Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
Is there any indication either way whether Wilcox will renew Musgrave?
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Last: 3 yr ago by GivemTheAxe
Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
When has it been that we were not rebuilding? Oh yeah, this year...
lol. We'll be rebuilding next year. You know, as opposed to every other year with Wilcox. Always rebuilding. Makes for a convenient narrative to keep moving the goal posts.heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
2020 was supposed to be the year. Then covid happened and everyone got to run it back so 2021 became the payoff year for the initial years of building. And we flopped. Now it's rebuild (for a year? two? 5?) again.
This was a golden opportunity. We had a bunch of super seniors, tons of guys with experience including a 4th year starting qb. The PAC was as weak as its been in recent memory and we didn't even play two of the few teams that had a pulse. Our OOC "A" game was against a team so bad that it fired the coach who built the program after the season, a season which included a win over us.
So how many consecutive years of rebuilding (while putting up records indistinguishable from those that came right before him) do you accept before needing to see results? He's 5 years in and you're already giving him a pass for year 6.
71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Watching Garbers' development over the years, I wonder if his ceiling was lowered by the poor OL protection and the RPO plays from Baldwin and a bit with Musgrave. The ability to guard against QB "happy feet" while attempting to stay in the pocket looking downfield while also being asked to run at times makes for pretty complex decision-making in a young man's mind. The rollouts and RPO plays are headaches for OL assignments. Next years OL should play better with an established center. Remember last summer's C retirement just weeks ahead of the season?
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There is always an excuse of why we cant have a winning conference record. What will it be next year?BearoutEast67 said:
Watching Garbers' development over the years, I wonder if his ceiling was lowered by the poor OL protection and the RPO plays from Baldwin and a bit with Musgrave. The ability to guard against QB "happy feet" while attempting to stay in the pocket looking downfield while also being asked to run at times makes for pretty complex decision-making in a young man's mind. The rollouts and RPO plays are headaches for OL assignments. Next years OL should play better with an established center. Remember last summer's C retirement just weeks ahead of the season?
Bring back It’s It’s to Haas Pavillion!
Along with Sebastabear your post is the most clairvoyant and balanced analysis and together they reflect 100% the thoughts and observations I have made. I have been defending Wilcox and Musgrave against some of the unreasonable criticisms and I felt like the developments on and off the field since October were significant enough to change my negative opinion of them. In particular, the way the team stuck together following the covid crisis and the way Wilcox recommitted to Cal when Oregon came calling. Those 2 events were so significant that, to me, they counterbalanced a lot of the issues that you and sebastabear have made.WalterSobchak said:
The crazy thing is this was probably a 7-5 or 8-4 team if all we did was fix ST before the season rather than during the first Bye. That cuts both ways for me on Wilcox: On one hand, how could he not see from 2020 that ST was a huge problem and properly address it in camp? I have no idea what they actually did to correct ST, but the dramatic in-season turnaround shows he/they obviously knew how to fix it. So why didn't they do it sooner? In the end this brings me to my biggest problem with Wilcox: IMO he lacks killer instinct and doesn't appreciate the value of every single game. He showed it right off the bat in 2017 with the ridiculous decision to go for 2 in OT against Arizona, and he showed it again this year with his "we're just here to compete" pregame quote, again against Arizona. I want a coach who says "we're here to WIN" and fights tooth and nail to the bitter end for every W and makes the other team claw it out of his cold dead hands, not one who is satisfied to just show up and compete. Too often he's willing to take a L and focus on the bigger picture. Problem is this leads the big picture to be a bad record at the end of the season. I'm hoping that with time Wilcox will become more aggressive in his game management approach. IMHO that will be what ultimately determines his fate.
I was extremely impressed with Wilcox and the entire organization with how they stuck together and prevented a total implosion after the terrible start. It was very apparent that they used the first Bye to erase the defensive depth chart and reopen competition at all positions. This led to much more solid play and got a bunch of really young guys tons of game experience. Some guys got demoted and some guys took the criticism and stepped up. Hicks was a very notable member of the latter group, which is a huge testament to his character, resiliency, and talent. He looked like a different guy back there after the shakeup and the D was far better because of it. This shakeup also left us with a very solid 4 man ILB rotation going into next year, which was a huge question mark (and weakness) early in the season and which I don't think we'd have now otherwise. So these are strong positives that I don't take lightly. In the end, it's probably what makes me lean towards continuing down the Wilcox path.
Garbers was a mixed bag. I was hoping he would return just for the experience in the Musgrave system and continuity he would provide. But I'm intrigued to see other QBs in that system and to see how quickly (a) solid veteran(s) can pick it up. If Musgrave's system takes several years of understudy for anyone to grasp/master then I don't see how he can ever be a viable solution because CFB is just way too fluid for that now, particularly at a place like Cal where the most experienced starters are entering the portal because they have no viable academic options remaining here. That said, Garbers has some tendencies that are significant liabilities and IMO cost Cal. In particular was the UW game which IMO we should have won easily. Way too often Garbers drops his eyes when things aren't perfect in the pocket and looks to either run or dump the ball short. The TV cameras are set so high at Husky Stadium that it's almost an All-22 on the broadcast, and you could see that we had receivers open regularly in mid and long range routes that Garbers just didn't see. We left tons of yards on the field because of this. I recommend people go back and rewatch this game with a focus on this aspect. He also doesn't excel in presnap reads and adjustments, including knowing which route(s) in his progression are likely to be "hot" based on where pressure is coming from and skipping to them if needed. This was most glaringly obvious against Ucla, and to a lesser extent WSU. Without being in the meetings and huddle it's hard to know how much was scheme and how much was Garbers in those, so I'll give him a bit of a pass and say both are to blame. This is not to even mention the improvements he needs to make in throwing guys open / hitting tight windows and throwing catchable long balls, which I consider to be more physical than mental.
I expect Cal to be better in 2022 than 2021. If they're not, we've got big problems. I'm realistic so I don't expect them to be much better, but even year schedule plus improved ST should lead to at least a couple/few more wins. If we don't at minimum improve from 1-2 OOC and beat Arizona at home we're in big trouble. No more excuses. Do what it takes to beat the teams you should beat. This year, as crazy as it is, just going 4-0 in those games would've put us at 8-4. Then you can get greedy and start thinking about games you could/should win with a more consistent offense.
But, should those issues continue to be problems, then I'd have to agree with the majority here that it is time to look for a new coaching regime.
I do think Wilcox's main problem is that he's too slow to fix problems, whether it be assistant coaches, in game adjustments or personnel changes. But one of the things I am hoping is that all of his frustrations this season have been challenged into a reduced tolerance for those things. And that he will make changes more quickly. But Musgrave/Wilcox can't simply change a scheme or a game plan just because it is not working. The players also have to be ready to adapt to the changes. If not, you end up with penalties and turnovers, 2 things Cal reduced significantly this season. So, pick your poison. It would be nice to have coaches that can better prepare the players, but is that a coaching issue or an issue of Cal admin not supporting the players enough? I think it is the later. If players don't get academic support, they simply don't have the energy or time to put into football at the level we expect of them.
I suspect that is the main problem, which is also something Wilcox is supposedly addressing--another reason to keep him around a bit.
Folks should know that I was at the WSU game and I wanted Wilcox's head on a platter after that game. And that anger lasted most of the rest of the season until we got the axe back. It wasn't that we got the axe. It was the way we played. Cal dominated, particularly in the red zone and on offense, 2 areas Cal had struggled with. Yeah Furd was aweful this season, but some of that was due to injury and they had the QB that beat Oregon back from injury. They also had several WRs that had been out most of the year. It was probably the most talented Furd team anybody had faced since the 2nd week in the season.
Anyway, it took a lot to change my mind. My standards aren't low, but clearly many here have higher standards than I do. The question is, when do high standards become both unreachable and unreasonable? There's a fine line and everybody draws it a different place.
Who are the good coaches in College football? Seems that the ones most people think of usually have way more talent than their opponents. Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and past Clemson teams. Does this make their coaches better at calling plays? or just better recruiters? Couple that with the Power Five leagues aren't equal in talent either, and you get major mismatches. Nick Saban didn't do very well in the NFL, neither did Urban Myers or Chip Kelly. Some would say they were lost in the NFL. In fact, MOST college coaches don't do well in that league because teams are closer in talent levels. The difference between the best team and the worst team in the NFL is about 5 starters. So when you're talking about the X's and O's of football, the NFL coaches have an edge on the college coaches due to parity of talent in the league. They've seen everything.
The College game tries to make up for a mismatch of talent with gimmick offenses ( Sonny Dykes). Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. With all this said, Musgrave has been very successful in the NFL. Saying he needs to learn how to call a game is idiotic. The OL hasn't been very good, but the bigger issue has been the QB. In his offense it all starts with the QB, and if you don't know much about what they're trying to do on offense, you'd actually think that Garbers was a good player. Sighting different instances of when the offense struggled is irrelevant. Plays are called not only based on down and distance, but also on the players ability to be successful executing the play. When the QB or OL doesn't match up well with the defense, it is considered in the gameplan. If the QB runs the offense properly, everyone plays better. And we've seen instances of when it happened.
We don't need a new OC. The problem Wilcox has had from day one has been recruiting and developing players. At 5 yrs in, is it going to change? Maybe. Will Cal loosen it's academic standards to help? Hope so. But until we get Pac-12 Level linemen ( on both sides of the ball) and an all conference type QB, we won't break the 6 win mark. The Pac will get better, and if we don't address the talent issues, we will only get worse.
The College game tries to make up for a mismatch of talent with gimmick offenses ( Sonny Dykes). Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. With all this said, Musgrave has been very successful in the NFL. Saying he needs to learn how to call a game is idiotic. The OL hasn't been very good, but the bigger issue has been the QB. In his offense it all starts with the QB, and if you don't know much about what they're trying to do on offense, you'd actually think that Garbers was a good player. Sighting different instances of when the offense struggled is irrelevant. Plays are called not only based on down and distance, but also on the players ability to be successful executing the play. When the QB or OL doesn't match up well with the defense, it is considered in the gameplan. If the QB runs the offense properly, everyone plays better. And we've seen instances of when it happened.
We don't need a new OC. The problem Wilcox has had from day one has been recruiting and developing players. At 5 yrs in, is it going to change? Maybe. Will Cal loosen it's academic standards to help? Hope so. But until we get Pac-12 Level linemen ( on both sides of the ball) and an all conference type QB, we won't break the 6 win mark. The Pac will get better, and if we don't address the talent issues, we will only get worse.
heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for gamesNasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
.
A lot of us are still strong supporters of Wilcox. I as one have made my points on a number of threads on this topic. But what we continue to hear is a lot of repetitive comments that have added little to the dialogue. So rather than continuing to post my own repetitive arguments, I choose just to let those people who want to rant to continue to rant.
Don't take my dwindling number of posts on this topic as lack of support for Wilcox.
This same phenomenon has occurred regarding past threads on other topics.
Great question…boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
My expectation does not reflect what I would consider good enough to tell us Wilcox is "the guy". It is strictly my expectation. In other words, as I have stated before, I have grave doubts whether Wilcox is capable of producing consistent, quality results.
If Cal exceeds my expectations by winning 8 or 9 games, I would be the first to say, I was wrong, he IS "the guy". As noted, we will learn much from next season. No more excuses…..
. No more excuses…
Until everyone gets injured which wont be Wilcox fault.
Until everyone gets injured which wont be Wilcox fault.
Bring back It’s It’s to Haas Pavillion!
Injuries are part of the game. They are not an excuse. Build depth.oskidunker said:
. No more excuses…
Until everyone gets injured which wont be Wilcox fault.
A great example is what Utah State did last night. Their starter goes down and the next guy up throws a TD on his first play. In fact, it was the first play in his career. He had never been in a game before. And, not only that, but he audibled to the touchdown play. In other words, the coach had him ready to play.
Contrast that to the "debacle in the desert" when Garbers was unavailable. His replacement was totally unprepared to play and Cal lost a golden opportunity to win a game v. an underwhelming opponent. Why didn't Wilcox have him ready to go? There are no excuses……
Arm.BearoutEast67 said:
Watching Garbers' development over the years, I wonder if his ceiling was lowered by the poor OL protection and the RPO plays from Baldwin and a bit with Musgrave. The ability to guard against QB "happy feet" while attempting to stay in the pocket looking downfield while also being asked to run at times makes for pretty complex decision-making in a young man's mind. The rollouts and RPO plays are headaches for OL assignments. Next years OL should play better with an established center. Remember last summer's C retirement just weeks ahead of the season?
boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
boredom, take a deep breath and remember which posters are basically on your side on this...
(hint: 71Bear, Calumnus and me)
God I'm glad I don't live with you. Do you cry in your milk like this every morning?boredom said:lol. We'll be rebuilding next year. You know, as opposed to every other year with Wilcox. Always rebuilding. Makes for a convenient narrative to keep moving the goal posts.heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
2020 was supposed to be the year. Then covid happened and everyone got to run it back so 2021 became the payoff year for the initial years of building. And we flopped. Now it's rebuild (for a year? two? 5?) again.
This was a golden opportunity. We had a bunch of super seniors, tons of guys with experience including a 4th year starting qb. The PAC was as weak as its been in recent memory and we didn't even play two of the few teams that had a pulse. Our OOC "A" game was against a team so bad that it fired the coach who built the program after the season, a season which included a win over us.
So how many consecutive years of rebuilding (while putting up records indistinguishable from those that came right before him) do you accept before needing to see results? He's 5 years in and you're already giving him a pass for year 6.
This is exactly the dilemma for folks who can't assess a team's status beyond wins and losses. For me, there will be ways to tell if the 5-7 or 6-6 record next season means progress or not. There is an old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you played". How they play, will mean something.boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Not every year is a rebuilding year. When you lose your 3 year starting QB, 5 of your starting skill guys on offense, 3 of you best players on defense, your punter and your PK, that's rebuilding. Yes Cal had a great opportunity this season and missed it. Who knows when that will happen again? That's over. Let's move on and look at what can be built moving forward. And there are always opportunities every season. That is what I will be watching for. How does Cal take advantage of what opportunities they have moving forward.
heartofthebear said:This is exactly the dilemma for folks who can't assess a team's status beyond wins and losses. For me, there will be ways to tell if the 5-7 or 6-6 record next season means progress or not. There is an old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you played". How they play, will mean something.boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Not every year is a rebuilding year. When you lose your 3 year starting QB, 5 of your starting skill guys on offense, 3 of you best players on defense, your punter and your PK, that's rebuilding. Yes Cal had a great opportunity this season and missed it. Who knows when that will happen again? That's over. Let's move on and look at what can be built moving forward. And there are always opportunities every season. That is what I will be watching for. How does Cal take advantage of what opportunities they have moving forward.
Yes, "not every year is a rebuilding year". Take the Wilcox Program, for example . . .
2020 was not a rebuilding year. But it turned out to be a "COVID year", so our record didn't matter.
2021 was not a rebuilding year. But we lost anyway. I forget: What was the deal with this year again?
So now it sounds like 2022 is "officially" a rebuilding year. That's okay, because 2020 and 2021 were not rebuilding years.
I'm really looking forward to 2023! (unless it is like the non-rebuilding years of 2020 and 2021)
Big C said:heartofthebear said:This is exactly the dilemma for folks who can't assess a team's status beyond wins and losses. For me, there will be ways to tell if the 5-7 or 6-6 record next season means progress or not. There is an old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you played". How they play, will mean something.boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Not every year is a rebuilding year. When you lose your 3 year starting QB, 5 of your starting skill guys on offense, 3 of you best players on defense, your punter and your PK, that's rebuilding. Yes Cal had a great opportunity this season and missed it. Who knows when that will happen again? That's over. Let's move on and look at what can be built moving forward. And there are always opportunities every season. That is what I will be watching for. How does Cal take advantage of what opportunities they have moving forward.
Yes, "not every year is a rebuilding year". Take the Wilcox Program, for example . . .
2020 was not a rebuilding year. But it turned out to be a "COVID year", so our record didn't matter.
2021 was not a rebuilding year. But we lost anyway. I forget: What was the deal with this year again?
So now it sounds like 2022 is "officially" a rebuilding year. That's okay, because 2020 and 2021 were not rebuilding years.
I'm really looking forward to 2023! (unless it is like the non-rebuilding years of 2020 and 2021)
Some of you are having a hard time getting over this last season. The fact is that Wilcox should have been fired after the WSU game and he probably knows that.
Well he wasn't fired and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, almost all of it positive. So, if he wasn't going to be fired then, he isn't going to be fired now. Everybody knows the points you are making and some of knew it months before you started posting this stuff. For example, I was one of the few that predicted a losing season before the season started. I mean many here blame the coach for their own unrealistic expectations. Folks made it up in their minds that Cal was supposed to better than TCU, Nevada and Washington. I never believed that. We came out strong against Nevada and the other 2 had disappointing seasons causing both coaches to get fired. But the point remains that, on paper Cal was never going to win more than 6 games. On paper Cal was not better than TCU, Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA and Furd was 50/50..
Anyway, however you look at it, it is over, Wilcox survived his worst periods. He is going to be here.
So we can make the best of it or we can continue to undercut the support he needs by continually harping on the past, arguing the same tired points endlessly and acting like your standards are higher than Cal's without having any clue what is in the works to make Cal better.
Folks accuse Wilcox of selling us on him. No.
He sold Cal on him in exchange for some needed changes.
Some of you really don't understand how big that is to have a coach with enough pull to get changes.
Let's see what happens with that before we pull the plug on him.
I'm in exact same boat as heartofthebear. I too anticipated a losing season. Same perspective. Let's now see what those necessary "Changes" are (much better admin support?) And see if they're granted to Wilcox - then see what the results from it are.
heartofthebear said:Big C said:heartofthebear said:This is exactly the dilemma for folks who can't assess a team's status beyond wins and losses. For me, there will be ways to tell if the 5-7 or 6-6 record next season means progress or not. There is an old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you played". How they play, will mean something.boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Not every year is a rebuilding year. When you lose your 3 year starting QB, 5 of your starting skill guys on offense, 3 of you best players on defense, your punter and your PK, that's rebuilding. Yes Cal had a great opportunity this season and missed it. Who knows when that will happen again? That's over. Let's move on and look at what can be built moving forward. And there are always opportunities every season. That is what I will be watching for. How does Cal take advantage of what opportunities they have moving forward.
