Mr. Dependable: Out of Cal Bears’ chaos former walk-on from Danville has emerged as welcome source of consistency

BERKELEY — There hasn’t been much Cal football fans can count on this season. Their team was positioned to win each of its first four Atlantic Coast Conference games before losing all four, by a combined margin of nine points.

That’s never happened in 142 years of Cal football.

Injuries, penalties, missed field goals, fourth-quarter meltdowns . . . they’ve  all conspired to leave the Bears at 3-4 entering Saturday afternoon’s non-conference matchup at Memorial Stadium against former long-time Pac-12 rival Oregon State (4-3).

Amid the chaos of the past four games, redshirt sophomore tight end Jack Endries has emerged as a slice of consistency. The 6-foot-4, 240-pounder, a former walk-on from Monte Vista High School in Danville, has become quarterback Fernando Mendoza’s most dependable target.

“Jack’s one of our best players,” offensive coordinator Mike Bloesch said.

Certainly that’s been the case the past three games:

• Endries caught three passes for 78 yards against No. 6 Miami, including a 57-yard touchdown — longer than any Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez caught during his years at Cal — in which he outsprinted a Hurricanes’ cornerback to the end zone.
• A week later, at Pitt, Endries caught eight passes for a career-high 119 yards and another touchdown.
• Last Saturday against North Carolina State, he made a career-best nine receptions for 101 yards, giving him 20 catches (on 23 passes directed his way) for 298 yards and a pair of TDs over three weeks.

Asked about his tight end, Mendoza jokingly responded, “Jack who?”

That might have once been a fair reaction, but no more. With 35 catches through seven games, Endries is on pace to become the first tight end to lead Cal in receptions since David Lewis in 1982.

“Jack gets the absolute most out of himself. And I don’t know that there’s any better compliment you can give somebody than that,” coach Justin Wilcox said. “He’s a talented guy — that’s not to diminish his talent.

“Jack is a smart, tough, competitive individual. He’s a very motivated guy. He can catch the ball — he’s got good hands. We saw the speed in the Miami game on that touchdown.”

He’s also proving to be durable. Endries says he played about 860 snaps in 13 games last season, which works out to 92 percent of the team’s plays. Wilcox believes that was the most of any tight end in the country.

Nothing has changed this season, especially with fellow tight end Corey Dyches, a talented transfer from Maryland, sidelined by a recent injury.

Endries says he’s sore on Mondays, but added, “I’ll never say no to more playing time. My body hasn’t really taken anything crazy — there hasn’t been a big hit or major fatigue to my body.”

Endries’ goals for what he could achieve as a preferred walk-on started with earning a scholarship, which he did. “I remember wanting to bet on myself and play at a high level of football,” he said. “But never like this.”

He has been so effective it’s easy to forget that the Bears lost four-star recruit Jermaine Terry II to the transfer portal after the 2022 season. An East Bay native, Terry is now at Oregon State, where he has caught 17 passes in 20 games. Endries has 63 receptions over the same span.

“It is crazy,” Endries said about the path each player has taken. “I’m really excited to play against him this week. Always like talking with him.”

Some credit for his success goes to his chemistry with Mendoza. The two arrived on campus together in the fall of 2022, played on the scout team as freshmen and gradually became friends. They now share an apartment with a couple other teammates.

Mendoza, a late signee in 2022 who was the Bears’ third-string quarterback entering last season, acknowledges both he and Endries wear something of an underdog persona.

But he also won’t sell his friend short. “At Cal, if they bring you in, they expect good things,” Mendoza said. “It’s not like, `Jack and Fernando, they’re lumps on a log.’ “