Cal opens its season in a week against UC Davis, with the Bears seemingly having more depth and experience on the offensive line than they have had in several years.
Including returning players and transfers, the Bears have seven O-linemen who have played a total of 218 games and 150 starts in their careers.
Four of them will start against the Aggies along with Nick Morrow, who will be playing in his first college game in a position he has never played before.
Morrow (pronounced MAR-o), a 6-foot-4, 290-pound redshirt freshman from Flagstaff, Arizona, played tight end and defensive end in high school. Cal saw him at a camp in Berkeley and envisioned him as a tackle.
And next Saturday, Morrow will be the Bears’ starting left tackle after not playing in a game since his senior year of high school in the fall of 2021 (after wearing a grayshirt in 2022 and a redshirt last year).
“His potential is extremely high,” said Cal coach Justin Wilcox. “Is he close yet? No. Not quite. He’ll learn a lot along the way.”
“But if he sticks around and keeps training, lifting weights, eating well – the lifestyle that it takes to be a great left tackle – he’s got a very, very bright future ahead of him.”
The trust that the coaching staff has placed in him drives Morrow to strive for these top performances.
“I’m definitely very excited,” he said. “Maybe it was harder to see when I got here and played the position for the first time.
“But as I learned and became more comfortable and confident, it was good to remember and know that they believed in me just as much.”
The move to OT was not an unexpected change for Morrow. Pretty much every school that recruited him talked about the move.
Looking back on training camp, where coaches first paired him with Morrow, Wilcox said, “We worked with him as a tight end and a D-end and told ourselves he’s neither, but he could be something.”
Morrow deferred his enrollment at Cal as a grayshirt, giving himself a chance to change his body for a new role. He weighed 250 pounds in high school, but has gained 50 pounds and is now big enough to handle that.
“Since I’ve been here, it feels natural and I can get more involved in it. I think it’s been a great transition,” Morrow explained.
Nevertheless, Morrow was quite inferior in his first training sessions in spring 2022.
“I remember the first practice. We almost couldn’t let him play some of the D-ends because he just wasn’t familiar with the position, he was brand new and he was still growing physically,” Wilcox said.
“And now he’s our left tackle. To be fair to him, he’s still developing, but in a really good way. Because he has things that you can’t teach.”
It starts with his height – a real 6’0″, Morrow confirms. And he is so athletic that the former high school basketball center dreamed of playing point guard.
The second coming of Magic Johnson?
“I tried it… but it didn’t look the same,” he admitted.
The switch to tackling was more promising.
“I’ve definitely come a long way. But I know I still have to improve and just continue to be the best player I can be,” Morrow said. “Consistency – that’s the main thing we talk about. Playing at a level that I know I can achieve consistently and being able to do it time and time again.”
Wilcox talks in the video above about how the Bears used players at different O-line positions during fall camp to fill gaps due to injuries and develop more flexibility.
For example, it is unclear whether right guard Sioape Vatikani, who missed much of training camp due to a foot injury, will be available for the opening game.
In any case, Morrow won’t be the only player used at left tackle, but he will play often, Wilcox said.
“He probably won’t be perfect,” Wilcox said. “But every time he goes out there he’s going to learn something very valuable. He’s going to take advantage of that. He’s got a bright future ahead of him.”