Yes, "not every year is a rebuilding year". Take the Wilcox Program, for example . . .
2020 was not a rebuilding year. But it turned out to be a "COVID year", so our record didn't matter.
2021 was not a rebuilding year. But we lost anyway. I forget: What was the deal with this year again?
So now it sounds like 2022 is "officially" a rebuilding year. That's okay, because 2020 and 2021 were not rebuilding years.
I'm really looking forward to 2023! (unless it is like the non-rebuilding years of 2020 and 2021)
Some of you are having a hard time getting over this last season. The fact is that Wilcox should have been fired after the WSU game and he probably knows that.
Well he wasn't fired and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, almost all of it positive. So, if he wasn't going to be fired then, he isn't going to be fired now. Everybody knows the points you are making and some of knew it months before you started posting this stuff. For example, I was one of the few that predicted a losing season before the season started. I mean many here blame the coach for their own unrealistic expectations. Folks made it up in their minds that Cal was supposed to better than TCU, Nevada and Washington. I never believed that. We came out strong against Nevada and the other 2 had disappointing seasons causing both coaches to get fired. But the point remains that, on paper Cal was never going to win more than 6 games. On paper Cal was not better than TCU, Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA and Furd was 50/50..
Anyway, however you look at it, it is over, Wilcox survived his worst periods. He is going to be here.
So we can make the best of it or we can continue to undercut the support he needs by continually harping on the past, arguing the same tired points endlessly and acting like your standards are higher than Cal's without having any clue what is in the works to make Cal better.
Folks accuse Wilcox of selling us on him. No.
He sold Cal on him in exchange for some needed changes.
Some of you really don't understand how big that is to have a coach with enough pull to get changes.
Let's see what happens with that before we pull the plug on him.
I didn't think Wilcox should be fired after the WSU game this season. You're confusing the realists with the Nega-Bears.
Having a realistic discussion on a fan site about the 2021 season and the current state of the program isn't "undercutting the support he needs" or "harping on the past", IMO. It's just Cal fans talking about their team.
I hope Wilcox succeeds at Cal. It is possible. I am rooting for him. All things considered, it seems to be marginally a good idea to stick with him and give him and the program more support.
What I can't do is make excuses for, or put a smiley face on this past season, or on the offense ever since Wilcox arrived. Nor can I feel like it would have been a disaster if Wilcox had gone to Oregon. We simply would have gone in a different direction, without being burdened by a huge buy out. Still, I'm sort of glad he stayed. Now I really want him to win.
Well said, Big C.Big C said:heartofthebear said:Big C said:heartofthebear said:This is exactly the dilemma for folks who can't assess a team's status beyond wins and losses. For me, there will be ways to tell if the 5-7 or 6-6 record next season means progress or not. There is an old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you played". How they play, will mean something.boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Not every year is a rebuilding year. When you lose your 3 year starting QB, 5 of your starting skill guys on offense, 3 of you best players on defense, your punter and your PK, that's rebuilding. Yes Cal had a great opportunity this season and missed it. Who knows when that will happen again? That's over. Let's move on and look at what can be built moving forward. And there are always opportunities every season. That is what I will be watching for. How does Cal take advantage of what opportunities they have moving forward.
Yes, "not every year is a rebuilding year". Take the Wilcox Program, for example . . .
2020 was not a rebuilding year. But it turned out to be a "COVID year", so our record didn't matter.
2021 was not a rebuilding year. But we lost anyway. I forget: What was the deal with this year again?
So now it sounds like 2022 is "officially" a rebuilding year. That's okay, because 2020 and 2021 were not rebuilding years.
I'm really looking forward to 2023! (unless it is like the non-rebuilding years of 2020 and 2021)
Some of you are having a hard time getting over this last season. The fact is that Wilcox should have been fired after the WSU game and he probably knows that.
Well he wasn't fired and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, almost all of it positive. So, if he wasn't going to be fired then, he isn't going to be fired now. Everybody knows the points you are making and some of knew it months before you started posting this stuff. For example, I was one of the few that predicted a losing season before the season started. I mean many here blame the coach for their own unrealistic expectations. Folks made it up in their minds that Cal was supposed to better than TCU, Nevada and Washington. I never believed that. We came out strong against Nevada and the other 2 had disappointing seasons causing both coaches to get fired. But the point remains that, on paper Cal was never going to win more than 6 games. On paper Cal was not better than TCU, Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA and Furd was 50/50..
Anyway, however you look at it, it is over, Wilcox survived his worst periods. He is going to be here.
So we can make the best of it or we can continue to undercut the support he needs by continually harping on the past, arguing the same tired points endlessly and acting like your standards are higher than Cal's without having any clue what is in the works to make Cal better.
Folks accuse Wilcox of selling us on him. No.
He sold Cal on him in exchange for some needed changes.
Some of you really don't understand how big that is to have a coach with enough pull to get changes.
Let's see what happens with that before we pull the plug on him.
I didn't think Wilcox should be fired after the WSU game this season. You're confusing the realists with the Nega-Bears.
Having a realistic discussion on a fan site about the 2021 season and the current state of the program isn't "undercutting the support he needs" or "harping on the past", IMO. It's just Cal fans talking about their team.
I hope Wilcox succeeds at Cal. It is possible. I am rooting for him. All things considered, it seems to be marginally a good idea to stick with him and give him and the program more support.
What I can't do is make excuses for, or put a smiley face on this past season, or on the offense ever since Wilcox arrived. Nor can I feel like it would have been a disaster if Wilcox had gone to Oregon. We simply would have gone in a different direction, without being burdened by a huge buy out. Still, I'm sort of glad he stayed. Now I really want him to win.
Cal has been absolutely awful on offense much of the time under Wilcox. A game here or there, but generally brutal. He has been given an extension and some "support" whatever that really means. I see this as actually another "rebuilding" phase.Big C said:heartofthebear said:Big C said:heartofthebear said:This is exactly the dilemma for folks who can't assess a team's status beyond wins and losses. For me, there will be ways to tell if the 5-7 or 6-6 record next season means progress or not. There is an old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you played". How they play, will mean something.boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Not every year is a rebuilding year. When you lose your 3 year starting QB, 5 of your starting skill guys on offense, 3 of you best players on defense, your punter and your PK, that's rebuilding. Yes Cal had a great opportunity this season and missed it. Who knows when that will happen again? That's over. Let's move on and look at what can be built moving forward. And there are always opportunities every season. That is what I will be watching for. How does Cal take advantage of what opportunities they have moving forward.
Yes, "not every year is a rebuilding year". Take the Wilcox Program, for example . . .
2020 was not a rebuilding year. But it turned out to be a "COVID year", so our record didn't matter.
2021 was not a rebuilding year. But we lost anyway. I forget: What was the deal with this year again?
So now it sounds like 2022 is "officially" a rebuilding year. That's okay, because 2020 and 2021 were not rebuilding years.
I'm really looking forward to 2023! (unless it is like the non-rebuilding years of 2020 and 2021)
Some of you are having a hard time getting over this last season. The fact is that Wilcox should have been fired after the WSU game and he probably knows that.
Well he wasn't fired and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, almost all of it positive. So, if he wasn't going to be fired then, he isn't going to be fired now. Everybody knows the points you are making and some of knew it months before you started posting this stuff. For example, I was one of the few that predicted a losing season before the season started. I mean many here blame the coach for their own unrealistic expectations. Folks made it up in their minds that Cal was supposed to better than TCU, Nevada and Washington. I never believed that. We came out strong against Nevada and the other 2 had disappointing seasons causing both coaches to get fired. But the point remains that, on paper Cal was never going to win more than 6 games. On paper Cal was not better than TCU, Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA and Furd was 50/50..
Anyway, however you look at it, it is over, Wilcox survived his worst periods. He is going to be here.
So we can make the best of it or we can continue to undercut the support he needs by continually harping on the past, arguing the same tired points endlessly and acting like your standards are higher than Cal's without having any clue what is in the works to make Cal better.
Folks accuse Wilcox of selling us on him. No.
He sold Cal on him in exchange for some needed changes.
Some of you really don't understand how big that is to have a coach with enough pull to get changes.
Let's see what happens with that before we pull the plug on him.
I didn't think Wilcox should be fired after the WSU game this season. You're confusing the realists with the Nega-Bears.
Having a realistic discussion on a fan site about the 2021 season and the current state of the program isn't "undercutting the support he needs" or "harping on the past", IMO. It's just Cal fans talking about their team.
I hope Wilcox succeeds at Cal. It is possible. I am rooting for him. All things considered, it seems to be marginally a good idea to stick with him and give him and the program more support.
What I can't do is make excuses for, or put a smiley face on this past season, or on the offense ever since Wilcox arrived. Nor can I feel like it would have been a disaster if Wilcox had gone to Oregon. We simply would have gone in a different direction, without being burdened by a huge buy out. Still, I'm sort of glad he stayed. Now I really want him to win.
What I do not understand is if this is a sort of "phase 2 rebuild" why do it with Musgrave. And others frankly. Musgrave does not seem like a long term hire. He employs an offense that few college programs really run anymore and the results have been poor.
