<blockquote><div class="name-said">socaltownie;667872 said:</div><hr><Sigh>. Because going 7-6 in the current era is equivalent, in the past, of going 5-6 or even 4-7. _IF_ Theader could have dropped some of those games against 'bama or Florida and substituted in the Blue Hose that is +1 to the Win. If you can play the Dawgs not during the era of being number 1 in the nation but when they are going 0-11 there is another. If you can go to a Bowl game without winning conference that probably also helps (and motivates your guys).<br /><br />This is the same darn argument made to support Braun - "Hey, it was HORRID before Lou so we have to stay the course". <br /><br />Defend Tedford because he recruits well, represents the university well, and can get donors to donate. Suggest that the grass is always greener and that with his buy out we couldn't afford a great coach. But it isn't at all clear that the historical comparisons backward mean anything - as it is a different era in college football. Plus again, the coaches of old struggled under institutional constraints that boggle the mind.<hr></blockquote><br /><br />:beer:<br /><br />I think that the change in mindset and goals changed not with SB and JT but with Chancellor Tien and Coach Snyder. Up until that time, there was little if any institutional support for winning or wanting to see Cal win on the field. With Tien's actual support of coexistence of sports and academics and Snyder's success on the field, it was shown that Cal could actually win. I think this was the turning point in Cal football. I bet that if BB hadn't of dropped the ball on the flight back from the Citrus bowl, there would have been a much different story written in Strawberry Canyon in the following years.<br /><br />Sure JT has done well, but the ability to win, with some support from the university/community, was not his doing. He was just the coach that happened to come in next after some miscues (Gilby, Mooch, and Holmoe) and he was decent, and in the long run will be proven to be average. We misfired in those other hires, like many other schools do and continue to do, in our stretch of until we got JT. I'm not putting him down as a person, but he's average and this resembles the latter years of the Braun era. Most of the world is average, and without out that, there wouldn't be any bell-curves. We've simply grown as a university to expect to win like the other schools, which with the right coach I think is possible.<br /><br />:rant<br /><br />:gobears: