sycasey said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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We're looking for a football coach not some morality drama. Succeed and it's all forgotten. Fail and it's his character that did him in. For me, it has no bearing on hiring him.

To me his biggest drawback is he isn't a head coach and should have been by now.

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Yes, pretty much. I'm not even sure "should have been a head coach by now" is all that relevant. He's 44. Three years older than Tedford when he started at Cal. I just don't think this makes a big difference.

I guess the argument is that he should have been hired out of Alabama if he's so great? He might have actually been a bit too young then.

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The trend is towards younger coaches. Will Stein at 36 is the best coach on the market this year IMHO.

For our program, who is mid-tier and cannot compete with the upper level programs with 3x our budget, it's necessary to identify and promote younger talents with high potential.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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BearsWiin said:

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RedlessWardrobe said:

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Bearspot said:

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If TL is going to be our next head coach and thus the coming great era of Cal football, then it may be time to pin BI's version of the early history of TL and Cal to the top of both BI and Growls so that we don't have to keep rehashing this over and over and over and over...

Just a suggestion.

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Or how about just let the past be the past. If he's hired let the previous baggage go. We all do certain things in life that we end up regretting. If Tosh is the next coach let's forget about dissecting what happened 13 years ago. Move forward, and if we wish to praise him or criticize him, let us base it on his performance moving forward.

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The past is never dead. It's not even past.

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Nobody said it was. But at some point it is possible to stop dwelling on it. One way to stop rehashing it is to forget about it.

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Faulkner disagrees

Damned Berkeley fan boards.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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BearsWiin said:

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RedlessWardrobe said:

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Bearspot said:

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If TL is going to be our next head coach and thus the coming great era of Cal football, then it may be time to pin BI's version of the early history of TL and Cal to the top of both BI and Growls so that we don't have to keep rehashing this over and over and over and over...

Just a suggestion.

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Or how about just let the past be the past. If he's hired let the previous baggage go. We all do certain things in life that we end up regretting. If Tosh is the next coach let's forget about dissecting what happened 13 years ago. Move forward, and if we wish to praise him or criticize him, let us base it on his performance moving forward.

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The past is never dead. It's not even past.

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Nobody said it was. But at some point it is possible to stop dwelling on it. One way to stop rehashing it is to forget about it.

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Naw, you don't really mean that.

oski003 said:

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SLTX Bear said:

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Doesn't anyone know the story with references to "coffee cups" and boats that often get dropped when people allude to Toshgate? Never really heard the alleged details.

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UW gave Tosh a literal boat as part of the deal to entice him to UW. Tosh allegedly met recruits at coffee and gave them money inside coffee cups.

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I'm ok with Short and Tall but draw the line at Grande

It sounds like nobody can provide a side of the story that would justify Tosh's recruiting actions. Embarrassing hire for the University of California, Berkeley, in my opinion.

Rushinbear said:

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RedlessWardrobe said:

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BearsWiin said:

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RedlessWardrobe said:

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Bearspot said:

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If TL is going to be our next head coach and thus the coming great era of Cal football, then it may be time to pin BI's version of the early history of TL and Cal to the top of both BI and Growls so that we don't have to keep rehashing this over and over and over and over...

Just a suggestion.

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Or how about just let the past be the past. If he's hired let the previous baggage go. We all do certain things in life that we end up regretting. If Tosh is the next coach let's forget about dissecting what happened 13 years ago. Move forward, and if we wish to praise him or criticize him, let us base it on his performance moving forward.

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The past is never dead. It's not even past.

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Nobody said it was. But at some point it is possible to stop dwelling on it. One way to stop rehashing it is to forget about it.

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Naw, you don't really mean that.

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What were we talking about?

Cal88 said:

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The other knock from my perspective is that his strongest suit as a recruiter is no longer as crucial in the NIL environment where competition for recruits has become more monetary, and with the greater portal turnover the player evaluation skills become more important in the recruiting process relative to the pure salesmanship skills where Tosh excels.

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This is a bad take, particularly with the House settlement (mostly) equalizing NIL. Having NIL $$ is necessary but not sufficient. Players want to play for coaches they like and in a program that wins and showcases their talents. If you give Wilcox and Tosh the exact same NIL $$, Tosh would do a far better job recruiting. That seems almost beyond dispute.