I would move away from Musgrave quickly and go try and find a younger OC candidate that runs an offense that recruits truly want to play in. I personally would have fired Wilcox. But he is here and apparently has the confidence of Knowlton and Carol Christ.
I hope he does not squander that confidence and support by hanging on to staff members that did not produce. But he apparently will. I do expect 2022 season to be a good one .
71Bear said:Well said, Big C.Big C said:heartofthebear said:Big C said:heartofthebear said:This is exactly the dilemma for folks who can't assess a team's status beyond wins and losses. For me, there will be ways to tell if the 5-7 or 6-6 record next season means progress or not. There is an old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you played". How they play, will mean something.boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Not every year is a rebuilding year. When you lose your 3 year starting QB, 5 of your starting skill guys on offense, 3 of you best players on defense, your punter and your PK, that's rebuilding. Yes Cal had a great opportunity this season and missed it. Who knows when that will happen again? That's over. Let's move on and look at what can be built moving forward. And there are always opportunities every season. That is what I will be watching for. How does Cal take advantage of what opportunities they have moving forward.
Yes, "not every year is a rebuilding year". Take the Wilcox Program, for example . . .
2020 was not a rebuilding year. But it turned out to be a "COVID year", so our record didn't matter.
2021 was not a rebuilding year. But we lost anyway. I forget: What was the deal with this year again?
So now it sounds like 2022 is "officially" a rebuilding year. That's okay, because 2020 and 2021 were not rebuilding years.
I'm really looking forward to 2023! (unless it is like the non-rebuilding years of 2020 and 2021)
Some of you are having a hard time getting over this last season. The fact is that Wilcox should have been fired after the WSU game and he probably knows that.
Well he wasn't fired and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, almost all of it positive. So, if he wasn't going to be fired then, he isn't going to be fired now. Everybody knows the points you are making and some of knew it months before you started posting this stuff. For example, I was one of the few that predicted a losing season before the season started. I mean many here blame the coach for their own unrealistic expectations. Folks made it up in their minds that Cal was supposed to better than TCU, Nevada and Washington. I never believed that. We came out strong against Nevada and the other 2 had disappointing seasons causing both coaches to get fired. But the point remains that, on paper Cal was never going to win more than 6 games. On paper Cal was not better than TCU, Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA and Furd was 50/50..
Anyway, however you look at it, it is over, Wilcox survived his worst periods. He is going to be here.
So we can make the best of it or we can continue to undercut the support he needs by continually harping on the past, arguing the same tired points endlessly and acting like your standards are higher than Cal's without having any clue what is in the works to make Cal better.
Folks accuse Wilcox of selling us on him. No.
He sold Cal on him in exchange for some needed changes.
Some of you really don't understand how big that is to have a coach with enough pull to get changes.
Let's see what happens with that before we pull the plug on him.
I didn't think Wilcox should be fired after the WSU game this season. You're confusing the realists with the Nega-Bears.
Having a realistic discussion on a fan site about the 2021 season and the current state of the program isn't "undercutting the support he needs" or "harping on the past", IMO. It's just Cal fans talking about their team.
I hope Wilcox succeeds at Cal. It is possible. I am rooting for him. All things considered, it seems to be marginally a good idea to stick with him and give him and the program more support.
What I can't do is make excuses for, or put a smiley face on this past season, or on the offense ever since Wilcox arrived. Nor can I feel like it would have been a disaster if Wilcox had gone to Oregon. We simply would have gone in a different direction, without being burdened by a huge buy out. Still, I'm sort of glad he stayed. Now I really want him to win.
Concur.
I bow and kiss your feet. Thanks for saying what I have been vainly trying and failing to say for the last 2 or 3 weeks.bledblue said:
Who are the good coaches in College football? Seems that the ones most people think of usually have way more talent than their opponents. Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and past Clemson teams. Does this make their coaches better at calling plays? or just better recruiters? Couple that with the Power Five leagues aren't equal in talent either, and you get major mismatches. Nick Saban didn't do very well in the NFL, neither did Urban Myers or Chip Kelly. Some would say they were lost in the NFL. In fact, MOST college coaches don't do well in that league because teams are closer in talent levels. The difference between the best team and the worst team in the NFL is about 5 starters. So when you're talking about the X's and O's of football, the NFL coaches have an edge on the college coaches due to parity of talent in the league. They've seen everything.
The College game tries to make up for a mismatch of talent with gimmick offenses ( Sonny Dykes). Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. With all this said, Musgrave has been very successful in the NFL. Saying he needs to learn how to call a game is idiotic. The OL hasn't been very good, but the bigger issue has been the QB. In his offense it all starts with the QB, and if you don't know much about what they're trying to do on offense, you'd actually think that Garbers was a good player. Sighting different instances of when the offense struggled is irrelevant. Plays are called not only based on down and distance, but also on the players ability to be successful executing the play. When the QB or OL doesn't match up well with the defense, it is considered in the gameplan. If the QB runs the offense properly, everyone plays better. And we've seen instances of when it happened.
We don't need a new OC. The problem Wilcox has had from day one has been recruiting and developing players. At 5 yrs in, is it going to change? Maybe. Will Cal loosen it's academic standards to help? Hope so. But until we get Pac-12 Level linemen ( on both sides of the ball) and an all conference type QB, we won't break the 6 win mark. The Pac will get better, and if we don't address the talent issues, we will only get worse.
Just to be clear. I am not putting a smiley face on the season on the field so much as the events on and off the field combined that I feel are significant.Big C said:heartofthebear said:Big C said:heartofthebear said:This is exactly the dilemma for folks who can't assess a team's status beyond wins and losses. For me, there will be ways to tell if the 5-7 or 6-6 record next season means progress or not. There is an old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you played". How they play, will mean something.boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Not every year is a rebuilding year. When you lose your 3 year starting QB, 5 of your starting skill guys on offense, 3 of you best players on defense, your punter and your PK, that's rebuilding. Yes Cal had a great opportunity this season and missed it. Who knows when that will happen again? That's over. Let's move on and look at what can be built moving forward. And there are always opportunities every season. That is what I will be watching for. How does Cal take advantage of what opportunities they have moving forward.
Yes, "not every year is a rebuilding year". Take the Wilcox Program, for example . . .
2020 was not a rebuilding year. But it turned out to be a "COVID year", so our record didn't matter.
2021 was not a rebuilding year. But we lost anyway. I forget: What was the deal with this year again?
So now it sounds like 2022 is "officially" a rebuilding year. That's okay, because 2020 and 2021 were not rebuilding years.
I'm really looking forward to 2023! (unless it is like the non-rebuilding years of 2020 and 2021)
Some of you are having a hard time getting over this last season. The fact is that Wilcox should have been fired after the WSU game and he probably knows that.
Well he wasn't fired and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, almost all of it positive. So, if he wasn't going to be fired then, he isn't going to be fired now. Everybody knows the points you are making and some of knew it months before you started posting this stuff. For example, I was one of the few that predicted a losing season before the season started. I mean many here blame the coach for their own unrealistic expectations. Folks made it up in their minds that Cal was supposed to better than TCU, Nevada and Washington. I never believed that. We came out strong against Nevada and the other 2 had disappointing seasons causing both coaches to get fired. But the point remains that, on paper Cal was never going to win more than 6 games. On paper Cal was not better than TCU, Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA and Furd was 50/50..
Anyway, however you look at it, it is over, Wilcox survived his worst periods. He is going to be here.
So we can make the best of it or we can continue to undercut the support he needs by continually harping on the past, arguing the same tired points endlessly and acting like your standards are higher than Cal's without having any clue what is in the works to make Cal better.
Folks accuse Wilcox of selling us on him. No.
He sold Cal on him in exchange for some needed changes.
Some of you really don't understand how big that is to have a coach with enough pull to get changes.
Let's see what happens with that before we pull the plug on him.
I didn't think Wilcox should be fired after the WSU game this season. You're confusing the realists with the Nega-Bears.
Having a realistic discussion on a fan site about the 2021 season and the current state of the program isn't "undercutting the support he needs" or "harping on the past", IMO. It's just Cal fans talking about their team.
I hope Wilcox succeeds at Cal. It is possible. I am rooting for him. All things considered, it seems to be marginally a good idea to stick with him and give him and the program more support.
What I can't do is make excuses for, or put a smiley face on this past season, or on the offense ever since Wilcox arrived. Nor can I feel like it would have been a disaster if Wilcox had gone to Oregon. We simply would have gone in a different direction, without being burdened by a huge buy out. Still, I'm sort of glad he stayed. Now I really want him to win.
- Improved play
- Improved play calling on offense
- Getting the axe
- Beating USC
- Comments from Michael Saffel that sold me on Wilcox
- Evidence that the players believe in Wilcox and play hard for him, backing up what Saffel said.
- Comments from players and coaches backing up the last 2 points
- Wilcox declining Oregon job after Oregon requested from Cal that they interview him.
- Wilcox declining again, saying he has unfinished business and support from admin.
- Reports, not just from Wilcox, that the administration and Wilcox are working on structural changes to bring more support to the football program, including academic and financial support.
- Reports that major donors are willing to go to bat for Wilcox.
When I put all of these things together, it seems like a bad time to harp on whether or not Glover was adequately prepared to beat Arizona.
It's like sorting your socks when the house is on fire.
I know many folks here go back to the 60s and feel that they are not going to see Cal in a Rose bowl before they die. They have the right to demand better and Cal can do better.
But these attitudes should not take a back seat to the priorities involved in the process to get there. IOWs, don't put the cart before the horse.
I am all for free speech and I am sorry if I shamed anyone out of expressing their thoughts.
I'm just pleading for a sense of timing.
Every single year I warn folks who are pumping up Cal around June and July that Cal may not do as well as they think. I am summarily ignored or drowned out by the same supposed logicians calling for Wilcox to be fired now. And it makes sense, if you conjure up an idea that Cal is better than they are, then of course you are going to blame the coach for anything less.
Maybe you should scrutinize your own preseason analysis instead of the head coach and maybe pre-season is the time to criticize the team, not after it is too late.
I warned about QB problems after Casey and Brasch transferred out in spring (2020?) and no less than the mods here mocked me, saying we had plenty of back up talent. Absolutely nobody stepped in to support me at that time. And so the issue was dropped. Maybe, had the kind of pressure you are exerting now, been done then, we could have beaten Arizona and gone to a bowl. And maybe other changes could have happened sooner than they did and we could have won 10 games this year. Who knows. And characterizing this as just a few folks posting there unfavorable review of the season is unfair and inaccurate. There is a wholesale movement to remove coaches, mainly Wilcox and Musgrave but McClure gets honorable mention. Notice that none of the defensive coaches get mentioned even though the worst recruiting failures have been on that side of the ball and PIs from our DBs have been a signature issue for years without it being effectively addressed. Add to that the regularity of missed tackles and tackling technique and it gets pretty ugly.
It is a chronic problem with the culture of this board that folks don't see problems and then blame the coach when they finally become too obvious to ignore and when it is too late.
I am simply calling people out for campaigning against specific people without really having solid reasoning for it.
heartofthebear said:Just to be clear. I am not putting a smiley face on the season on the field so much as the events on and off the field combined that I feel are significant.Big C said:heartofthebear said:Big C said:heartofthebear said:This is exactly the dilemma for folks who can't assess a team's status beyond wins and losses. For me, there will be ways to tell if the 5-7 or 6-6 record next season means progress or not. There is an old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you played". How they play, will mean something.boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Not every year is a rebuilding year. When you lose your 3 year starting QB, 5 of your starting skill guys on offense, 3 of you best players on defense, your punter and your PK, that's rebuilding. Yes Cal had a great opportunity this season and missed it. Who knows when that will happen again? That's over. Let's move on and look at what can be built moving forward. And there are always opportunities every season. That is what I will be watching for. How does Cal take advantage of what opportunities they have moving forward.
Yes, "not every year is a rebuilding year". Take the Wilcox Program, for example . . .
2020 was not a rebuilding year. But it turned out to be a "COVID year", so our record didn't matter.
2021 was not a rebuilding year. But we lost anyway. I forget: What was the deal with this year again?
So now it sounds like 2022 is "officially" a rebuilding year. That's okay, because 2020 and 2021 were not rebuilding years.
I'm really looking forward to 2023! (unless it is like the non-rebuilding years of 2020 and 2021)
Some of you are having a hard time getting over this last season. The fact is that Wilcox should have been fired after the WSU game and he probably knows that.
Well he wasn't fired and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, almost all of it positive. So, if he wasn't going to be fired then, he isn't going to be fired now. Everybody knows the points you are making and some of knew it months before you started posting this stuff. For example, I was one of the few that predicted a losing season before the season started. I mean many here blame the coach for their own unrealistic expectations. Folks made it up in their minds that Cal was supposed to better than TCU, Nevada and Washington. I never believed that. We came out strong against Nevada and the other 2 had disappointing seasons causing both coaches to get fired. But the point remains that, on paper Cal was never going to win more than 6 games. On paper Cal was not better than TCU, Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA and Furd was 50/50..
Anyway, however you look at it, it is over, Wilcox survived his worst periods. He is going to be here.
So we can make the best of it or we can continue to undercut the support he needs by continually harping on the past, arguing the same tired points endlessly and acting like your standards are higher than Cal's without having any clue what is in the works to make Cal better.
Folks accuse Wilcox of selling us on him. No.
He sold Cal on him in exchange for some needed changes.
Some of you really don't understand how big that is to have a coach with enough pull to get changes.
Let's see what happens with that before we pull the plug on him.
I didn't think Wilcox should be fired after the WSU game this season. You're confusing the realists with the Nega-Bears.
Having a realistic discussion on a fan site about the 2021 season and the current state of the program isn't "undercutting the support he needs" or "harping on the past", IMO. It's just Cal fans talking about their team.
I hope Wilcox succeeds at Cal. It is possible. I am rooting for him. All things considered, it seems to be marginally a good idea to stick with him and give him and the program more support.
What I can't do is make excuses for, or put a smiley face on this past season, or on the offense ever since Wilcox arrived. Nor can I feel like it would have been a disaster if Wilcox had gone to Oregon. We simply would have gone in a different direction, without being burdened by a huge buy out. Still, I'm sort of glad he stayed. Now I really want him to win.
- Improved play
- Improved play calling on offense
- Getting the axe
- Beating USC
- Comments from Michael Saffel that sold me on Wilcox
- Evidence that the players believe in Wilcox and play hard for him, backing up what Saffel said.
- Comments from players and coaches backing up the last 2 points
- Wilcox declining Oregon job after Oregon requested from Cal that they interview him.
- Wilcox declining again, saying he has unfinished business and support from admin.
- Reports, not just from Wilcox, that the administration and Wilcox are working on structural changes to bring more support to the football program, including academic and financial support.
- Reports that major donors are willing to go to bat for Wilcox.
When I put all of these things together, it seems like a bad time to harp on whether or not Glover was adequately prepared to beat Arizona.
It's like sorting your socks when the house is on fire.
I know many folks here go back to the 60s and feel that they are not going to see Cal in a Rose bowl before they die. They have the right to demand better and Cal can do better.
But these attitudes should not take a back seat to the priorities involved in the process to get there. IOWs, don't put the cart before the horse.
I am all for free speech and I am sorry if I shamed anyone out of expressing their thoughts.
I'm just pleading for a sense of timing.
Every single year I warn folks who are pumping up Cal around June and July that Cal may not do as well as they think. I am summarily ignored or drowned out by the same supposed logicians calling for Wilcox to be fired now. And it makes sense, if you conjure up an idea that Cal is better than they are, then of course you are going to blame the coach for anything less.
Maybe you should scrutinize your own preseason analysis instead of the head coach and maybe pre-season is the time to criticize the team, not after it is too late.
I warned about QB problems after Casey and Brasch transferred out in spring (2020?) and no less than the mods here mocked me, saying we had plenty of back up talent. Absolutely nobody stepped in to support me at that time. And so the issue was dropped. Maybe, had the kind of pressure you are exerting now, been done then, we could have beaten Arizona and gone to a bowl. And maybe other changes could have happened sooner than they did and we could have won 10 games this year. Who knows. And characterizing this as just a few folks posting there unfavorable review of the season is unfair and inaccurate. There is a wholesale movement to remove coaches, mainly Wilcox and Musgrave but McClure gets honorable mention. Notice that none of the defensive coaches get mentioned even though the worst recruiting failures have been on that side of the ball and PIs from our DBs have been a signature issue for years without it being effectively addressed. Add to that the regularity of missed tackles and tackling technique and it gets pretty ugly.
It is a chronic problem with the culture of this board that folks don't see problems and then blame the coach when they finally become too obvious to ignore and when it is too late.
I am simply calling people out for campaigning against specific people without really having solid reasoning for it.
tl;dr version, it's my fault that we didn't beat Arizona and go to a bowl game... and even that we didn't win ten games.
heartofthebear, I appreciate the sincerity in your posts, but -- time and time again on this thread -- just when you're almost about to win me over, you often manage to go completely off the rails. W T H ?!? Your big paragraph is so full of tripe I don't even know where to begin, but read my facetious tl;dr version of it. Also, Sirmon and the DB coach have caught plenty of crap this past season from posters who like to single out Assistants.
" ... campaigning against specific people without really having solid reasoning for it." Neither the campaigning part nor the not having solid reasoning is true, not even close.
Nothing personal, but I'm calling out the above post for being absolutely ridiculous.
I'm willing to take the blame for the Nevada loss but that's ****ing it. You will NOT pin AZ on me.
I re-read my post and I stand by it. Selectively read it if you want, but there may be 2 sentences out of it that are poorly expressed.Big C said:heartofthebear said:Just to be clear. I am not putting a smiley face on the season on the field so much as the events on and off the field combined that I feel are significant.Big C said:heartofthebear said:Big C said:heartofthebear said:This is exactly the dilemma for folks who can't assess a team's status beyond wins and losses. For me, there will be ways to tell if the 5-7 or 6-6 record next season means progress or not. There is an old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you played". How they play, will mean something.boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Not every year is a rebuilding year. When you lose your 3 year starting QB, 5 of your starting skill guys on offense, 3 of you best players on defense, your punter and your PK, that's rebuilding. Yes Cal had a great opportunity this season and missed it. Who knows when that will happen again? That's over. Let's move on and look at what can be built moving forward. And there are always opportunities every season. That is what I will be watching for. How does Cal take advantage of what opportunities they have moving forward.
