got really hot at the end. He never wavered. Brandon single ton, he got incredibly hot at the end, from Louisiana, never wavered. I don't know that that's necessarily a connection that you could make. Q. Could you envision sort of this demographic going forward? SONNY DYKES: You know, it's just going to depend for us ‑‑ I like kids from the south. Football is important to them. They come from good high school programs and the great thing with these kids they're really good students. The brand Cal appeals to those kids nationally. We just want good football players, guys that love to play the game, guys that are good students and good people. If it's somebody down the street, like I said, it's a lot easier for me to recruit them because I don't have to take red eyes and do all the stuff you have to do when you recruit these guys all across the country. I'd rather get in my car and drive and be home with my family every night recruiting, but we're going to do what's best for this program and this university. Q. More emphasis on the academics this year? SONNY DYKES: Yeah, more of an emphasis moving forward. There will continue to be more of an emphasis on it. I think you can all see what it does to a program when you have attrition in your program. I mean people that have been watching our program for the last couple of years have seen what attrition has done to a program. When somebody isn't here in a year, two years, three years, it doesn't do a lot of good to walk in a room on signing day, and say we signed 15 four star recruits, but only four of them are in school. It doesn't do your program a lot of good. Or you get ten of them in school but two years later there's two of them left. We're trying to get kids who are going to graduate. I don't see it a negative. I've never viewed recruiting Cal as a negative. To this university, because I believe what this university stands for. I believe in higher education. And I believe you can do both. I believe that more strongly today after seeing what this recruiting class is all about than I did when I took this job. I don't see it as a negative. The only thing is negative is a bunch of plane flights that I'm not that jacked about. Q. You mentioned Brandon and you mentioned Trey and you mentioned Russell. Seems like all three of those guys, Jacob Peeler was involved with in some days. Can you talk about him as a recruiter and the job he did on this class? SONNY DYKES: I was really impressed with Jacob. I've known him for a long I am too. Knew he'd be a good recruiter. It's interesting, when you ‑‑ meet young people and have young coaches in your program, you're always looking for hard workers and guys that love football. We have a strange job. We don't get to do much else besides our job, really, being a college football coach, you know, it means you coach a lot of college football and you do a lot of recruiting. And you don't really know what's going on in the world. And you don't really get a chance to watch snoop dog's television show or anything like that. So it's kind of an interesting way to make a living. So it's not suited for everybody. And so when you get young people in your program you have a chance to watch them grow as student coaches and GA's, you kind of get a sense for whether or not they can handle it. And then the second thing you get a sense for is how good of a recruiter they're going to be. A year ago I had a conversation with Jacob and Coach Franklin did about, look, at some point, you're going to need to take hold on this recruiting. The good thing about being a graduate assistant is they can make phone calls and they can reach out to recruits and they can on campus recruit, they just can't go off campus. I think young people have a pretty good understanding of social media. Certainly a better understanding than I do. And that's the way that these young people communicate with each other these days. He was able to make those connections and start to build those relationships, even though he wasn't allowed to be in their homes. He was talking to them every day. And before long it became pretty apparent to me that he was driving the bus on a lot of these recruits. And so when a job opportunity presented itself, you know, I know he can coach. I've seen him coach. It became pretty obvious to me that not only was he going to be an adequate recruiter, but he had a chance to be a really good recruiter. As we know, recruiting is important for college athletics, and particularly college football. And he knocked it out of the park. So I'm excited to see what he can continue to do. As I said, the kids really like him. The kids trust him. He does a great job communicating and really enjoys it. And I think that's part of it. When you start getting old recruiting becomes ‑‑ a lot of the older guys, it's not uncommon for it to become a little bit of a grind. In the younger guys they love it and are into it and like being on social media. You have to have some of those guys in your program. I thought he did a great job. Like I said, I think he's just getting started. Q. (Inaudible.) SONNY DYKES: He got an assistant head coach title. Allowed him to focus on special teams, and makes us a little bit better. When you do it that way then you've got to ‑‑ we have two receiver coaches, that position is so important for us. It makes sense for the running back to be with our quarterbacks, the way our offense is. What those running backs will do is they'll meet with Tony, and also meet with Brandon Jones. Some of the pass protection things and run game, little nuances are worked out. But Tony will be one of the primary coaches. It makes sense. The running back and the quarterback are right next to each other. It's easy for one guy to coach both of those players. Something we've done in the past and I think it worked really well and we'll continue to do it. Q. You