Michael Cooley brings rare length and upside to Cal’s linebacker room
At 6-foot-7 and 230 pounds, Michael Cooley offers a highly unusual frame for an outside linebacker and gives California a long, rangy defender with obvious pass-rush and matchup-value upside. Cal’s roster lists him as a redshirt junior in 2026, but publicly available stats do not show meaningful game production yet, so his appeal is more about projection than proven on-field volume. The differentiator here is ceiling: if you want a linebacker with size, reach, and developmental upside, Cooley is the kind of athlete worth betting on.