Yes, "not every year is a rebuilding year". Take the Wilcox Program, for example . . .
2020 was not a rebuilding year. But it turned out to be a "COVID year", so our record didn't matter.
2021 was not a rebuilding year. But we lost anyway. I forget: What was the deal with this year again?
So now it sounds like 2022 is "officially" a rebuilding year. That's okay, because 2020 and 2021 were not rebuilding years.
I'm really looking forward to 2023! (unless it is like the non-rebuilding years of 2020 and 2021)
Some of you are having a hard time getting over this last season. The fact is that Wilcox should have been fired after the WSU game and he probably knows that.
Well he wasn't fired and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, almost all of it positive. So, if he wasn't going to be fired then, he isn't going to be fired now. Everybody knows the points you are making and some of knew it months before you started posting this stuff. For example, I was one of the few that predicted a losing season before the season started. I mean many here blame the coach for their own unrealistic expectations. Folks made it up in their minds that Cal was supposed to better than TCU, Nevada and Washington. I never believed that. We came out strong against Nevada and the other 2 had disappointing seasons causing both coaches to get fired. But the point remains that, on paper Cal was never going to win more than 6 games. On paper Cal was not better than TCU, Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA and Furd was 50/50..
Anyway, however you look at it, it is over, Wilcox survived his worst periods. He is going to be here.
So we can make the best of it or we can continue to undercut the support he needs by continually harping on the past, arguing the same tired points endlessly and acting like your standards are higher than Cal's without having any clue what is in the works to make Cal better.
Folks accuse Wilcox of selling us on him. No.
He sold Cal on him in exchange for some needed changes.
Some of you really don't understand how big that is to have a coach with enough pull to get changes.
Let's see what happens with that before we pull the plug on him.
I didn't think Wilcox should be fired after the WSU game this season. You're confusing the realists with the Nega-Bears.
Having a realistic discussion on a fan site about the 2021 season and the current state of the program isn't "undercutting the support he needs" or "harping on the past", IMO. It's just Cal fans talking about their team.
I hope Wilcox succeeds at Cal. It is possible. I am rooting for him. All things considered, it seems to be marginally a good idea to stick with him and give him and the program more support.
What I can't do is make excuses for, or put a smiley face on this past season, or on the offense ever since Wilcox arrived. Nor can I feel like it would have been a disaster if Wilcox had gone to Oregon. We simply would have gone in a different direction, without being burdened by a huge buy out. Still, I'm sort of glad he stayed. Now I really want him to win.
- Improved play
- Improved play calling on offense
- Getting the axe
- Beating USC
- Comments from Michael Saffel that sold me on Wilcox
- Evidence that the players believe in Wilcox and play hard for him, backing up what Saffel said.
- Comments from players and coaches backing up the last 2 points
- Wilcox declining Oregon job after Oregon requested from Cal that they interview him.
- Wilcox declining again, saying he has unfinished business and support from admin.
- Reports, not just from Wilcox, that the administration and Wilcox are working on structural changes to bring more support to the football program, including academic and financial support.
- Reports that major donors are willing to go to bat for Wilcox.
When I put all of these things together, it seems like a bad time to harp on whether or not Glover was adequately prepared to beat Arizona.
It's like sorting your socks when the house is on fire.
I know many folks here go back to the 60s and feel that they are not going to see Cal in a Rose bowl before they die. They have the right to demand better and Cal can do better.
But these attitudes should not take a back seat to the priorities involved in the process to get there. IOWs, don't put the cart before the horse.
I am all for free speech and I am sorry if I shamed anyone out of expressing their thoughts.
I'm just pleading for a sense of timing.
Every single year I warn folks who are pumping up Cal around June and July that Cal may not do as well as they think. I am summarily ignored or drowned out by the same supposed logicians calling for Wilcox to be fired now. And it makes sense, if you conjure up an idea that Cal is better than they are, then of course you are going to blame the coach for anything less.
Maybe you should scrutinize your own preseason analysis instead of the head coach and maybe pre-season is the time to criticize the team, not after it is too late.
I warned about QB problems after Casey and Brasch transferred out in spring (2020?) and no less than the mods here mocked me, saying we had plenty of back up talent. Absolutely nobody stepped in to support me at that time. And so the issue was dropped. Maybe, had the kind of pressure you are exerting now, been done then, we could have beaten Arizona and gone to a bowl. And maybe other changes could have happened sooner than they did and we could have won 10 games this year. Who knows. And characterizing this as just a few folks posting there unfavorable review of the season is unfair and inaccurate. There is a wholesale movement to remove coaches, mainly Wilcox and Musgrave but McClure gets honorable mention. Notice that none of the defensive coaches get mentioned even though the worst recruiting failures have been on that side of the ball and PIs from our DBs have been a signature issue for years without it being effectively addressed. Add to that the regularity of missed tackles and tackling technique and it gets pretty ugly.
It is a chronic problem with the culture of this board that folks don't see problems and then blame the coach when they finally become too obvious to ignore and when it is too late.
I am simply calling people out for campaigning against specific people without really having solid reasoning for it.
tl;dr version, it's my fault that we didn't beat Arizona and go to a bowl game... and even that we didn't win ten games.
heartofthebear, I appreciate the sincerity in your posts, but -- time and time again on this thread -- just when you're almost about to win me over, you often manage to go completely off the rails. W T H ?!? Your big paragraph is so full of tripe I don't even know where to begin, but read my facetious tl;dr version of it. Also, Sirmon and the DB coach have caught plenty of crap this past season from posters who like to single out Assistants.
" ... campaigning against specific people without really having solid reasoning for it." Neither the campaigning part nor the not having solid reasoning is true, not even close.
Nothing personal, but I'm calling out the above post for being absolutely ridiculous.
It is hard to counter all of the ridiculous arguments being made against Wilcox and Musgrave.
We clearly all want the best for Cal football and I hope we get it more sooner than later.
I don't care if I win anybody over.
My wishes will win out because Wilcox and Musgtave are sticking around and that will be the case even after Cal goes 5-7 next season.
I was giving people the opportunity to feel optimistic about that. But , if folks want to cry in their milk endlessly or get drunk over it, that's there choice.
Personally I find the criticisms tired, unsophisticated and useless at this point. I have made many of these arguments and criticisms before. And it's easy to make because you feel like you have standards and that feels good.
Well, there comes a point when it's not just free speech and a rousing debate. There comes a point where it is just pity pissing on whoever is a convenient target.
I agree about the line recruiting. JW and, maybe Musgrave too, have repeatedly said that this is a big man's game and they want to recruit big players. They seem to be interpreting "big" as tall, esp on the OL. But, unless a player has the wheelhouse, tall won't do him any good, in fact may be a hindrance. They can work in the weight room all you want, but that won't take the place of natural strength in the hips and back. How many 6, 6/6,7 OLs do you see at AL, GA, OSU, Ok? Maybe a few at LOT, but the rest are in the 6,3/6,5 range. I know it sounds silly, but the low man wins and we're not winning, yet.bledblue said:
Who are the good coaches in College football? Seems that the ones most people think of usually have way more talent than their opponents. Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and past Clemson teams. Does this make their coaches better at calling plays? or just better recruiters? Couple that with the Power Five leagues aren't equal in talent either, and you get major mismatches. Nick Saban didn't do very well in the NFL, neither did Urban Myers or Chip Kelly. Some would say they were lost in the NFL. In fact, MOST college coaches don't do well in that league because teams are closer in talent levels. The difference between the best team and the worst team in the NFL is about 5 starters. So when you're talking about the X's and O's of football, the NFL coaches have an edge on the college coaches due to parity of talent in the league. They've seen everything.
The College game tries to make up for a mismatch of talent with gimmick offenses ( Sonny Dykes). Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. With all this said, Musgrave has been very successful in the NFL. Saying he needs to learn how to call a game is idiotic. The OL hasn't been very good, but the bigger issue has been the QB. In his offense it all starts with the QB, and if you don't know much about what they're trying to do on offense, you'd actually think that Garbers was a good player. Sighting different instances of when the offense struggled is irrelevant. Plays are called not only based on down and distance, but also on the players ability to be successful executing the play. When the QB or OL doesn't match up well with the defense, it is considered in the gameplan. If the QB runs the offense properly, everyone plays better. And we've seen instances of when it happened.
We don't need a new OC. The problem Wilcox has had from day one has been recruiting and developing players. At 5 yrs in, is it going to change? Maybe. Will Cal loosen it's academic standards to help? Hope so. But until we get Pac-12 Level linemen ( on both sides of the ball) and an all conference type QB, we won't break the 6 win mark. The Pac will get better, and if we don't address the talent issues, we will only get worse.
I really like Ramsey and Vatikani for those reasons. Coleman, Mettauer (sniff), too. Haven't understood Craig. or Daltoso, except as a demonstration of what we don't have. Power.
