I have been following the bears for more than 70 years. My mom started taking me to games in the Waldorf era. There have been some really bad years. I sat through the 66-0 game against SC in LA. I decided we were trying to kill their horse. Then there was the game where the punter punted the ball over his head. This season is bad partly because we expect more. In the old bad days there was not such expectation.

It seems like the difference between this era, and the '70s-'80s when I first started following Cal football: back then, USC dominated the conference; but the Bears had a shot at winning against any other team, no matter how dismal our record was. It always felt like Oregon and Stanford were a toss-up, and we were always favored against OSU and WSU. (Unfortunately we had horrendous losing streaks to UCLA and UW). Now it feels like the whole conference is tougher, even when the Bears are good.

JSC 76 said:

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Now it feels like the whole conference is tougher, even when the Bears are good.

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This year (and even last year too), the conference has had no one elite, a la a Chip Kelly Oregon squad or the Pete Carroll SC teams of the 2000s. The PAC-12 is for the taking, and we're just tanking it.

Strykur said:

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JSC 76 said:

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Now it feels like the whole conference is tougher, even when the Bears are good.

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This year (and even last year too), the conference has had no one elite, a la a Chip Kelly Oregon squad or the Pete Carroll SC teams of the 2000s. The PAC-12 is for the taking, and we're just tanking it.

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It is almost exactly like the late 90s when it seemed like all of the PAC-10 took turns going to the Rosie Bowl, even Stanford, but we just stuck with Tom Holmoe and never got close.

Followed the Bears religiously during the Wilsey years then as a student during the "A New Day at Cal" years with Mike White. In 1986 in a game we lost against San Jose St. I just got up at at halftime and left, in a season that ended 2-9. I just felt empty, why am I here? That was the low point for me. I have regret now because a few years later I moved away from the Bay Area and trips back to CMS are fewer than I would like. Always lived and died with them since of course but walking out at halftime that day still haunts me. I'm hoping like hell we win at least 3 games this year.

calumnus said:

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Strykur said:

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JSC 76 said:

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Now it feels like the whole conference is tougher, even when the Bears are good.

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This year (and even last year too), the conference has had no one elite, a la a Chip Kelly Oregon squad or the Pete Carroll SC teams of the 2000s. The PAC-12 is for the taking, and we're just tanking it.

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It is almost exactly like the late 90s when it seemed like all of the PAC-10 took turns going to the Rosie Bowl, even Stanford, but we just stuck with Tom Holmoe and never got close.

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Even with a different coach during the late 90s, would have been difficult to rise above the Northwest programs who ran the show out west until SC took it back over. All comes back to not paying Snyder which would have kept us going past 93 and Dave Barr's injury basically ending our last real shot at it until Tedford came in.

Since 1995 (class of 2000). I have to admit I missed the days when we were one of the top ranked teams with guys like Longshore, Lynch, DJ on the roster.

....followed'em long enough....Cal ain't changin' for the foreseeable future.......

56 years. Seen worse. But I've seen all I need to see of JW. The problem is not so much the current performance - although 1-4 is terrible - it's the trend. This team will not get better. We've seen five years of JW. We know what he can do. It's time to move on. And frankly, if that decision has not already been made by Knowlton, then it's time for me to move on from Cal football.

eightiron said:

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56 years. Seen worse. But I've seen all I need to see of JW. The problem is not so much the current performance - although 1-4 is terrible - it's the trend. This team will not get better. We've seen five years of JW. We know what he can do. It's time to move on. And frankly, if that decision has not already been made by Knowlton, then it's time for me to move on from Cal football.

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Gawd, I like this poster! Where have you've been?

This is what I wanted to say. This Bear team is played out, so don't expect anything else this season. (The sunshine pumpers seem to be waiting for Cal to improve as this season progressed; not going to happen. For example, many here have been penciling in a win for the Arizona game. Arizona wasimprovingwithevery game until their QB got clobbered yesterday. Cal may now have achance to win?)

Anyway, what eightiron said.

p.s. It's not that I (or we) aren't Cal fans; it's just that I 'm tired of seeing sub-par football season after season.

