Cal at ACC Kickoff: Justin Wilcox not worried about travel, Fernando Mendoza optimistic as ever

The California Golden Bears were at ACC Kickoff (their version of Media Day) today, along with Cal QB Fernando Mendoza, RB Jaydn Ott, QB Chandler Rogers and DB Craig Woodson. We expect we will have the full media reports soon enough, but here are the tidbits that were dropped off by the ACC Digital Network.

Justin Wilcox on ACC travel

We’re excited to play, we’re excited to be in the ACC and as far as the schedule goes, it is a bit different.

There’s more miles, but we’re going to be comfortable. We’re going to leave early, we got a big plane, we got Gatorade and water. Air travel is pretty amazing, there’ll be more comfortable than they are sitting right now.

The schedule is what it is and we’re we’re excited to go play these teams. What’s most important is that we prepare the best that we possibly can so we can play good football, but the travel will not be excuse to to not play well.

Fernando Mendoza on optimism

There’s a ton of optimism with this team. As you said last year, I was third-string, didn’t have much playing experience and this year I have seven games under my belt. But the goal is the same throughout fall camp. Be a better football player.

The more I can improve my talents and improve my chemistry with my teammates, whether it’s talking to Coach Willcox, my teammates, Coach Bloesch Coach Gilbert. However I could do that, I’m going to do that and I know that all my teammates and myself included, we’re all going to prepare the best that we can for week one UC Davis

This off season, having more experience and especially with the transfer portal era I know everybody in the whole entire team, offense and defense, we’ve done a great job with team chemistry.

Locker room culture is huge, especially in Cal, and I think that’s something that’s going to carry our optimistic faith from last season, springboard of the last three games an springing into this season with a new conference.

Craig Woodson on team camaraderie

We’re just a bunch of guys who like to compete, a bunch of guys who like to push each other every day. These offseason workouts, just in conditioning in a weight room, everything we do, we just competing and just pushing each other to be better.

When it comes to being on the field, we have a lot of chemistry, we all hang out outside of football. We’re all really close, so I think we know what to expect with each other, and we know we got each other’s back. I think that really translates to being on the field and making plays.

We led the nation in takeaways, but we got a lot more to show this year. We’re going to be a lot more aggressive on defense this year, sending a lot of pressure, but also having the guys in the back end to handle those receivers that we’re going to be going against.

I’m ready for the challenge