mbBear;842639052 said:

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Be it me or anyone else: you post a strong opinion, you open yourself up to be called on it. It means nothing in the big scheme of things, hell, or even in the little scheme of things. But every now and then there is at least some small amount of accountability. It happens here, and happens in real life when you make a sports bet with a buddy...its hardly malicious. You win some, you lose some.
Rivera's timing on wanting the head job was at a point where his resume wasn't good enough for the powers that be; projecting what he might be wasn't going to happen. He nonetheless remains a loyal and supportive Old Blue. And you are right-you never know the circumstances that could bring him to the Cal sidelines.

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I must not have been hanging around when this thread originally happened in 2010, or I would have chimed in to mention Rivera applying for the job in late 2001. Gladstone basically said Rivera had all the leadership qualities you'd want for the job, but he didn't have experience. At that point, he hadn't even been an NFL coordinator yet, and as pointed out back in 2010, didn't have college coaching experience, either. Yes, there was a point at which the Cal HC job was Rivera's dream job, but that may have passed.

He was a big underdog in late 2001, but I was rooting for him. As I basically said in another thread a month or two back, we'll never know what would have happened if Gladstone had said in late 2001, "Screw the lack of experience," and hired the leader he knew Rivera to be, but there is one thing we know for sure, if Rivera had been hired instead of Tedford, Cal wouldn't have gotten any fewer Rose Bowls.

Life is all in the timing. Sigh.

As the original initiator of the thread, I'll step up and congratulate Rivera on what he's built at Carolina, and eat my crow. Just looking at the dates, it looks like this thread came out during the first rumblings of anti-Tedford discontent, and speculation who might be out there to replace him. The stadium hadn't even been completed yet. My guess is at that time I felt that Tedford should be given a chance to get the program back on track, unless there was an obviously better alternative. I also think I felt at that time, as I still feel, that the university did him a disservice in not trying to get the treesitters off campus, and the stadium litigation resolved, more quickly than it did. Ultimately, I still feel that is what did him in physically and emotionally.

Beyond that, I think I probably assumed, as did many posters, that the new facilities would be a game changer, and if we ever had to replace Tedford, there would be no problem getting an established Division I coach to come to Cal. As events has turned out, that was not true, since the evidence suggests that higher profile targets than Dykes were approached in 2012, and none were interested in taking the job. Now what we're hearing is that in addition to facilities, coaching salaries, for both the head guy and the assistants, are part of the arms race. I would point out that one of the comments in the thread is Drunkoski complaining about paying Tedford $2.5 million. We're paying Dykes more than that now.

Given what we now know, if Dykes is not successful, someone like the 2010 Ron Rivera is probably who we would be looking for, although taking someone without college experience would still be a risk, unless you had some other information from the interview or elsewhere that indicated how they would do in recruiting.

Jeff82;430259 said:

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Maybe Rivera can do it, maybe he can't. I'm just saying that it's speculative. Anything we do short of bringing in a coach who has had demonstrated success in a BCS conference school is a risk, which may at this point be worth taking, but a risk.

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Against my better judgment, I started looking through the posts. I see that I was one of those spooked by the Joe Kapp disaster, and by the feeling that any replacement for Tedford had to be "a coach who has had demonstrated success in a BCS conference school." That's what we got in Dykes. Will it pan out. We'll know after the next season. I was also on record as supporting a change after this season, because of his lack of success against peer schools.

Rivera is making $4M now, he's going to get a nice raise, up to double that amount to match the NFL top end, so that in a few years he's going to be financially set to a point where his income won't matter that much, so if things don't work out in Carolina or if he wants a new challenge, he could go back to coach at his alma mater.

So down the line cause Ron has done well for himself he wont mind the deep pay cut

Yeah ok I don't know about that

Jt was over paid and stayed on 3 yrs too long

Now all we have to hope for is after RR retires or after he gets ground down or tired of the NFL, he'll see Cal as a great capper to his career and a way to come home. If Cal gets a former All-American LB, SB winner as a player, and SB winner as HC...and has the facilities, it might finally work out right. Imagine recruiting in California, with a California guy who went to Cal and has a couple of rings. If this lined up, I'd imagine big donors thinking the high pay would be worth it...because those kinds of odds (and the guy loves Cal) that few schools could ever get. U$C could never get it...so I think if there was a chance, donors would jump at it.