Zach Kline Returns Home To Play For The Bears

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(Zach chats with CAL beat writer Ryan Gorcey during a high school appearance at the Oakland Coliseum) 

By Connor Buestad | Connor@Section925.com

If we learned anything from watching Zach Kline play the quarterback position as a high school star in Danville, it’s that the kid is a gamer. Kline had all the tools to light up East Bay scoreboards while at San Ramon Valley, attracting the attention of QB guru Jeff Tedford enough to garner a PAC-12 scholarship in 2012. He played the game at the prep level with the type of competitiveness and excitement that players and fans alike want to be a part of. Zach Kline passed the QB1 eye test, if you will.

Today, Kline is 22-years old and has spent four years in college, on three different campuses. He redshirted his first year in Berkeley, taking time to learn Tedford’s system. The following year, Kline found himself in a heated battle for the starting quarterback job with true frosh Jared Goff. Well, despite Section925’s fearless endorsement, Goff would win that position battle and, well, Goff turned out to be pretty darn good at throwing touchdown passes in Sonny Dykes’ Air Raid operation.

So Kline did what gritty gamers do, he found a place to play starting quarterback. That quest took him up to Butte Community College in Chico, California. A campus best known for Sierra Nevada suds and a man named Aaron Rogers.

Kline used a successful season at Butte as a stepping stone back into the NCAA (FCS 1-AA) ranks where last year he suited up for the Indiana State Sycamores of the Missouri Valley Conference. Kline’s pit stop in Indiana did not exactly go as planned, as he wasn’t able to secure the starting job and only appeared in three games.

Naturally, Kline has boomeranged back to Berkeley where he hopes to find his way into a graduate school program while simultaneously suiting up for his hometown D1 team. Yes, what a long strange trip it’s been.

In order for Kline to get time as the Bears’ signal caller, all he has to do now is beat out four other capable QB’s including Chase Forrest, Luke Rubenzer, Ross Bowers, and Max Gilliam. That being said, Kline still has a shot. After all, he was highly touted across the board out of high school and went neck and neck with Goff for an entire spring. Kline also has game experience for the Bears, as he completed 43 passes with three TD’s as Goff’s backup in 2013.

No one knows what’s in store for Zach Kline over the next year in Berkeley, hell, he probably has no idea either. But we can all agree he’ll keep the journey interesting for us followers. Someway, somehow, perhaps the final destination will be the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.