Strykur said:

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calumnus said:

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Strykur said:

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JSC 76 said:

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Now it feels like the whole conference is tougher, even when the Bears are good.

---

This year (and even last year too), the conference has had no one elite, a la a Chip Kelly Oregon squad or the Pete Carroll SC teams of the 2000s. The PAC-12 is for the taking, and we're just tanking it.

---

It is almost exactly like the late 90s when it seemed like all of the PAC-10 took turns going to the Rosie Bowl, even Stanford, but we just stuck with Tom Holmoe and never got close.

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Even with a different coach during the late 90s, would have been difficult to rise above the Northwest programs who ran the show out west until SC took it back over. All comes back to not paying Snyder which would have kept us going past 93 and Dave Barr's injury basically ending our last real shot at it until Tedford came in.

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Late 90s was Holmoe. Snyder was early 90s. He went to ASU and went to the Rose Bowl there. A different team won with very year. Stanford went to the Rose Bowl with Willingham in a weak PAC-10. UW sucked, which is why they hired Willingham away from Stanford.

If we had a AD who was not a horse's A*S we would have been a power house in the '90s under Snyder. After the '91 season, Snyder had a recruiting class ready to commit that would have rated top 5 nationally. It included a RB (forgot his name) who 3 or 4 years later won the Heisman trophy. After our AD screwed up keeping Snyder, most of the class went elsewhere.

RichyBear said:

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If we had a AD who was not a horse's A*S we would have been a power house in the '90s under Snyder. After the '91 season, Snyder had a recruiting class ready to commit that would have rated top 5 nationally. It included a RB (forgot his name) who 3 or 4 years later won the Heisman trophy. After our AD screwed up keeping Snyder, most of the class went elsewhere.

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Must have been Rashaan Salaam?

calumnus said:

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Strykur said:

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calumnus said:

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Strykur said:

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JSC 76 said:

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Now it feels like the whole conference is tougher, even when the Bears are good.

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This year (and even last year too), the conference has had no one elite, a la a Chip Kelly Oregon squad or the Pete Carroll SC teams of the 2000s. The PAC-12 is for the taking, and we're just tanking it.

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It is almost exactly like the late 90s when it seemed like all of the PAC-10 took turns going to the Rosie Bowl, even Stanford, but we just stuck with Tom Holmoe and never got close.

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Even with a different coach during the late 90s, would have been difficult to rise above the Northwest programs who ran the show out west until SC took it back over. All comes back to not paying Snyder which would have kept us going past 93 and Dave Barr's injury basically ending our last real shot at it until Tedford came in.

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Late 90s was Holmoe. Snyder was early 90s. He went to ASU and went to the Rose Bowl there. A different team won with very year. Stanford went to the Rose Bowl with Willingham in a weak PAC-10.

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OK, a discussion where both people who are both getting things wrong.

"Even with a different coach during the late 90s, would have been difficult to rise above the Northwest programs who ran the show out west until SC took it back over." The NORTHWEST programs ran the show in the late 90's? If we define the late 90's at its broadest, 95-99, the northwest got ONE Rose Bowl, when the 1997 WSU team tied with UCLA for the conference title. The 1995 season it was USC, 1996 ASU, 1998 UCLA, and 1999 Stanford. That is hardly Northwest programs running the show in the late 90's.

If you want to say the Northwest "ran the show" for a 2 year period from 2000-2001, well, maybe. UW, Oregon, and OSU tied for the conference title in 2000, with UW getting the Rose Bowl, Oregon won the conference in 2001. By 2002, SC was tied for first, although WSU got the Rose Bowl, and , and WSU and USC tied for the title in 2002, as SC did "take it back over," a 7 year run of either ties for first or outright conference championships. But since WSU got the 2003 Rose bowl from the 2002 season, I suppose you could argue that the Northwest "ran the show" for 3 years, 2000-02. But not the late 90's.