talk about academic fit, Carlos Strickland has taken four or five AP classes, depending on what he remembers that day. He's coming in as a four star wide receiver, can you talk about his recruitment? SONNY DYKES: Yeah, it's interesting, Carlos has certainly been on the radar. We saw his junior film. And he was a highly ranked guy. We liked his tape. Carlos visited early. We started recruiting him, built a relationship with him. Carlos was kind of like me, Carlos was a guy that's from Texas and for some reason had an affinity for Cal. When we started recruiting, we said he's been a Cal fan. Don't know what the connection was. Just glad there was one. And so he kind of grew up that way. So we had him on a visit early. He came during the season and visited and he didn't commit. So when that happens sometimes it's tough because you don't really get another shot at him. And he went through the process and he just never really seemed like he found what he was looking for. Well, about that same time we saw Carlos's senior tape. And he was really good as a junior, but I felt like he was the best receiver I saw this year as a senior. So we doubled up our efforts and went hard. And Pierre Ingram did a nice job recruiting him and made a connection with him on a personal level. And college is a great fit for him. And obviously he fits our offense.       When you are six foot five and you run like he does, there's just not a lot of people that do that. There's a very, very small number of people in the world that can run as fast as he can and have that kind of size are that good of players. So we were really fortunate to get him. He's a great kid. Really handled this whole thing well. He's another kid that after he committed to us, he had every school in the country come in and try to offer him, try to get him to take a visit. And he just said I've found my school. And so love the way he handled it. He's a mature kid, and again, someone who knew what he was looking for. And once he got comfortable and the fit felt good to him, he never looked back. Q. Talk about your guard, Semisi. And he might take an LDS mission trip, do you know the time table for that? SONNY DYKES: No, and I think that's ‑‑ I've heard some speculation about that. I don't think that's ‑‑ that's a possibility, certainly. I don't think he's leaning toward one way or another at all. And as I told him, that's a personal decision. That's up to him how he wants to do it. But we'll see how it plays out. But I don't think that's anything that's set in stone. I think it's very far from set in stone. Kind of the same thing, Pierre, Semisi is somebody that looked around that was heavily, heavily, heavily recruited. Just seemed a little dissatisfied with the way things were going. Never really felt at home. And you've got to credit Pierre Ingram he stuck with him and stuck with him and stuck with him, and then I think the kid found a home. And I think that was the most important thing for him. He's a very good student. Goes to a very good school. He's a really interesting young man, has a lot of interests outside of football, really interested in the arts, really talented. So I think we got on our campus all what was going on, I think it just felt like home for him. He grew up in this area, when he was a little bit younger, used to come to Cal games growing up. And I think he's someone who really felt at home and I think he's a heck of a football player. In regards to his position, I think he's a guard probably right now because he's heavy. He's certainly athletic enough to be a tackle. So we will see how that plays out he's a big kid. He's one of those guys that you look at, his like Chris Barrera, and you look at Chris, he's 5‑11. Get closer, he's 6‑1, and then comes and stands next to you and he's 6‑3. He's the same way. He's standing right next to you and you say the guy is 6‑4, 6‑5. He's a big guy. Q. (Inaudible.) SONNY DYKES: He's a defensive back. Not sure if it's going to be a corner or a safety. He certainly has the speed to play corner. He certainly is physical. That's what we want our corners to be. You know, we'll see. He's a powerful guy. He's over 300 pound bench presser. And I really like what he can do. I think he could play a lot of positions. Q. Is (inaudible) on campus, can you talk about him? SONNY DYKES: No, he's not on campus, can't say anything about it. Q. Playing some guys that can go offense or defense, in the secondary, how important is it for you guys to put those athletes in the secondary? SONNY DYKES: Yeah, what you want to do is you want to recruit good football players. And so if you're a high school football coach in today's game, who ‑‑ where are you going to play your best player? More than likely you're going to play your best player where he can touch the ball all the time. That means the quarterback position. A lot of these guys, you've got quarterback run game, and all the things quarterbacks. Billy McCrary played quarterback, and played it well. And again, the idea was give him the ball, let him touch the ball on every single play. Trey Turner played quarterback, played it very well. They wanted him to touch the ball every day. Evan played quarterback through his career. They want him to touch the ball as much as human possible. When you start looking at those guys that are listed as athletes. Billy has played defensive back from time to time. We want to sign those type of players and see where they fit. How big do they get. When they get here, we'll get them and start doing some voluntary things with our players, and those guys will come in and say so and so has really good feet. So and so can really ‑‑ he ought to be a corner. So and so sees the field well, he ought to be a safety. So and so is good on man coverage. They'll start to take care of themselves and we'll slot them as best we can.       