We expect to be better than San Jose. Why would we take a WR from them who is not even their top receiver? We need taller receivers and defensive backs as well. I had hoped our recruiting expectations were higher and that the holdback on news meant we were really looking for some FBS transfers who could add immediate impact.

Cody Hawkins & Josh Thompson (WR coach) the drivers here? Unsure if Coach Hawkins hits the recruiting trail.

I agree this isn’t a major impact recruit but he does have a record of some long plays and some speed. We do lose two starting receivers so maybe this will be a good pickup.
San Jose’s football stats seem unavailable so I don’t know what he did that’s not in his bio. I don’t know what he means by “all money in” but maybe he got a scholarship with us. Don’t know that he had one at SJSU
If we pick up one FBS transfer who makes an impact, I.e. not a former walk-on who never plays, that will unexpected to me. I think the odds of getting an FBS transfer are lower than in the past. Maybe we’ll get an FCS transfer, although we have no history of that except for guys who didn’t earn playing time after they got here.

I'm willing to withhold judgement until I see him on the field. Sometimes players just don't mesh well with a program. McCallen Castles didn't really do anything at Cal before stepping in as a starting TE for us.

Frankly, I just don't think you're gonna see impact guys at the FBS level transfer down. The financial factor is in play now. We just got to hope that we find some hidden gems.

Castles was a very highly regarded recruit who wasn’t happy at Cal, reportedly mostly for non football reasons. We get very few guys who transfer for quality of life reasons. Berkeley not to everyone’s tastes. Would he have transferred here if he could have transferred to another FBS school without sitting out a year? Maybe, but there are certainly a lot of small town schools he could have chosen from.
I guess I’ll clarify my reference to impact as meaning at our level. Of course the incentives for someone who is an impact player in FBS to transfer to FCS are few. We only get a player who transfers down and makes an impact here once a decade or so.

because they think he can be better than some receives they already have

Someone who is a 2nd or maybe even 3rd stringer at Berkeley or other big programs like that could be a great pickup for us and have an immediate impact. That is what I am talking about. A guy like Castles. I don't expect that a starting player at a big time FBS program who is making a good impact is going to transfer to us or another FCS program. But a strong player we would have loved to recruit out of high school, who took his shot at a FBS program and just got edged out for a starting position, wants to make a move to get playing time. That is what we would want.

A 1st or 2nd stringer at San Jose state or a similarly weak FBS program, may not even be strong enough to start for us. Unless we see something in them the other program does not, but that would be a tough call as we would have much more limited time with that player than their own program. With only a handful of catches in a whole year, doesn't sound like this guy was getting much playing time or just wasn't targeted.

Like I said, I'm willing to see what the kid brings to the table come time of the season. I doubt the coaching staff would go after transfers they don't think even have a shot of improving the program. For what it's worth, Crump had an offer from EWU coming out of high school. I may not like their program, but they have a recent history of identifying good WRs (although it does help when you have Barriere throwing the ball).

Sure, a second string guy at Cal would be a great pickup for us, but what would motivate him to transfer here ?
Castles is an outlier, like Lekkerkerker from UCLA twenty years ago they came here for academic or quality of life issues. Two starters from UC transfers in twenty years are fairly rare. I don’t see that suddenly changing because we didn’t sign many high school guys. Point being we will occasionally get an impact transfer but can’t count on it and the incentives are less than they were in years prior for those guys to come here.

More typical transfers for us are the QB from Boise, the running back from Fresno that were just distractions here. And we had the Nevada wide reciever who now only runs track, the former walk-on at Oregon State or UCLA that are backups for us, a QB from Georgetown who never played, a offensive tackle from Cornel that redshirted there and didn’t get on the field for us, a linebacker from Navy who never played for Navy but just their prep school. I’m sure we’ll continue to get those kind of transfers.

we had Smalley (UCLA) and White (Navy) who were key contributors to the defense last season. i think that's the norm for the FBS->FCS transfer. Finding that gamebreaker, who can meet our academics, is going to be tougher!

Tysean White’s eligibility illustrates the importance of picking the right school if you want to have much of a playing career.
He’s played a season at Navy’s prep team, a season with Navy and no stats, and fragments of three games for us. Seems unfair that he has only one year of eligibility left considering some guys play more than fifty games.

If we got 2-3 impact players and 3-4 role players, I'd be happy.

Coach Tucker brought several JC impact players his first year - including a DT and LB.

If they don’t add some quality freshmen they are going to be looking at a major rebuilding effort in a year or two when all the guys who’ve already spent 3 or four years with the program are gone. I don’t think many players are going to hang around for six years regardless of eligibility especially if team isn’t doing well. Gilliam and Perryman illustrate that. The class of 2021 didn’t show much and wasn’t that big of a class. Even some of our redshirt freshmen from last year may start to graduate after one more academic year.
Adding upper classmen transfers won’t balance the roster, need new freshmen every year.

