Jeff Tedford was looking at film of another Butte College recruit in the fall of 2002 when the Butte quarterback caught his eye. His name was Aaron Rodgers
As the Pac-12 Conference era comes to a close after more than a century we count down the top 50 moments involving Cal athletics.One day in October 2002, in his first season as Cal’s head coach, Jeff Tedford was watching film of Butte College tight end Garrett Cross, a recruiting target of the Golden Bears staff, when Tedford’s attention was grabbed by the person throwing the ball. “I noticed the quarterback,” Tedford, a now Fresno State’s head coach, said this week.
However, Tedford was not looking for a quarterback when he turned on the film in October 2022 to look at Butte tight end Garrett Cross, a recruiting target. After watching the film for a few minutes, Tedford was distracted by the efficiency of a quarterback he knew nothing about. “The guy did everything right,” Tedford said this week. “He kind of popped off the tape at me.” It was a serendipitous moment.
In early November, two weeks after seeing Rodgers on film, Tedford attended a Butte practice to watch Cross again, and he took the time to watch Rodgers, noting that Rodgers was “running the show, everybody gravitated to him.” Five games into the 2003 season, Rodgers became the Bears’ starting quarterback, leading the Bears to their first bowl victory in 10 years. The next year, he helped Cal to a No. 4 ranking in the final 2004 regular-season AP and coaches polls, and finished ninth in the Heisman Trophy voting.
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