BearTalk

–Here is a story I wrote today on new offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig, who make more of an impact than previous OCs under Jeff Tedford.

–Jon Wilner of our sister paper, The San Jose Mercury News, picks Cal to win the Pac-10.

Jeff Tedford will be a guest on “Chronicle LIve” on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area tonight. The show airs live at 5 p.m. then is replayed at 11 p.m.

Lost in the shuffle of the quarterback news yesterday was the fact that training camp came unofficially to a close following a helmet-only walkthrough-type practice. Officially, camp ends Saturday with a morning practice followed by Fan Appreciation Day, but when the Bears return to practice after a day off today, it will mark the beginning of game week preparation for Maryland.

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–Here’s my story today on Kevin Riley being named starting quarterback

–ESPN.com’s Ted Miller picks some preseason awards, and it has some Cal flavor.

Coach Jeff Tedford has named Kevin Riley as Cal’s starting quarterback. More to come later…

This is my third season covering Cal and this is the most content and confident I can remember Jeff Tedford at this juncture of training camp.

Tedford has used the past couple of practices to go heavy on game situations, almost putting his players through a dress rehearsal for the season. And he’s decided to forgo Monday’s final scrimmage for another dress rehearsal in helmets only.

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The Bears had their third and final double-day session of training camp today. Essentially, the evening session was the last full-pad practice of training camp. Cal will go in helmets only Sunday and then wrap up camp with a scrimmage on Monday. The official end of camp is Saturday, punctuated by Contra Costa Times Fan Appreciation Day. But pragmatically, camp ends Monday because the team will split into scout teams and start preparing for Maryland on Wednesday.

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The Bears moved their scheduled evening practice to the morning today, and there wasn’t a whole lot of news. No quarterback decision yet. Jeff Tedford said Kevin Riley took the first team reps once again today. I asked him to estimate how many first team reps Riley has taken during camp, and he guessed 70 percent. I followed up by asking if the burden is on Brock Mansion to take those first team reps away from Riley.

“It’s all been pretty even and pretty competitive as far as opportunity is concerned,” Tedford said. “We don’t look at it like (the other quarterbacks) have to take it from him. It’s who actually is doing the things on a consistent basis.”

So Tedford won’t say if the majority of the first team snaps going to Riley means anything. But last week, when asked a question about the depth chart, Tedford said a player moves up from the second team to the first team when he plays well enough on the second team to get a look on the first team. I’ll let you put two and two together.

By comparison, when Riley and Nate Longshore battled for the job last fall, they got pretty much equal first and second team reps all the way through camp.

–Tedford said running back Jahvid Best took some reps today. He didn’t take any hits, but he went through some team work near the beginning of practice.

“He’s getting closer,” Tedford said. “He’s feeling better. We’re going to continue to progress him. I would expect that he’ll be full go in the next couple of days.”

–Some injury updates: Cornerback Darian Hagan sat out with soreness in the knee that kept him out for a couple of days earlier in camp. Also, freshman running back Dasarte Yarnway has some kind of injury to his foot or toe. Tedford said he injured it a few days ago and actually practiced “fairly well” yesterday, but it got worse and he was scheduled to have an MRI on it at some point today and also see a foot specialist. … Wide receiver Alex Lagemann returned to practice in a yellow jersey after missing a couple of days with a bruised quadriceps muscle.

–Tedford said that Giorgio Tavecchio is leading the competition for kickoffs. Tavecchio also kicked a 47-yard field goal today to culminate a two-minute drill.

“He’s been the most consistent with (kickoffs),” Tedford said. “Giorgio has enough leg to get it there, but it’s consistency on where to hit the ball. It’s that consistency hitting the sweet spot to make sure it has the hang time and the distance that we’re looking for.”

–Tedford said today was the best day Bryan Anger has had punting the ball since camp began.

The Bears had their second double-day practice of camp today, going in full pads in the morning and shells at night. Most notable was a chance to talk to tight end Tad Smith, one day after finding out his college career might be over because of a torn ACL in his right knee.

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For the first day of limited media access, there sure was a lot going on today.

First off, I posted previously that tight end Tad Smith is out for the season. He wasn’t at practice so I didn’t get a chance to speak with him. It remains to be seen if he will petition for a sixth year.

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