This is an unusual year. With extended eligibility, and record transfers, maybe they're banking on a lot of HS prospects being looked over.

I think the extended eligibility is misleading, and should not be counted on in the case of players who are making regular progress to a degree. An exception to that might be a JC or other transfer who still has three years of eligibility. He’ll probably still be around because it’s hard to graduate in two years after transferring as units don’t match up in most cases so staying an extra quarter is natural. There are some of those guys because JC players also got additional eligibility for 2020 and may still have three years of eligibility after playing for two years.
Maybe we’ll see some FCS transfers, but when have we ever had one that played?
FBS transfers will likely stay within FBS, as they no longer need to sit out.. As a consequence we’re less likely to get one than in years past.
I think transfers will look at our team as being in a rebuilding year. We don’t have a settled QBs, we don’t have a returning top running back, we are graduating key receivers, other key players are transferring, we lost our last three games, so I don’t think we’ll get the graduate transfer who is looking to step into a winner. We shouldn’t be looking for that guy either, we need to get good young players who will be here for a while.

I wondered how the portal fit into the transfer equation. This article was enlightening for me and helped me understand this seemingly black box.

https://www.sportscasting.com/college-football-transfer-portal-explanation/

“ Student-athletes have several options upon entering the portal. They can transfer elsewhere as a scholarship player or as a walk-on. Although they can withdraw from the portal at any time, the team they intended to leave is not required to take them back or keep them on scholarship.”

“ However, the portal is not without its issues. Coaches have criticized the portal itself and the NCAA at large for creating a free agency enviorment. Those in college football, including Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, took issue with the NCAA not adjusting a team’s 25-man signing class limitation even if transfers decimate their program.”

“ The portal has had a severe impact on offseason recruiting. Texas State did not sign a high school player in its 15-man 2021 signing class and instead chose to only add transfers from all levels of college football ranging from the SEC to community colleges.”

TE Jack Endries commits to Cal

According to the NCAA passer ratings from last season, Hunter Rodrigues finished at 125.25, which would have been 64th in the entire FCS. Not great. Hastings would have been even lower at 89th with a 109.6 rating. Clearly, they need to get better. For the sake of comparison, EWU's Barriere had a rating of 167.1, 3rd in the FCS.

Statistics as a whole don’t look good, probably because of the way they finished the season.
For the season our opponents beat us in rushing yards, average per rush, passing yards, yards per attempt, threw fewer interceptions and more first downs by penalty.
We need to replace guys who caught 103 passes, and our leading rusher.

The big shoes we have to fill are Harrell. Does Castles have a year left? Maybe Gilliam returns. If we get Babbs back, that's huge. We're still off the production numbers we had with JM / KDoss. Thorpe & Larrison have serious beast potential.

Harrell - 44 rec, 551 yds
Castles - 12, 387 yds
Hutton - 38, 318 yds
Gilliam - 43, 278 yds
Vaughn - 16, 266 yds
Larrison - 18, 241 yds
Crawford - 22, 182 yds
Thorpe - 17, 161 yds

Castles was only a sophomore this last season so he still has plenty of time left. It's not even that there are big shoes to fill on the offense this upcoming season... They have to find the shoes in general. The inconsistencies throughout the season were more than frustrating. Injuries happen and some guys who had to step in are young, but man were there stretches where we just looked straight up bad. We need improvement just about everywhere on offense.

We're interested in Blaze Iglesias of Orange, 6'4", 260 TE / DE, originally committed to Air Force.

We also had a recent home visit w WR Nico Brown***.

https://www.ocregister.com/2022/01/21/huntleys-hot-list-updates-on-orange-countys-top-available-football-recruits

We've offered a PWO spot to LS Peyton Warford from Saint Francis High School. Go Ags!

Laviel Pickett has committed to UC Davis! Go Ags!

Apparently it's WR night for the Aggies. Samuel Gbatu Jr decommits from Air Force and commits to UC Davis! Go Ags!

Exactly what we needed a tall and athletic WR.

Some big numbers here.

Press Enterprise: "Gbatu continues to be a handful for opposing defensive backs in the Division 6 playoffs. He set career highs with 11 catches and 187 receiving yards as the Golden Bears defeated top-seeded Camarillo 37-31 in overtime to advance to the finals for the second straight playoffs. Gbatu scored a touchdown and also blocked a field goal in that game. Gbatu’s career night also took him past the 1,000-yard mark on the season. He has 21 receptions for 441 yards in three playoff games."

DL Juco offer Jalen Toussant @ToussantJalen from Texas has received 3 more DI offers - Wagner (New York), Tennessee Tech, & Youngstown State. Five offers now total.

Logologo Vaa (@logologo_vaa) has also been offered by Cal Poly.

We landed a JC OL transfer in Ernesto Nava. He was named 1st team all state for the California Community College Athletic Association.