Long time cal grad here. Was in school during the Holmoe years. Don't have expectations anymore. The university doesn't believe in football and basketball programs. The tree sitting bs fiasco was the start of it when we had potential. Now after a decade of irrelevance and incompetence we are losing to an Eastern Washington program without a real following. The basketball program is equally as bad. But administrators don't really care, so why should we?

SigOtherIsATrojan said:

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Long time cal grad here. Was in school during the Holmoe years. Don't have expectations anymore. The university doesn't believe in football and basketball programs. The tree sitting bs fiasco was the start of it when we had potential. Now after a decade of irrelevance and incompetence we are losing to an Eastern Washington program without a real following. The basketball program is equally as bad. But administrators don't really care, so why should we?

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Of that damn athletic ticket office calls me to go to anymore games, I am going to losey you know what. Why bother with this product?

If this was true we wouldn't have dropped $400+ million on the Memorial rebuild and the SAHPC.

SigOtherIsATrojan said:

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Long time cal grad here. Was in school during the Holmoe years. Don't have expectations anymore. The university doesn't believe in football and basketball programs. The tree sitting bs fiasco was the start of it when we had potential. Now after a decade of irrelevance and incompetence we are losing to an Eastern Washington program without a real following. The basketball program is equally as bad. But administrators don't really care, so why should we?

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I came to Cal in '83 - the year after "The Play." The way it was explained to me was that Kapp was supposed to be the cheerleader and motivator and assistants who knew the nuts and bolts of coaching were supposed to coach. Prior to that, we'd had some relevance in the 70s (Coach Mike White - players like Bartkowski, Muncie, and Joe Roth) but hadn't been seriously relevant since Pappy's Boys played. Kapp was OK for his first two years - and then it just got worse (although his final game still ranks as the best football game I've ever seen). Bruce Snyder came in and it took four years but he finally got things headed in a great direction. He left for ASU -- more money and better facilities. Then Gilby drives us back into the ditch; Mooch comes for a cup of coffee; then Holmoe. And he was an ex-9er, and so earnest and seemed like he'd never knowingly get us in any kind of scandal -- but he could.not.win. We were godawful. This board (which has been thru several iterations) traces its roots to the Holmoe era. The NegaBears and the Sunshine Pumpers.

The Justin Wilcox era has not overall been as bad as the Holmoe era. This game was as bad as any Holmoe-era game. Keep in mind - Holmoe had some amazing players. Deltha O'Neal played under Holmoe.

For years, several friends of mine and I who follow the program have held to one constant: if (fill in the blank) can do it, why can't Cal? Northwestern and Stanford have tough academics - they've both been to Rose Bowls. Why can't Cal? Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina are tough academic public schools, and have had success in football and basketball. Why can't Cal?

I was at Cal when Haas Pavillion was Harmon Gym and Lou Campanelli took over for Dick Kuchen. We didn't become world beaters, but we became fun to watch. We filled Harmon and went from the cellar to the NIT. We beat UCLA after a streak that had gone on for years.

Cal had the right idea but the wrong guy when they hired Kapp. If you look at Stanford and Northwestern (academic and athletic peers) they both have smart alumnus coaches who consider the school their dream job and have no desire (to date) to go elsewhere. Both have figured out how to recruit in a way that gets the players that can succeed at the school and on the field. Is it easier for kids at a private school? Arguably yes. Some would say that 1A/1B courses at Cal are designed to weed out the weak students. Private schools like Northwestern figure the chaff is separated from the wheat in the admission process. Nevertheless, I think we can do it with the right coach.

In terms of worst coaches in Cal history by winning %, Wilcox is not there. He's not great, but not in the bottom 10. Out of 34 Cal head coaches, Dykes would be 27th - nestled right in between Joe Kapp and Roger Theder. Tom Holmoe is next to dead-last in winning percentage - 21.8% over 5 seasons. -- 12 - 43. OTOH, Wilcox is currently nestled between Mooch and Ray Willsey. It may surprise you to know that Wilcox ranks #10 on the list of games won by a Cal coach.

Why should we care? We probably shouldn't. It's futile and frustrating. Like waiting for the Sox or the Cubs to get to the Series, we wait for our long-overdue Rose Bowl - which may never happen. I care because I'm 3rd generation. My grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, uncle, and several cousins have gone to Cal. My parents saw among the best (Pappy Waldorf) and worst (Marv Levy) coach in their time. They saw Kapp play; I saw Kapp coach. Intellectually, I thought Cal threw good money after bad fixing up CMS. Emotionally - I was happy they preserved the stadium built the year my grandfather and grandmother graduated and got married. Intellectually, I know the school should pay the Nobel laureates and the other science and business school profs that give the school its good name a lot more money and worry less about paying sports coaches. Emotionally, the games keep me tied to the school, even though I haven't lived in the state in decades. All of that takes me back to the point I was making two paragraphs back - we need someone that has a genuine attachment to the school and affection for the program. We don't need the flavor of the month. Maybe we can find the kid from Fresno who got passed over for other jobs and wants to show everyone they were wrong by winning at Cal (Tedford), but I don't want someone who will turn us around, go to two bowl games, and then take the job in the NFL or the perennial top 10 school.