Again, that's based on where we need depth. We haven't had a lot of depth in our defensive back field. When you play with walk on receivers, you better get depth. We're sitting here with six defensive backs and possibly a 7th here soon. Q. Talk about Austin Aaron, he was your very first commit? SONNY DYKES: Yeah, same thing, the fit. Austin got on the radar a little bit, one of those NFTC deals they've got in Oakland, he played well for that and created a buzz. We loved his tape. Loved his length. Like the way he plays the game. I had a chance to go watch him play during the season live and was even more so than I was before, because he played hard, and had a lot of toughness and played defense. And really was a productive football player. Obviously he understands this university, being a third generation Bear and just loves the thing. And he did a great job recruiting for us. He was good on social media and did a good job holding things together and was really, really pleased with the way he handled himself through the process. Same thing, he was another kid that had options down the stretch. Some people tried to make a run at him. And was really proud of the way he handled it. Q. Discussion about gray shirts? SONNY DYKES: Yeah, we've had discussions. Don't really want to say who. But we've done some of that in advance. Q. Is Johnson pretty much play tightened for most of high school, didn't have a lot of defensive end take, what did you see out of him? SONNY DYKES: A big dude that can run fast and likes to play football. Plays physical. Kind of the same thing we just talked about, he was such a weapon as an athlete that they wanted to give him the ball. We feel like that skill set can transition well to defense. When you're range I and big and have that toughness that he's got and ability to move, there's a lot of different places you can play football. As I said, just look at the height and length of these guys, it's significantly different than what we had. We needed to get longer. We needed to be able to get off blocks for all these variety of positions. And the good thing is these guys can do that. Q. Lonny Powell in pretty early and got to see him in the all American game down in Southern California, what have you seen that he's going to bring for you guys, you have a crowded back field as it is. SONNY DYKES: Yeah, what I like about Lonny is just his maturity. I think that's probably the thing that stands out. He's a freshman. He should be going to his promise, instead he's going to classes here at Cal, he graduated early. And not everybody handles that well. He stepped right in here and was one of the guys from the moment he hit the campus. He is maturity both physically, mentally and emotionally. I think that that's what's different about him, maybe, than a lot of young kids. Again, he's a big, strong, physical guy. And I think that's what I like about him as a player. He showed a lot of versatility, because he played in an offense where he didn't get to carry the ball that much. Caught a lot of passes. He has great hands. And played some tightened for his high school, believe it or not. And was really, really productive. Inside receiver and tightened, and did a lot of different things with him. So I thought he was really a productive player. And again, his teammates and strength coaches and people who have had a chance to work with him just rave about him. Q. Dylan Klumph, is he strictly a punter or could he get a look at place kicking? SONNY DYKES: Just on his size he might get a look at linebacker. No, he'll be a punter and potentially a kickoff guy. Q. Among the high school kids you're bringing in, how many could you envision might play next season? SONNY DYKES: Yeah, oh, man, this is the signing day question. You know, I don't know what I said last year. I'd really like to hear what I said last year when I was asked that question to see if I batted zero or might have been one for ten, I don't know. Clearly I didn't spend that much time thinking about it, because I don't remember. I would expect a lot of them to because, again, because of size. I think that they're different because of their length and size. And I think that's what we need and especially on our teams, our special teams. We need long guys. We need athletic guys, we need physical guys, and I think as a result there will be probably a higher number of these people that will play because of that. We'll see. We'll see. You never know. A big part of that is staying healthy during camp and all the different things associated with that. But I would imagine a pretty high number of them will play. Obviously defensive backs. I think depth on the defensive line is always something that you're looking for. Our defensive front is probably going to be as deep as any I've been around. We have a lot of depth. And then the receivers. I think that we have a really good group. I think some of these kids are good enough to probably push some of the players that we have right now. And we've got to play them enough to get them ready for the following year. Basically all of them. We'll see. I think again Lonny is somebody that comes to mind just because of his physical makeup and maturity. Q. (Inaudible.) SONNY DYKES: Russell potentially, yeah, Russell is one of those guys same thing, really, really smart kid. Yeah, I think if you looked at that defensive line he'd probably be your best bet for a freshman, for sure. Q. Is there a possibility you guys lose somebody else before spring ball starts? SONNY DYKES: Like ‑‑ Q. From your current roster? SONNY DYKES: I don't know. Sounds like that's a leading question. I've been on the road for a while. You might know more about it than I do. Not that I'm aware of. Is that a safe answer? Okay. I've been gone. I hope not. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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