Sonny's team is at the Farm, down at halftime, 10-17.

bear2034 said:

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Sonny's team is at the Farm, down at halftime, 10-17.

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Ten quick points, up 20-17 Q3.

34-24, Stanford down 10 with maybe a minute remaining.

Probably same people on here who hated Tedford in his last few years, hated Sonny from day one, and now hate Wilcox.

Big C said:

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TedfordTheGreat said:

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SLTX Bear said:

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I mean I LOVE college fb, but if 18-22 year olds throwing balls around and tackling each other is the highest call of your university, ok have at it Flounder.

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bingo!

I love our football, but no it shouldn't be the only thing that matters to a university (a la Alabama and ohio state). That weak mindset is what got us all chasing dollars and led to the destruction of a conference that lasted 100 years

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Agree. Football is not the most important thing at Cal... and thank goodness for that. Doesn't mean we shouldn't invest in it and be the best we can. Au contraire: the Number One Public University in the World can win at football, too!

Go Bears!

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Top high school recruits come to Cal for the NFL. Transfer portal and NIL has created the economics of coming to Cal to earn money or get profiled. How we truly think we can become a "football school" with all the roadblocks you have all mentioned seems a waste of time. Returning to the JT years and loud, full CMS is a dream. Enjoy the team and the game, yet maybe temper the delusions that a new AD or HC will change the chemistry for Bears football.

calumnus said:

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Bearly Clad said:

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He could be talking about La. Tech for all we know!

Also I hate to be "that guy" but judging by tv numbers and fan attendance football meant something to California before Sonny got here. Did it mean enough to the administration, AD, and campus at large? Well that's another can of worms, but it was standing room only and season ticket wait lists before the Pillsbury Dykesboy got his claws in the program

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Attendance and TV ratings have been far worse under Wilcox. It is about winning and playing exciting football with marketable stars. Attendance was not good under Holmoe either. It got good under Tedford when we were winning then Tedford stopped winning enough. Dykes didn't win enough and Wilcox has been worse. Dykes is not the current problem, Wilcox is. This is his 8th year. At some point you have to hold him responsible for the state of his program and stop blaming his predecessor.

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Dykes was responsible for the downturn and Wilcox is responsible for not righting the ship. Simple as that. But it's actually telling that with the lack of success under Wilcox we've had as much engagement and investment as we have. NIL, food programs and offering, team medical staff, etc. have all seen significant upgrades. So it's not that "no one cares" or even that without success no one will support the team, it's that Sonny couldn't get any of it done.

And, as much as the Wilcox era hasn't won nearly enough, it's still way better than the Dykes era where he only made one bowl game. At least Wilcox has been to 3 (although the standard has to be much higher than just squeaking into a bowl game every other year)

I thought they added recreation management.

Ohio State is a very good university--not just a football factory. Columbus, Ohio is a growing tech hub. Columbus is a cool place to live.

University of Alabama is also a good sachool and practically free if you are in the top 5% of your high school class. They are known for some excellent academic departments--especially engineering and medicine.

Ohio State and Alabama also happen to be football factories because the alumni care about football excellence and support the programs with $$ and attendance.

SLTX Bear said:

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I mean I LOVE college fb, but if 18-22 year olds throwing balls around and tackling each other is the highest call of your university, ok have at it Flounder.

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I'm with you but then don't go in the financial hole for it. Like so many aspects of society we have leaders who don't want to draw lines in the sand and piss people off. We then spend millions and millions (in some cases billions and billions...in the US's case, trillions and trillions) of debt filled money trying to tip toe through everything. It's more frustration for a longer period of time than just setting a long term policy and sticking to it. And demand that every future leader sticks to it or they get fired.

kal kommie said:

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Don't really see it as taking shots. He's stating a simple and obvious fact. Our students and alumni largely don't care about football.

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Too true! And faculty and administration range from hostile to indifferent.

Cal alumni is to football as dykes is to defense.

ninetyfourbear said:

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Why is Tedford considered responsible for the academics issues? Stories at the time were about how few academic resources (oversight, tutors) were available.

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For years, Tedford demanded that hundreds of millions be spent on CMS and new training facilities, and he was ultimately successful in getting that money spent.

More tutors or AD oversight would have cost only a few thousand dollars a year.

In his role as CEO of the football program, Tedford absolutely could have and should have recognized the problem and insisted on getting the relatively small amount of money needed for this.

Tried to hire Dave Aranda and Akina

Wilcox best season was with the players SD recruited yes or no?

BearSD said:

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ninetyfourbear said:

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Why is Tedford considered responsible for the academics issues? Stories at the time were about how few academic resources (oversight, tutors) were available.

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For years, Tedford demanded that hundreds of millions be spent on CMS and new training facilities, and he was ultimately successful in getting that money spent.

More tutors or AD oversight would have cost only a few thousand dollars a year.

In his role as CEO of the football program, Tedford absolutely could have and should have recognized the problem and insisted on getting the relatively small amount of money needed for this.

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Well, Tedford could have forked out the dough himself. Didn't he (or his agent) engineer a couple of substantial raises? Didn't Ben Braun donate $250K of his salary back to Cal and I'm sure he made less than Tedford? I know that's not the way things normally work, but Cal isn't/wasn't a normal place and JT made a lot of $$ at Cal. To be fair, maybe there were NCAA restrictions against this.

Dykes led Cal to an 8-5 record in his peak season coaching one of the best QBs to call Memorial Stadium home, was looking for another job toward the end of his time in Berkeley, and was smug all the while. I am not pleased with what Wilcox has done leading the Golden Bears, but I do not miss Dykes.

Simple response. He tried. But one again his downfall was Ted passing under his watch but crickets on that

chazzed said:

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Dykes led Cal to an 8-5 record in his peak season coaching one of the best QBs to call Memorial Stadium home, was looking for another job toward the end of his time in Berkeley, and was smug all the while. I am not pleased with what Wilcox has done leading the Golden Bears, but I do not miss Dykes.

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#26 in Sagarin, 1 and 5 against the Top 30 including 3 losses against Top 10 teams. The great defenders on the 2018 and 2019 teams, were freshmen, Kaufman's first full class. We fired Sonny after the next season despite leading the PAC-12 in offense. Defense was still not there. Unfortunately we waited until after the cycle to fire him and had to hire someone no one else wanted.

Sonny went on to win all the national coach of the year honors in getting his team through the playoffs to the National Championship Game.

4 years after that 2015 8-5 season Wilcox would replicate it for his best season too, but with a much easier schedule, beating FCS teams and teams with losing records. It is now 5 years after that peak.

Deciding to move on from Dykes was not a bad decision. He was not a good fit and the fan base hated him (but he is actually a pretty good coach). Getting fans in the seats requires having a coach the fans like (though wins are clearly a factor, they are not the only factor). What was really bad was firing him in late January 2017. It would have been far better to let him coach in 2017 and fire him immediately after the season or even encourage him to find another job, the very thing he is reviled for. SMU hired him in 2017 and he coached their bowl win.

Then we could have done a proper search with more candidates available and $millions more to spend. Williams blew that but then when it proves to be a bad hire, Knowlton extended him to year 11 and we nearly got relegated, and even though we didn't, will have a huge hole on our budget as a result.

Sonny knows Cal and SMU recruit heavily in same areas he does. Makes sense he's still talking trash.