Didn't Cal recently battle tree sitters, the City of Berkeley, NIMBY homeowners, and an anti-semitic community activists to go nearly a billion dollars into debt to renovate our football stadium? If that is not a commitment to big time athletics, then Cal Strong no know what is.

This a coaching problem, not an institutional commitment problem.

Cal Strong! said:

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Didn't Cal recently battle tree sitters, the City of Berkeley, NIMBY homeowners, and an anti-semite community activists to go nearly a billion dollars into debt to renovate our football stadium? If that is not a commitment to bif time athletics, then Cal Strong no know what is.

This a coaching problem, not an institutional commitment problem.

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Renovate the stadium and build the training facilities that were decades overdue. Prior to that, we did a compete reno on Harmon that doubled its capacity while keeping basketball on campus. Cal has a very strong commitment to football and basketball.

Cal Strong! said:

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Didn't Cal recently battle tree sitters, the City of Berkeley, NIMBY homeowners, and an anti-semite community activist to go nearly a billion dollars into debt to renovate our football stadium? If that is not a commitment to bif time athletics, then Cal Strong no know what is.

This a coaching problem, not an institutional commitment problem.

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I'm ready to do something radical. Let's move to the triple option on offense and become that PAC12 team nobody wants to play. Seems that running a program like that would immediately move us from competing straight up for 4 and 5 star players that other schools will win four out of five times, to a program focused on optimizing for 5th year seniors who are in this not for the NFL, but for the academics and the sport.

The triple option has had some success at the military academies. It puts a ton of pressure on defenses who don't see it everyday. It would force discipline from our opponent. It likely becomes a boom or bust model for us, but at least it would be fun to watch. I would argue that we might get more out of being unpredictable than trying to compete through the same predictable offenses every other program runs.

Olympic sports - they can be construed as somehow academic, or at least not brutish. And, they're cheap to run.

Rushinbear said:

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Olympic sports - they can be construed as somehow academic, or at least not brutish. And, they're cheap to run.

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We love our swimming & water polo - no doubt. We also love rugby, which is just about as brutish as football but is somehow considered a gentleman's game. But football is expensive. No doubt about that.

SoFlaBear said:

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Rushinbear said:

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Olympic sports - they can be construed as somehow academic, or at least not brutish. And, they're cheap to run.

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We love our swimming & water polo - no doubt. We also love rugby, which is just about as brutish as football but is somehow considered a gentleman's game. But football is expensive. No doubt about that.

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We'd suck at these sports too if there was money involved and most of the D1 schools cared about them like football and basketball.

Its both. They renovated Memorial Stadium because they had to, but for the wrong reasons. Yes, you can have top flight facilities. Yes, you need top facilities to compete. But the product on the field has to be good enough to get an athlete to want to go there. If a recruit sees that we are getting our asses kicked by USC, UCLA, Oregon, OSU and UDub every year - then you can have an Xbox for every player - it still isn't going to make them attend Cal.

It reminds me of that line in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, when Pacino is talking with Dicaprio about his spiraling career and he says, "So Rick, who's gonna kick the sh*t out of you next week?"

UC Admin built the stadium to say, "ok, here's your stadium upgrade. Now go win because that's what you said it would take to win and attract talent". Has it happened?

So, Cal Bears Football, who's gonna kick the sh*t out of you next week?

kal kommie said:

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If this was true we wouldn't have dropped $400+ million on the Memorial rebuild and the SAHPC.

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This. If anything, the administrators are more pro-athletics than they used to be. It's about hiring the right coaches (and hiring the right people that hire the coaches... and those people also court the donors).

We're Cal. We're never going to be Alabama, or even Oregon. But we can be better than this; that's for sure.

They don't know how to care about winning.

Big C said:

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kal kommie said:

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If this was true we wouldn't have dropped $400+ million on the Memorial rebuild and the SAHPC.

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This. If anything, the administrators are more pro-athletics than they used to be. It's about hiring the right coaches (and hiring the right people that hire the coaches... and those people also court the donors).

We're Cal. We're never going to be Alabama, or even Oregon. But we can be better than this; that's for sure.

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This is not meant as attack on your post, as I respect your comments on this board. It's more of a genuine critique or question regarding your statement..."We're Cal. We're never going to be Alabama or even Oregon. But we can be better than this; that's for sure."