INTERESTING-
"Notice that none of the defensive coaches get mentioned even though the worst recruiting failures have been on that side of the ball and PIs from our DBs have been a signature issue for years without it being effectively addressed. Add to that the regularity of missed tackles and tackling technique and it gets pretty ugly."
After Wilcox's first year, we were ranked #95 in total defense. He did have a lot to fix from the horrible Dykes team the year before (#127).
After 2018, we end up at #15. With high expectations for 2019, seeing that we returned 10 of the 11 starters. Pre-season defensive ranking was as high as #4.
After 2019, we don't meet those expectations! We end up at #65
After a 4 game Covid season in 2020, we end at #38, which isn't enough games to really be ranked.
After 2021, we end at #53
For someone who is praised for being a great defensive coach, Wilcox hasn't done very well. The 2018 Defense, which was his best, was almost ALL Dykes' recruits. AND we didn't even come close to meeting expectations in 2019, which should be considered a MAJOR screw-up.
Was this from Coaching? Or a lack of talent? Seeing that the year before we were really good, I'd say coaching. Either way, I don't see why most people on here focus mostly on offense, when our problems are obviously on both sides of the ball. Last year's team (At least the first 6 games) looked like basic fundamentals were not being taught, which IS a coaching issue. Hopefully it improves next year.
"Notice that none of the defensive coaches get mentioned even though the worst recruiting failures have been on that side of the ball and PIs from our DBs have been a signature issue for years without it being effectively addressed. Add to that the regularity of missed tackles and tackling technique and it gets pretty ugly."
After Wilcox's first year, we were ranked #95 in total defense. He did have a lot to fix from the horrible Dykes team the year before (#127).
After 2018, we end up at #15. With high expectations for 2019, seeing that we returned 10 of the 11 starters. Pre-season defensive ranking was as high as #4.
After 2019, we don't meet those expectations! We end up at #65
After a 4 game Covid season in 2020, we end at #38, which isn't enough games to really be ranked.
After 2021, we end at #53
For someone who is praised for being a great defensive coach, Wilcox hasn't done very well. The 2018 Defense, which was his best, was almost ALL Dykes' recruits. AND we didn't even come close to meeting expectations in 2019, which should be considered a MAJOR screw-up.
Was this from Coaching? Or a lack of talent? Seeing that the year before we were really good, I'd say coaching. Either way, I don't see why most people on here focus mostly on offense, when our problems are obviously on both sides of the ball. Last year's team (At least the first 6 games) looked like basic fundamentals were not being taught, which IS a coaching issue. Hopefully it improves next year.
Rushinbear said:I agree about the line recruiting. JW and, maybe Musgrave too, have repeatedly said that this is a big man's game and they want to recruit big players. They seem to be interpreting "big" as tall, esp on the OL. But, unless a player has the wheelhouse, tall won't do him any good, in fact may be a hindrance. They can work in the weight room all you want, but that won't take the place of natural strength in the hips and back. How many 6, 6/6,7 OLs do you see at AL, GA, OSU, Ok? Maybe a few at LOT, but the rest are in the 6,3/6,5 range. I know it sounds silly, but the low man wins and we're not winning, yet.bledblue said:
Who are the good coaches in College football? Seems that the ones most people think of usually have way more talent than their opponents. Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and past Clemson teams. Does this make their coaches better at calling plays? or just better recruiters? Couple that with the Power Five leagues aren't equal in talent either, and you get major mismatches. Nick Saban didn't do very well in the NFL, neither did Urban Myers or Chip Kelly. Some would say they were lost in the NFL. In fact, MOST college coaches don't do well in that league because teams are closer in talent levels. The difference between the best team and the worst team in the NFL is about 5 starters. So when you're talking about the X's and O's of football, the NFL coaches have an edge on the college coaches due to parity of talent in the league. They've seen everything.
The College game tries to make up for a mismatch of talent with gimmick offenses ( Sonny Dykes). Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. With all this said, Musgrave has been very successful in the NFL. Saying he needs to learn how to call a game is idiotic. The OL hasn't been very good, but the bigger issue has been the QB. In his offense it all starts with the QB, and if you don't know much about what they're trying to do on offense, you'd actually think that Garbers was a good player. Sighting different instances of when the offense struggled is irrelevant. Plays are called not only based on down and distance, but also on the players ability to be successful executing the play. When the QB or OL doesn't match up well with the defense, it is considered in the gameplan. If the QB runs the offense properly, everyone plays better. And we've seen instances of when it happened.
We don't need a new OC. The problem Wilcox has had from day one has been recruiting and developing players. At 5 yrs in, is it going to change? Maybe. Will Cal loosen it's academic standards to help? Hope so. But until we get Pac-12 Level linemen ( on both sides of the ball) and an all conference type QB, we won't break the 6 win mark. The Pac will get better, and if we don't address the talent issues, we will only get worse.
I really like Ramsey and Vatikani for those reasons. Coleman, Mettauer (sniff), too. Haven't understood Craig. or Daltoso, except as a demonstration of what we don't have. Power.
I agree, tall athletic big guys are better for TE or DL (or basketball).
As a generality, I've been thinking we could:should be recruiting a lot more Polynesian OL, DL and TEs. Just look at Utah's roster and they are headed back to the Rose Bowl.
It would be good to have someone on our staff from Hawaii. Maybe if Alualu ever retires? His recruitment and freshman year overlapped Wilcox.
heartofthebear said:I re-read my post and I stand by it. Selectively read it if you want, but there may be 2 sentences out of it that are poorly expressed.Big C said:heartofthebear said:Just to be clear. I am not putting a smiley face on the season on the field so much as the events on and off the field combined that I feel are significant.Big C said:heartofthebear said:Big C said:heartofthebear said:This is exactly the dilemma for folks who can't assess a team's status beyond wins and losses. For me, there will be ways to tell if the 5-7 or 6-6 record next season means progress or not. There is an old saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you played". How they play, will mean something.boredom said:71Bear said:My expectations are another 5-7 season (give or take one win).heartofthebear said:Yup. But I hope you temper your expectations next year with the understanding that we will be rebuilding.71Bear said:Some Wilcox supporters have moved to a "wait and see" status. Count me in that group. I need some convincing after this mess of a season. Twelve months from now, we will know whether he is a long term solution or just another in a long line of guys who tried and failed…..heartofthebear said:Yeah, I overdid it there. It's funny how many of the Wilcox supports have disappeared on this thread. I'm working too hard by myself. It often leads to overstating my case. You are right, Cal should have been able to do more against UCLA. But, again, I didn't see bad play calling. I saw bad play execution. And the OL was miserable. I suppose McClure and Musgrave need to mesh better in prepping for games.Nasal Mucus Goldenbear said:It is one thing to claim (correctly) that the brewins' Offense this year was super-talented, experienced, and a bit<h to contain. The same cannot be said about their defense.heartofthebear said:
I disagree with you that the UCLA was about coaching because I don't think it's as easy to scheme around superior talent as you say it is. There were plenty of good play calls that could not be executed because Garbers was thrown off his game early and often.
You are very intelligent and I agree with your take on things a large majority of the time but forgive me if I assume that Musgrave knows more what he has to deal with against UCLA and simply didn't have the tools to do it.
Musgrave has a long tenure in coaching, to think that he simply wasn't prepared for UCLA despite the evidence is a kind of analysis I'm not willing to make.
Five teams scored over 30 pts on that defense. Three scored at least 40, including talent-middling Fresno State (middling at recruiting, impressive after development). BM's 14 pts on that allegedly talent-dominant defense were the second lowest scored in their 12-game season. The next 2 higher scorers vs the baby bluins were the talent-overflowing offenses of Arizona (16) and Colorado (20). The offenses of Washington and Leland Turd-Jr were unimpressive this year, yet both managed to score a more respectable 24 points on the mighty azzinaros.
you're wait and see and expect a 4-6 win regular season next year. You expect to know by the end of next season if he's the guy to take us to the top or a failure. How will you judge if he's the guy or not in 12 months if you expect more of the same next year? I get it if he goes 2-10 or 10-2. But what if he's in the range you expect?
Not every year is a rebuilding year. When you lose your 3 year starting QB, 5 of your starting skill guys on offense, 3 of you best players on defense, your punter and your PK, that's rebuilding. Yes Cal had a great opportunity this season and missed it. Who knows when that will happen again? That's over. Let's move on and look at what can be built moving forward. And there are always opportunities every season. That is what I will be watching for. How does Cal take advantage of what opportunities they have moving forward.
Yes, "not every year is a rebuilding year". Take the Wilcox Program, for example . . .
2020 was not a rebuilding year. But it turned out to be a "COVID year", so our record didn't matter.
2021 was not a rebuilding year. But we lost anyway. I forget: What was the deal with this year again?
So now it sounds like 2022 is "officially" a rebuilding year. That's okay, because 2020 and 2021 were not rebuilding years.
I'm really looking forward to 2023! (unless it is like the non-rebuilding years of 2020 and 2021)
Some of you are having a hard time getting over this last season. The fact is that Wilcox should have been fired after the WSU game and he probably knows that.