Willingham did take the mediocre 1999 Stanford team to the 2000 Rose Bowl -- Stanford lost to Texas 69-17 to open the season and also lost to San Jose St. 44-39. They did eek out a win over Notre Dame 40-37 after clinching the Rose Bowl with a win over Cal. The 1999 conference was so weak that Holmoe's 1999 Cal team beat UCLA 17-0 in LA and beat USC 17-7 in Berkeley. Yes, the late 90's was kind of there for the taking, perhaps hitting bottom in 1999.

But when you try to prove the point by saying "UW sucked, which is why they hired Willingham away from Stanford," you are trying to prove the point with a whopper of a falsehood. Notre Dame hired Willingham away from Stanford after the 2001 season, UW hired Willingham after he was fired by ND after the 2004 season.

UW initially had trouble coping with the idea that competing for national titles wasn't their birthright.
UW expected Jim Lambright to keep up the results of Don James. When Lambright ended up with only one tie for the Pac-10 title from 1993-98 (NOT having the Rose Bowl tiebreaker) and dared to have a 6-6 season capped off by a lower tier bowl loss (a record at Cal that got Mooch the 49ers HC job), Lambright was fired and Slick Rick hired. Slick Rick got a Rose Bowl his second season, 2000, but after a 7-6 2002 season with a Sun Bowl loss, UW wasn't willing to keep him after the gambling scandal, and their expectations were lowered enough that they were willing to hire Gilby, a coach designed to put a team in the toilet bowl.

After a season of 1-10 and 0-8 in conference gets Gilby canned after two years, and UW fails to lure Tedford away from Cal, the fired Willingham seemed good. He didn't seem so good after he finished 10th, 9th, 10th, and 10th, capped off by an 0-12 season in 2008.

Anyway, no Northwest "running the show" in the late 90's, and no Willingham hired away from Stanford by UW.

Cal8285 said:

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calumnus said:

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Strykur said:

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calumnus said:

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Strykur said:

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JSC 76 said:

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Now it feels like the whole conference is tougher, even when the Bears are good.

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This year (and even last year too), the conference has had no one elite, a la a Chip Kelly Oregon squad or the Pete Carroll SC teams of the 2000s. The PAC-12 is for the taking, and we're just tanking it.

---

It is almost exactly like the late 90s when it seemed like all of the PAC-10 took turns going to the Rosie Bowl, even Stanford, but we just stuck with Tom Holmoe and never got close.

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Even with a different coach during the late 90s, would have been difficult to rise above the Northwest programs who ran the show out west until SC took it back over. All comes back to not paying Snyder which would have kept us going past 93 and Dave Barr's injury basically ending our last real shot at it until Tedford came in.

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Late 90s was Holmoe. Snyder was early 90s. He went to ASU and went to the Rose Bowl there. A different team won with very year. Stanford went to the Rose Bowl with Willingham in a weak PAC-10.

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OK, a discussion where both people who are both getting things wrong.

"Even with a different coach during the late 90s, would have been difficult to rise above the Northwest programs who ran the show out west until SC took it back over." The NORTHWEST programs ran the show in the late 90's? If we define the late 90's at its broadest, 95-99, the northwest got ONE Rose Bowl, when the 1997 WSU team tied with UCLA for the conference title. The 1995 season it was USC, 1996 ASU, 1998 UCLA, and 1999 Stanford. That is hardly Northwest programs running the show in the late 90's.

If you want to say the Northwest "ran the show" for a 2 year period from 2000-2001, well, maybe. UW, Oregon, and OSU tied for the conference title in 2000, with UW getting the Rose Bowl, Oregon won the conference in 2001. By 2002, SC was tied for first, although WSU got the Rose Bowl, and , and WSU and USC tied for the title in 2002, as SC did "take it back over," a 7 year run of either ties for first or outright conference championships. But since WSU got the 2003 Rose bowl from the 2002 season, I suppose you could argue that the Northwest "ran the show" for 3 years, 2000-02. But not the late 90's.

Willingham did take the mediocre 1999 Stanford team to the 2000 Rose Bowl -- Stanford lost to Texas 69-17 to open the season and also lost to San Jose St. 44-39. They did eek out a win over Notre Dame 40-37 after clinching the Rose Bowl with a win over Cal. The 1999 conference was so weak that Holmoe's 1999 Cal team beat UCLA 17-0 in LA and beat USC 17-7 in Berkeley. Yes, the late 90's was kind of there for the taking, perhaps hitting bottom in 1999.

But when you try to prove the point by saying "UW sucked, which is why they hired Willingham away from Stanford," you are trying to prove the point with a whopper of a falsehood. Notre Dame hired Willingham away from Stanford after the 2001 season, UW hired Willingham after he was fired by ND after the 2004 season.

UW initially had trouble coping with the idea that competing for national titles wasn't their birthright.
UW expected Jim Lambright to keep up the results of Don James. When Lambright ended up with only one tie for the Pac-10 title from 1993-98 (NOT having the Rose Bowl tiebreaker) and dared to have a 6-6 season capped off by a lower tier bowl loss (a record at Cal that got Mooch the 49ers HC job), Lambright was fired and Slick Rick hired. Slick Rick got a Rose Bowl his second season, 2000, but after a 7-6 2002 season with a Sun Bowl loss, UW wasn't willing to keep him after the gambling scandal, and their expectations were lowered enough that they were willing to hire Gilby, a coach designed to put a team in the toilet bowl.

After a season of 1-10 and 0-8 in conference gets Gilby canned after two years, and UW fails to lure Tedford away from Cal, the fired Willingham seemed good. He didn't seem so good after he finished 10th, 9th, 10th, and 10th, capped off by an 0-12 season in 2008.

Anyway, no Northwest "running the show" in the late 90's, and no Willingham hired away from Stanford by UW.

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Right, Willingham was hired away by Norte Dame.

Still, my point, as clearly stated in my original post, before we got sidetracked with this nonsense about Snyder and UW, is this reminds me of the LATE 90s, when the conference was there for the taking and we stuck with Tom Holmoe.

1979 was when I became a Cal fan. 11yo. Such a heart breaking season after starting 3-0.

kirklandblue said:

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Followed the Bears religiously during the Wilsey years then as a student during the "A New Day at Cal" years with Mike White. In 1986 in a game we lost against San Jose St. I just got up at at halftime and left, in a season that ended 2-9. I just felt empty, why am I here? That was the low point for me. I have regret now because a few years later I moved away from the Bay Area and trips back to CMS are fewer than I would like. Always lived and died with them since of course but walking out at halftime that day still haunts me. I'm hoping like hell we win at least 3 games this year.

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Mike White was such a breath of fresh air. I was about the same age as you, watching Willsey teams through high school with pretty good defenses and pretty weak offenses because he couldn't recruit against USC and UCLA. He landed Isaac Curtis and all that got Cal was NCAA probation. His teams played hard .500 football and rarely beat the teams that mattered. White turned down the Stanford job to come back to Cal, ditched the traditional uniforms (the only "tradition" was boring football in empty stadiums at that point), changed the offense and while it took a few years, the turnaround happened. The 1974 game against UCLA was the first time I ever felt electricity walking into the stadium. Cal lost, but I'll never forget that feeling.

At this point, Wilcox reminds me a lot more of Willsey than White.

Nearly 20 years for Cal Strong. 2013 Big Game was worst Cal Strong has ever seen. But it was Sonny's first year. He had a true freshman QB and he was still installing a tricky offense. So there was some hope that things would get better if we gave him a bit more time. After 5 years with Wilcox, Cal Strong don't have that sort of hope.

HearstMining said:

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kirklandblue said:

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Followed the Bears religiously during the Wilsey years then as a student during the "A New Day at Cal" years with Mike White. In 1986 in a game we lost against San Jose St. I just got up at at halftime and left, in a season that ended 2-9. I just felt empty, why am I here? That was the low point for me. I have regret now because a few years later I moved away from the Bay Area and trips back to CMS are fewer than I would like. Always lived and died with them since of course but walking out at halftime that day still haunts me. I'm hoping like hell we win at least 3 games this year.

