BERKELEY, Calif. _ Dawn outside Memorial Stadium: a misty silence, low clouds, available parking, and Davis Webb.
Dressed in a blue sweatshirt and gym shorts, his baseball cap pulled low, Webb descends the pavilion stairs into Cal's football complex. He makes a quick stop at his locker, grabs a notebook, then heads to the office that houses the Bears' virtual reality device.
He pops open the laptop and puts on the VR headset. The previous day's practice appears on the screen.
"A couple plays kept me up last night," he says.
Long before the Bears opened training camp, Webb, a graduate transfer quarterback from Texas Tech, was lifting weights, playing catch with teammates and obsessively studying film. If he walked into the football offices after 7 a.m., he was late. If he left before 10 p.m., he was loafing.
"His work ethic has been unparalleled," said coach Sonny Dykes, who named Webb the starter on the fourth day of training camp.
Unparalleled and purposeful: Raised in the Dallas suburbs, Webb's swift rise at Texas Tech _ he was named MVP of the Holiday Bowl as a freshman _ was followed by a dramatic fall. Derailed by injuries as a sophomore, benched as a junior, and cast aside to a dead-end future in Lubbock, Texas.
With degree in hand and one season of eligibility left, Webb, 21, chose Berkeley as the place to resurrect his career.
"I went through a lot of adversity, and that led to me becoming a backup," he said on a recent morning. "I don't want that to happen again.
That's why I come here every day at 7 at the latest and don't leave until 10 or 11, so I'm prepared to play my best every Saturday ... I want to make sure I have no regrets."