I have to ask you, as I'm sure others here feel as you do...but what exactly is the "better" you are referring to in this comment? Is it somewhere between Oregon and last in the conference or division? I have often felt, that there exists among some Cal fans and even in the administration, this grey zone of thinking where we want good student athletes, but we want to be competitive...you know...kind of in the 7 - 5 and 8 - 4 range and beat Stanford, too.

There should be only one goal for the football team...and that is to win the Pac 12 championship each year. Period. After 84 years with no Rose Bowl victory...and 63 years and going on forever with no outright championship, I'm inclined to think that the real problem is not in the coaching all those years, but this way of thinking that actually impedes success.

I am not being sarcastic, but honestly feel that anyone who has coached at Cal has a cloud over his head starting from day one that basically says..."Remember...we want you to win here, but we want good student athletes and role models for our Cal community, too. It's best not to forget that if you want to coach here."

It's worked for Stanford, with 2 coaches now.

Big C said:

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kal kommie said:

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If this was true we wouldn't have dropped $400+ million on the Memorial rebuild and the SAHPC.

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This. If anything, the administrators are more pro-athletics than they used to be. It's about hiring the right coaches (and hiring the right people that hire the coaches... and those people also court the donors).

We're Cal. We're never going to be Alabama, or even Oregon. But we can be better than this; that's for sure.

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Oregon was a bottom dwelling PAC team until Phil Knight gave <checks notes> multiple billions to the school. So, you know, if you know anyone worth 11 digits, that's all it takes!

maxer said:

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It's worked for Stanford, with 2 coaches now.

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Yes...true. But it hasn't worked for Cal in 63 years.

It is well know in the coaching community that Cal is most likely a dead end job, a career killer. It has been claimed here by a self described insider, in the last few days, that the ultimate reason Sonny was fired was that he "demanded" a significant boost in the assistant coaching salaries to attract competent coaches to a "doomed" program.

Bobodeluxe said:

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It is well know in the coaching community that Cal is most likely a dead end job, a career killer. It has been claimed here by a self described insider, in the last few days, that the ultimate reason Sonny was fired was that he "demanded" a significant boost in the assistant coaching salaries to attract competent coaches to a "doomed" program.

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If it was doomed it was because Dykes couldn't win games with the first overall pick in the NFL draft playing QB for him - a player he didn't recruit, by the way, and was gifted to him.

He been exposed. Wilcox was given credit on defense with Sonny's young recruits. With his players, just wonderful.

Waaaaahhh! Sonny is a bad fit. Waaaaaahhh!

dimitrig said:

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Bobodeluxe said:

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It is well know in the coaching community that Cal is most likely a dead end job, a career killer. It has been claimed here by a self described insider, in the last few days, that the ultimate reason Sonny was fired was that he "demanded" a significant boost in the assistant coaching salaries to attract competent coaches to a "doomed" program.

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If it was doomed it was because Dykes couldn't win games with the first overall pick in the NFL draft playing QB for him - a player he didn't recruit, by the way, and was gifted to him.

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Goff's parents went to Cal, dad played Cal baseball and MLB with Jared growing up going to Cal games. He was all Cal, no matter the coach. However, signed with Dykes, just like Dykes' recruit Garbers signed with Wilcox. Moreover it was Dykes and Franklin that started Goff over Kline and stuck with him through his struggles, which was wildly unpopular on this board. It is now more obvious that Goff and Webb did as well as they did at Cal largely because they were in a good offense, surrounded by good offensive players.

Dykes is doing well at SMU. He is a good coach, just not a good coach for Cal. It was good that we moved on. I was skeptical of the Wilcox hiring but, as with every Cal hire, I tried to be hopeful.

calumnus said:

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dimitrig said:

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Bobodeluxe said:

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It is well know in the coaching community that Cal is most likely a dead end job, a career killer. It has been claimed here by a self described insider, in the last few days, that the ultimate reason Sonny was fired was that he "demanded" a significant boost in the assistant coaching salaries to attract competent coaches to a "doomed" program.

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If it was doomed it was because Dykes couldn't win games with the first overall pick in the NFL draft playing QB for him - a player he didn't recruit, by the way, and was gifted to him.

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Goff's parents went to Cal, dad played Cal baseball and MLB with Jared growing up going to Cal games. He was all Cal, no matter the coach. However, signed with Dykes, just like Dykes' recruit Garbers signed with Wilcox. Moreover it was Dykes and Franklin that started Goff over Kline and stuck with him through his struggles, which was wildly unpopular on this board. It is now more obvious that Goff and Webb did as well as they did at Cal largely because they were in a good offense, surrounded by good offensive players.

He is doing well at SMU. He is a good coach, just not a good coach for Cal. It was good that we moved on. I was not a fan of hiring Wilcox as his replacement but, as with every Cal hire, I tried to be hopeful.