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Mike White was such a breath of fresh air. I was about the same age as you, watching Willsey teams through high school with pretty good defenses and pretty weak offenses because he couldn't recruit against USC and UCLA. He landed Isaac Curtis and all that got Cal was NCAA probation. His teams played hard .500 football and rarely beat the teams that mattered. White turned down the Stanford job to come back to Cal, ditched the traditional uniforms (the only "tradition" was boring football in empty stadiums at that point), changed the offense and while it took a few years, the turnaround happened. The 1974 game against UCLA was the first time I ever felt electricity walking into the stadium. Cal lost, but I'll never forget that feeling.

At this point, Wilcox reminds me a lot more of Willsey than White.

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Unfortunately, White's tenure also brought probation.

59bear said:

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HearstMining said:

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kirklandblue said:

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Followed the Bears religiously during the Wilsey years then as a student during the "A New Day at Cal" years with Mike White. In 1986 in a game we lost against San Jose St. I just got up at at halftime and left, in a season that ended 2-9. I just felt empty, why am I here? That was the low point for me. I have regret now because a few years later I moved away from the Bay Area and trips back to CMS are fewer than I would like. Always lived and died with them since of course but walking out at halftime that day still haunts me. I'm hoping like hell we win at least 3 games this year.

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Mike White was such a breath of fresh air. I was about the same age as you, watching Willsey teams through high school with pretty good defenses and pretty weak offenses because he couldn't recruit against USC and UCLA. He landed Isaac Curtis and all that got Cal was NCAA probation. His teams played hard .500 football and rarely beat the teams that mattered. White turned down the Stanford job to come back to Cal, ditched the traditional uniforms (the only "tradition" was boring football in empty stadiums at that point), changed the offense and while it took a few years, the turnaround happened. The 1974 game against UCLA was the first time I ever felt electricity walking into the stadium. Cal lost, but I'll never forget that feeling.

At this point, Wilcox reminds me a lot more of Willsey than White.

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Unfortunately, White's tenure also brought probation.

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Well, yeah. There is that . . . Caught with his hand in the cookie jar not just at Cal, but also at Illinois.

Bobodeluxe said:

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oskidunker said:

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Talent.

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Super Seniors have experience, and are primed for success.

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Long in the tooth athletes get in the way of young talent ready to deliver. Garber could stay another 4 years and still would not develop into a good QB....

eightiron said:

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56 years. Seen worse. But I've seen all I need to see of JW. The problem is not so much the current performance - although 1-4 is terrible - it's the trend. This team will not get better. We've seen five years of JW. We know what he can do. It's time to move on. And frankly, if that decision has not already been made by Knowlton, then it's time for me to move on from Cal football.

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Got me beat by a few years.

First Cal game was 1972 Big Game; Cal as the heavy underdog in a mud bowl. Mike White's first year. Instead of kicking for a tie on the last play, Ferragamo goes under center and tosses to the game winner to Steve Sweeney who promptly face plants in the end zone mud. (not much drainage back in the day.)

Worst Cal game was the debacle to USC in teh Coliseum in 2013. The final score showed that we only lost by 34, but the game was never that close. Only sporting event I have ever left early. Didn't help that my boss was a big USC booster so he gave me his tickets on the 45 yard line where I was surrounded by wealthy Trojans. Just a miserable experience.

Unfortunately, I'm starting to come to grips with the fact that I'll never see a Cal Rose Bowl team.

Chapman_is_Gone said:

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SanseiBear said:

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Chapman_is_Gone said:

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RichyBear said:

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I changed my mind. Holmoe was a much better coach then Levy. Holmoe beat USC not once, not twice, but 3 times. More than any Cal Coach in the last 70 years. Mike White is next with 2 wins and a tie against USC.
The thing that turned many Cal fans (including me) against Levy was his third down punts. Not quick kicks, but punts on third down. Especially when Cal was inside it's 30 yard line (over 70 yards from a TD). Once when sked why he did this, Levy replied 'Even if we make a first down, we still have 70 yards to go'.