BearGoggles said:

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Cal88 said:

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The other knock from my perspective is that his strongest suit as a recruiter is no longer as crucial in the NIL environment where competition for recruits has become more monetary, and with the greater portal turnover the player evaluation skills become more important in the recruiting process relative to the pure salesmanship skills where Tosh excels.

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This is a bad take, particularly with the House settlement (mostly) equalizing NIL. Having NIL $$ is necessary but not sufficient. Players want to play for coaches they like and in a program that wins and showcases their talents. If you give Wilcox and Tosh the exact same NIL $$, Tosh would do a far better job recruiting. That seems almost beyond dispute.

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I'll also point out that Mendoza, Ott, Endries, etc., all had comparable NIL offers from Cal but chose to leave anyway. Granted, that is not "recruiting" per se but in the Portal era it basically is. You need to convince players they want to play for you and not someone else, money being equal.

There has been a lot of chatter about what happened with Tosh, but nothing direct from the participants, so who knows.

But to me, it isn't that he bolted at an inopportune time, or that after he left he wooed players that he had previously recruited for Cal. It is that he allegedly recruited Shaq Thompson--a 5 star--to Washington, before he resigned while on Cal's payroll and while on a trip paid by Cal. If it happened, that is a loathsome, dirty low down--lower than a snake's belly--kind of betrayal, and a clear breach of fiduciary duty as well. Like your girlfriend cheated on you, but also tricked you into paying for dinner and the hotel room for her night with her lover. That's hard to come back from.

I have pretty much stopped caring at this point with NIL, portal, and all that. Loyalty means nothing anymore. That's fine I suppose. I will pay attention when the team wins and won't when they lose. That is the price to be paid when it all becomes mercenary. Just win baby!

BearGoggles said:

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Cal88 said:

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The other knock from my perspective is that his strongest suit as a recruiter is no longer as crucial in the NIL environment where competition for recruits has become more monetary, and with the greater portal turnover the player evaluation skills become more important in the recruiting process relative to the pure salesmanship skills where Tosh excels.

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This is a bad take, particularly with the House settlement (mostly) equalizing NIL. Having NIL $$ is necessary but not sufficient. Players want to play for coaches they like and in a program that wins and showcases their talents. If you give Wilcox and Tosh the exact same NIL $$, Tosh would do a far better job recruiting. That seems almost beyond dispute.

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That is a VERY low bar (Wilcox). It is a subject that probably none of us can ever really figure out as to why he just wasn't able to close. We will get a chance though to find out how much Wilcox and how much that Cal is just a hard place to recruit to than schools where football is just a much bigger deal.

socaltownie said:

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BearGoggles said:

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Cal88 said:

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The other knock from my perspective is that his strongest suit as a recruiter is no longer as crucial in the NIL environment where competition for recruits has become more monetary, and with the greater portal turnover the player evaluation skills become more important in the recruiting process relative to the pure salesmanship skills where Tosh excels.

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This is a bad take, particularly with the House settlement (mostly) equalizing NIL. Having NIL $$ is necessary but not sufficient. Players want to play for coaches they like and in a program that wins and showcases their talents. If you give Wilcox and Tosh the exact same NIL $$, Tosh would do a far better job recruiting. That seems almost beyond dispute.

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That is a VERY low bar (Wilcox). It is a subject that probably none of us can ever really figure out as to why he just wasn't able to close. We will get a chance though to find out how much Wilcox and how much that Cal is just a hard place to recruit to than schools where football is just a much bigger deal.

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We already have evidence that Cal can recruit provided the right coaches are in place with Tedford/Tosh. We had Top 25 classes on the regular back then. It wasn't crazy for Cal to pull a 5 star now and again back and 4 stars committed regularly. Now our facilities are even better than our glory days of recruiting and the administrative support is better as well.

NIL might change the game but I now honestly believe that it can actually help level the playing field for a place like Cal because all signs seem to indicate that we can actually support a competitive NIL fund.