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You missed the important part:

Dykes couldn't win games with the first overall pick in the NFL draft playing QB for him

calumnus said:

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dimitrig said:

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Bobodeluxe said:

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It is well know in the coaching community that Cal is most likely a dead end job, a career killer. It has been claimed here by a self described insider, in the last few days, that the ultimate reason Sonny was fired was that he "demanded" a significant boost in the assistant coaching salaries to attract competent coaches to a "doomed" program.

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If it was doomed it was because Dykes couldn't win games with the first overall pick in the NFL draft playing QB for him - a player he didn't recruit, by the way, and was gifted to him.

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It is now more obvious that Goff and Webb did as well as they did at Cal largely because they were in a good offense, surrounded by good offensive players.

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Considering that Goff is a starting NFL quarterback with a Super Bowl appearance, and Webb is in his 4th year on an NFL roster, the takeaway for you is that they only did well at Cal b/c of the strength of the non-NFL players surrounding them?

I do not share that conclusion.

maxer said:

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calumnus said:

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dimitrig said:

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Bobodeluxe said:

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It is well know in the coaching community that Cal is most likely a dead end job, a career killer. It has been claimed here by a self described insider, in the last few days, that the ultimate reason Sonny was fired was that he "demanded" a significant boost in the assistant coaching salaries to attract competent coaches to a "doomed" program.

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If it was doomed it was because Dykes couldn't win games with the first overall pick in the NFL draft playing QB for him - a player he didn't recruit, by the way, and was gifted to him.

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It is now more obvious that Goff and Webb did as well as they did at Cal largely because they were in a good offense, surrounded by good offensive players.

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Considering that Goff is a starting NFL quarterback with a Super Bowl appearance, and Webb is in his 4th year on an NFL roster, the takeaway for you is that they only did well at Cal b/c of the strength of the non-NFL players surrounding them?

I do not share that conclusion.

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That is not what I said. You are creating a straw man argument.

In 2015, Jared Goff completed 65% of his passes for 4,714 yards and 43 TDS and was drafted #1. Do you think he accomplished those numbers by himself?

If the draft were held again do you think Goff would go number 1? If Goff were as good as he seemed then, the Rams would not have made the trade that they did.

If Goff sat behind Kline for 4 years, where would he have been drafted?

If Boller finished his career under Holmoe, would he have been a first round pick?

There are lots of QBs who put up great numbers in college and turn out to not be so great at the next level. Most USC QBs come to mind. They can have long NFL careers, even be starters, but they were still overrated coming out of college.

There are QBs who put up decent but not great numbers in college who turn out to be great QBs. Montana and Brady come to mind.

It is not just the player that makes the coach, the coach also makes the player. Good wide receivers, good pass protection, and a good scheme matter a lot. Goff struggled as a rookie, then got a new coach and in 2017 and 2018 Goff made the Pro Bowl with the Rams. Do you think he will make the Pro Bowl on the Lions? I do hope so, but you have to admit it is less likely.

As for other future NFL players (players who made a roster) who played on the offense with Goff during his three years at Cal:
Richard Rodgers
Kenny Lawler
Trevor Davis
Daniel Lasco
Khalfani Muhammad
Chad Hansen
Stephen Anderson
Patrick Mekari
Darius Powe
Bryce Treggs
Patrick Laird

In particular I remember a lot of spectacular catches, multiple one handed grabs, of Goff passes. Having good or great WRs helps a QB immensely. As does having a good OC with a good scheme.

Big C said:

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kal kommie said:

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If this was true we wouldn't have dropped $400+ million on the Memorial rebuild and the SAHPC.

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This. If anything, the administrators are more pro-athletics than they used to be. It's about hiring the right coaches (and hiring the right people that hire the coaches... and those people also court the donors).

We're Cal. We're never going to be Alabama, or even Oregon. But we can be better than this; that's for sure.

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The Tedford years showed we could be Oregon and then some. If Lymon didn't go down in 3rd quarter of SC game, I submit we win NC.

kelly09 said:

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Big C said:

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kal kommie said:

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If this was true we wouldn't have dropped $400+ million on the Memorial rebuild and the SAHPC.

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This. If anything, the administrators are more pro-athletics than they used to be. It's about hiring the right coaches (and hiring the right people that hire the coaches... and those people also court the donors).

We're Cal. We're never going to be Alabama, or even Oregon. But we can be better than this; that's for sure.

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The Tedford years showed we could be Oregon and then some. If Lymon didn't go down in 3rd quarter of SC game, I submit we win NC.

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There is no reason we can't be good. Gladstone, or someone like him, has to be involved in hiring coaches. Good, young, relatively cheap coaches are out there and would take the promotion to come to Cal. Maybe not for their entire career but to continue it. And then when we get one we go from there. I'd like to know what qualifications Knowlton has to identify a head football coach? It seems like one of the BI members are just as qualified. As in, he's not.