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I'm sorry, but I find this story, which has cropped up on this page occasionally over the years, simply impossible to believe. It defies any logic that a coach would, repeatedly, choose to punt on third down. I can imagine it happening once or twice -- perhaps by accident -- but not intentionally and repeatedly. This must be an urban legend.

We're all pretty smart here, with a few notable exceptions. Can someone please explain why a coach would choose to punt on third down as part of his routine strategy? Doing so would be illogical and naturally would get a coach fired under normal circumstances.

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Here's a 1961 Daily Nebraskan newspaper article where Marv Levy explained he believed in that strategy. Note the article was complaining about Nebraska using that approach and found out that Cal was doing the same.

Daily Nebraskan Article of October 18, 1961

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Nebraska fans who moaned last year when Nebraska could do nothing but punt on third downs will be surprised to see the same situation has arisen at California. Bob Booth, assistant sports ed of the Daily Californian, explains Coach Marv Levy's strategy thusly; "It is, and will be for a number of games to come,
Levy's strategy to punt on third, or even second or first down; whenever he feels that the combination of the
score, the down and the yardage to go for a first down, position on the field, the weather, and time left in the
game warrant such action." Coach Levy states, "Coaches have been fired for just this very same thing and the fans don't like it, but until I feel that this is not the soundest football strategy, we are going to use it."

Thanks for the link, SanseiBear. Unfortunately, the article doesn't explain WHY a coach would want to punt on third down, or on "even second or first down." And it doesn't give any examples of times when that strategy would make sense.

Again, I call BS on this as an urban legend. Yes, I can convince myself that a team might benefit from rarely punting on third down if the team's offense is completely incompetent and you fear the opposing team's super strong return game. This might be done on rare occasion if one thinks that the ball will roll a long ways when punted on third down if there is no returner to return the surprise punt. But why do that when you can simply punt out of bounds on fourth down, and then you still get an offensive play on third down? I bet this actually happened in real life like once or twice, and how many times it truly happened has been blown way out of proportion over the years. That's just my guess.

There must have been a strategic reason it would make sense to ever punt on third, second, or even first down. Does anyone know? Maybe there was a rules difference that I am not aware of? Because, if there isn't a sound strategic reason, frankly, Marv Levy sounds like a moron (I started following Cal in 1990).

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My folks watched the Bears at CMS in the Levy era and all my mom talks about in that regard is Levy always punting on 3rd down like we were playing Canadian ball.

1. Garbers would be a better QB if he had a offensive line that gave him enough time to pass. It seems like Garbers gets 2 seconds and the other team's QB gets 2 minutes (I know an exgageration).

2. Part of the reason Willsey had trouble recruiting was the free speech movement. One year he had 6 or 7 blue chip recruits ready to come to Cal because the parents said 'No way my boy is going to that hippy school'.

3. If we had the 2019 defense we'd be 5-1 now instead of 1-5. I think Oregon's 3rd string defense gives them more trouble in scrimages then Cal's defense did.

RichyBear said:

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1. Garbers would be a better QB if he had a offensive line that gave him enough time to pass. It seems like Garbers gets 2 seconds and the other team's QB gets 2 minutes (I know an exgageration).

2. Part of the reason Willsey had trouble recruiting was the free speech movement. One year he had 6 or 7 blue chip recruits ready to come to Cal because the parents said 'No way my boy is going to that hippy school'.

3. If we had the 2019 defense we'd be 5-1 now instead of 1-5. I think Oregon's 3rd string defense gives them more trouble in scrimages then Cal's defense did.

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I agree with your first point, kinda. Yes, Garbers is frequently under pressure. But, his long distance accuracy has been an issue since his first year; improving over the years, but he continues to over-throw wide open receivers, as he did yesterday (adn the week before). Moreover, he hasn't much improved is passing accuracy while on the move. Normally, you'd try to move the pocket, but that means the QB has to make a throw on the run. Garbers is a dual-threat athlete in a drop-back pass system. (Personally believed that Beau's system was a better fit for Chase than Musgrave's).

Would he be better with a better line, of course. But he would never be great with a great OL. He just misses too many passes.