Just saw this thread, and yes he absolutely threw Tosh under the bus.
BUT here's what people forget:
It was the mass flunking out of numerous student-athletes mostly former 4- and 5-star African American recruits that Tosh brought in, only for them to be let down by Tedford and the administration. If you remember, Tosh left one week before that story blew up the entire campus with shame. CBS and NBC ran it over and over for almost a year.
It was so bad that Hayward State graduates were celebrating like it was the best day of their lives. Even Stanford alumni were defending us on talk shows. They actually felt bad for us. The hate and embarrassment we felt because of Tedford was unreal. And some of you still wonder why Tosh left?
I mentioned earlier that I was literally the last person to see Tosh that night at a Starbucks on Shattuck around 11 p.m. I told him what a great job he was doing, and he said, "Thanks." I waited about five minutes for my drink and got annoyed because someone was standing behind me.
It was Tosh.
He'd waited just to shake my hand, with a look on his face like: "If you only knew."
He wasn't just saying thank you he was saying goodbye.
and all the fans to know that he had no choice. One week later we were the laughing stock of the world.

How many cups was he leaving with

Things are getting rather silly, now.

BearGoggles said:

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Cal88 said:

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The other knock from my perspective is that his strongest suit as a recruiter is no longer as crucial in the NIL environment where competition for recruits has become more monetary, and with the greater portal turnover the player evaluation skills become more important in the recruiting process relative to the pure salesmanship skills where Tosh excels.

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This is a bad take, particularly with the House settlement (mostly) equalizing NIL. Having NIL $$ is necessary but not sufficient. Players want to play for coaches they like and in a program that wins and showcases their talents. If you give Wilcox and Tosh the exact same NIL $$, Tosh would do a far better job recruiting. That seems almost beyond dispute.

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JKS might disagree here.

Cal88 said:

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BearGoggles said:

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Cal88 said:

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The other knock from my perspective is that his strongest suit as a recruiter is no longer as crucial in the NIL environment where competition for recruits has become more monetary, and with the greater portal turnover the player evaluation skills become more important in the recruiting process relative to the pure salesmanship skills where Tosh excels.

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This is a bad take, particularly with the House settlement (mostly) equalizing NIL. Having NIL $$ is necessary but not sufficient. Players want to play for coaches they like and in a program that wins and showcases their talents. If you give Wilcox and Tosh the exact same NIL $$, Tosh would do a far better job recruiting. That seems almost beyond dispute.

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JKS might disagree here.

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You're moving the goalposts from "recruiting is less important (i.e., Tosh is less valuable) because of NIL" to "JKS might leave because he can make more money".

Most players don't have the opportunities that JKS will have. So as an initial matter, he's an outlier. Beyond that, schools that offer JKS big money will do so with a combination of regular NIL (i.e., paid by the school) and outside opportunities. Ron and Sebasta (among others) are keenly aware of the need to be competitive, both in terms of $$ and making sure the Cal has a roster that will support JKS.

To your original assertion, Tosh will need to close on recruits in a way that Wilcox did not. Socaltownie makes a good point . . . was it Wilcox or was it Cal? The reality is that after 9 years of failing, Wilcox didn't have a message to sell recruits so it was certainly him (at least in part). Tosh will have a fresh story to tell.

That's a great story, hadn't read it before on these boards. Def waiting around to shake your hand and metaphorically say goodbye does say a lot….hopefully the prodigal son comes home to glory

Bobodeluxe said:

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PAC-10-BEAR said:

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oski003 said:

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Tosh allegedly met recruits at coffee and gave them money inside coffee cups.

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Tosh wa$ loved.

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Rather quaint by today's standards

Big C said:

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I would like to see him address the issue early on in his tenure, though maybe not at his first press conference.

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Yes, he can't keep ignoring the elephant in the locker room. For many Cal alums, this is not something that can be "forgotten" & "forgiven" before forgiveness is expressly requested (implying at least partial admission of guilt). Consider it a test of his self-professed maturation.

Before spring camp, do a 1-on-1 short interview with a hand-picked friendly with prearranged questions. Express some remorse, show a bit of contrition, ask for charity, and vow to always treat the school and its long-suffering fans with honesty, loyalty, and dignity. Short, but substantive. Then, not before, those of us disscusstid by his past behavior can begin to move on.