Well he wasn't fired and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, almost all of it positive. So, if he wasn't going to be fired then, he isn't going to be fired now. Everybody knows the points you are making and some of knew it months before you started posting this stuff. For example, I was one of the few that predicted a losing season before the season started. I mean many here blame the coach for their own unrealistic expectations. Folks made it up in their minds that Cal was supposed to better than TCU, Nevada and Washington. I never believed that. We came out strong against Nevada and the other 2 had disappointing seasons causing both coaches to get fired. But the point remains that, on paper Cal was never going to win more than 6 games. On paper Cal was not better than TCU, Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA and Furd was 50/50..
Anyway, however you look at it, it is over, Wilcox survived his worst periods. He is going to be here.
So we can make the best of it or we can continue to undercut the support he needs by continually harping on the past, arguing the same tired points endlessly and acting like your standards are higher than Cal's without having any clue what is in the works to make Cal better.
Folks accuse Wilcox of selling us on him. No.
He sold Cal on him in exchange for some needed changes.
Some of you really don't understand how big that is to have a coach with enough pull to get changes.
Let's see what happens with that before we pull the plug on him.
I didn't think Wilcox should be fired after the WSU game this season. You're confusing the realists with the Nega-Bears.
Having a realistic discussion on a fan site about the 2021 season and the current state of the program isn't "undercutting the support he needs" or "harping on the past", IMO. It's just Cal fans talking about their team.
I hope Wilcox succeeds at Cal. It is possible. I am rooting for him. All things considered, it seems to be marginally a good idea to stick with him and give him and the program more support.
What I can't do is make excuses for, or put a smiley face on this past season, or on the offense ever since Wilcox arrived. Nor can I feel like it would have been a disaster if Wilcox had gone to Oregon. We simply would have gone in a different direction, without being burdened by a huge buy out. Still, I'm sort of glad he stayed. Now I really want him to win.
- Improved play
- Improved play calling on offense
- Getting the axe
- Beating USC
- Comments from Michael Saffel that sold me on Wilcox
- Evidence that the players believe in Wilcox and play hard for him, backing up what Saffel said.
- Comments from players and coaches backing up the last 2 points
- Wilcox declining Oregon job after Oregon requested from Cal that they interview him.
- Wilcox declining again, saying he has unfinished business and support from admin.
- Reports, not just from Wilcox, that the administration and Wilcox are working on structural changes to bring more support to the football program, including academic and financial support.
- Reports that major donors are willing to go to bat for Wilcox.
When I put all of these things together, it seems like a bad time to harp on whether or not Glover was adequately prepared to beat Arizona.
It's like sorting your socks when the house is on fire.
I know many folks here go back to the 60s and feel that they are not going to see Cal in a Rose bowl before they die. They have the right to demand better and Cal can do better.
But these attitudes should not take a back seat to the priorities involved in the process to get there. IOWs, don't put the cart before the horse.
I am all for free speech and I am sorry if I shamed anyone out of expressing their thoughts.
I'm just pleading for a sense of timing.
Every single year I warn folks who are pumping up Cal around June and July that Cal may not do as well as they think. I am summarily ignored or drowned out by the same supposed logicians calling for Wilcox to be fired now. And it makes sense, if you conjure up an idea that Cal is better than they are, then of course you are going to blame the coach for anything less.
Maybe you should scrutinize your own preseason analysis instead of the head coach and maybe pre-season is the time to criticize the team, not after it is too late.
I warned about QB problems after Casey and Brasch transferred out in spring (2020?) and no less than the mods here mocked me, saying we had plenty of back up talent. Absolutely nobody stepped in to support me at that time. And so the issue was dropped. Maybe, had the kind of pressure you are exerting now, been done then, we could have beaten Arizona and gone to a bowl. And maybe other changes could have happened sooner than they did and we could have won 10 games this year. Who knows. And characterizing this as just a few folks posting there unfavorable review of the season is unfair and inaccurate. There is a wholesale movement to remove coaches, mainly Wilcox and Musgrave but McClure gets honorable mention. Notice that none of the defensive coaches get mentioned even though the worst recruiting failures have been on that side of the ball and PIs from our DBs have been a signature issue for years without it being effectively addressed. Add to that the regularity of missed tackles and tackling technique and it gets pretty ugly.
It is a chronic problem with the culture of this board that folks don't see problems and then blame the coach when they finally become too obvious to ignore and when it is too late.
I am simply calling people out for campaigning against specific people without really having solid reasoning for it.
tl;dr version, it's my fault that we didn't beat Arizona and go to a bowl game... and even that we didn't win ten games.
heartofthebear, I appreciate the sincerity in your posts, but -- time and time again on this thread -- just when you're almost about to win me over, you often manage to go completely off the rails. W T H ?!? Your big paragraph is so full of tripe I don't even know where to begin, but read my facetious tl;dr version of it. Also, Sirmon and the DB coach have caught plenty of crap this past season from posters who like to single out Assistants.
" ... campaigning against specific people without really having solid reasoning for it." Neither the campaigning part nor the not having solid reasoning is true, not even close.
Nothing personal, but I'm calling out the above post for being absolutely ridiculous.
It is hard to counter all of the ridiculous arguments being made against Wilcox and Musgrave.
We clearly all want the best for Cal football and I hope we get it more sooner than later.
I don't care if I win anybody over.
My wishes will win out because Wilcox and Musgtave are sticking around and that will be the case even after Cal goes 5-7 next season.
I was giving people the opportunity to feel optimistic about that. But , if folks want to cry in their milk endlessly or get drunk over it, that's there choice.
Personally I find the criticisms tired, unsophisticated and useless at this point. I have made many of these arguments and criticisms before. And it's easy to make because you feel like you have standards and that feels good.
Well, there comes a point when it's not just free speech and a rousing debate. There comes a point where it is just pity pissing on whoever is a convenient target.
We will agree to disagree here. For the record, I am largely a positive poster here, generally supportive of the incumbent coaching staffs (including the current one). It's just that Wilcox really needs to win more and Musgrave needs to score more. I bet even they would agree with that. Results to date have been unsatisfactory and they have been in their positions for five and two years, respectively.
Offensive linemen, particularly OT's, need long arms for pass protection. That's why most good OT's are 6'6"plus.. People aren't usually made with extremely long arms and short bodies. As Defensive ends get longer, the guy's who block them get longer and bigger too. Short OT's usually don't fare too well against really good DLers.calumnus said:Rushinbear said:I agree about the line recruiting. JW and, maybe Musgrave too, have repeatedly said that this is a big man's game and they want to recruit big players. They seem to be interpreting "big" as tall, esp on the OL. But, unless a player has the wheelhouse, tall won't do him any good, in fact may be a hindrance. They can work in the weight room all you want, but that won't take the place of natural strength in the hips and back. How many 6, 6/6,7 OLs do you see at AL, GA, OSU, Ok? Maybe a few at LOT, but the rest are in the 6,3/6,5 range. I know it sounds silly, but the low man wins and we're not winning, yet.bledblue said:
Who are the good coaches in College football? Seems that the ones most people think of usually have way more talent than their opponents. Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and past Clemson teams. Does this make their coaches better at calling plays? or just better recruiters? Couple that with the Power Five leagues aren't equal in talent either, and you get major mismatches. Nick Saban didn't do very well in the NFL, neither did Urban Myers or Chip Kelly. Some would say they were lost in the NFL. In fact, MOST college coaches don't do well in that league because teams are closer in talent levels. The difference between the best team and the worst team in the NFL is about 5 starters. So when you're talking about the X's and O's of football, the NFL coaches have an edge on the college coaches due to parity of talent in the league. They've seen everything.
The College game tries to make up for a mismatch of talent with gimmick offenses ( Sonny Dykes). Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. With all this said, Musgrave has been very successful in the NFL. Saying he needs to learn how to call a game is idiotic. The OL hasn't been very good, but the bigger issue has been the QB. In his offense it all starts with the QB, and if you don't know much about what they're trying to do on offense, you'd actually think that Garbers was a good player. Sighting different instances of when the offense struggled is irrelevant. Plays are called not only based on down and distance, but also on the players ability to be successful executing the play. When the QB or OL doesn't match up well with the defense, it is considered in the gameplan. If the QB runs the offense properly, everyone plays better. And we've seen instances of when it happened.
We don't need a new OC. The problem Wilcox has had from day one has been recruiting and developing players. At 5 yrs in, is it going to change? Maybe. Will Cal loosen it's academic standards to help? Hope so. But until we get Pac-12 Level linemen ( on both sides of the ball) and an all conference type QB, we won't break the 6 win mark. The Pac will get better, and if we don't address the talent issues, we will only get worse.
I really like Ramsey and Vatikani for those reasons. Coleman, Mettauer (sniff), too. Haven't understood Craig. or Daltoso, except as a demonstration of what we don't have. Power.
I agree, tall athletic big guys are better for TE or DL (or basketball).
As a generality, I've been thinking we could:should be recruiting a lot more Polynesian OL, DL and TEs. Just look at Utah's roster and they are headed back to the Rose Bowl.
It would be good to have someone on our staff from Hawaii. Maybe if Alualu ever retires? His recruitment and freshman year overlapped Wilcox.
Tall OL'ers who are athletic, and can get low, usually win the leverage game. There have been All-pro interior linemen that were in the 6'6"-6'7" range, but they were exceptions to the rule.
Recruit athletes at all positions.
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