Whatever "fit" is involved in Cal recruiting I'm sure I don't understand it. But it has to be the reason for these seemingly strange priorities for 2014.

Cal is already deep at WR. Yes they are young, but recruiting will not change that unless they recruit JC transfers (so far none are). It is true that WRs are a must in this offense. Dykes says 12 good ones, at least 8, is his goal. Remember that WR now encompasses TE and FB as well. There have been several defections to WR from other positions as well.

Here are the WRs Cal already have that project as quality guys at WR.
1)Harper
2)Treggs
3)Rodgers
4)Lawler
5)Powe
6)Whitehurst
7)Piatt-talented walk-on
8)Bouza
9)Hagan
10)Espitia
11)Hudson-in fall
12)Austin-in fall
13)Willis
14)Boehm

This is not including the possible emergence of walk-ons S. Anderson, Grisom, Worstell or Davis.

With some attrition we could be down to 9 at worst.

Here is the # of highly rated WRs we have offered for 2014. [COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"]13[/SIZE][/COLOR]

Well I guess, if you land 1 or 2 top notch guys it makes sense. So far so good.

Now remember we probably could have beat Ohio St.,Washington and Nevada last year had we been able to pass defend.

So let's compare that to other positions of need, especially DB. We are clearly in need of DBs, especially safetys. We also could bolster the injury prone RB position, recruit depth at the newly important position of center and upgrade the DT position.

The following #s are based on data from several recruiting sites. I only included consensus highly rated players that have already received offers from Stanford and/or UCLA, indicating that they could academically qualify and have an interest in playing in California. I did this even though the above WR offers do not meet this standard. Also I didn't count offers made to recruits no longer interested in the school.

[U]SAFETY[/U]
This is a definite position of need. We have 4 serviceable safetys, but none are really what you would want. Sebastian hits hard but also blows coverage.
4 guys have been offered at safety, one not rated. We do have a commit in addition, but Dykes is talking about letting him play WR as well-not kidding!
There are at least 7 additional guys that we could offer but haven't. We need 3 for next year because our starters will be gone in 2015 and we could use some depth.

[U]CORNERBACK[/U]
This is position of need largely because of injury prone-ness. McClure is the biggest concern, but Jackson and Lee have also had issues. We get 2 possibly 3 talented guys in the fall, but none are sure things. We need at least 2 guys in this class, probably 3 in order to have a solid 2 deep going into 2015.
6 guys have been offered. But we could offer at least 6 additional guys. At least 2 guys already seem pretty interested. So that's good.

[U]CENTER[/U]
This is a position of need because snapping the ball is, apparently, no snap at Cal. And Matt Cochran is the only decent center we have. He will be the only center period after 2014. We need to get on this but so far 0 offers. There are at least 2 guys we could offer but haven't. Incidently, we also lacking depth at OG but I'm guessing so of the guys listed at OT will get converted effectively.

[U]DEFENSIVE TACKLE[/U]
Thanks to the recent class and some moves by our LBs, we are really deep on the DL. Unfortunately almost all of that is at DE. The only DTs that will be around in 2015 are the guys who just signed. Two of those are 2 star players and 1 is a 3 star. That means we need to upgrade this position. We have exactly 2 offers out but could offer 4 more guys.

In summary Cal has already offered 10 of the remaining top 50 players at WR, equal to UCLA's 10 and well ahead of Stanford's 3. Stanford has a greater need than either Cal or UCLA.

At Safety Cal has offered 4, including 1 commit of the top 50 and is well behind Stanford (7) and UCLA (6). Stanford has the biggest need followed closely by Cal and then UCLA.

At Cornerback Cal has offered 6 compared with UCLA (9) and Stanford (2). Stanford has the biggest need followed closely by Cal. UCLA has no need at all.

At Center nobody has offered any of the 14 centers already rated. But neither UCLA nor Stanford need one.

At Defensive Tackle Cal has 2 offered to UCLA (4) and Stanford (1). All 3 teams have major needs at this position. Probably UCLA has the biggest need followed by Stanford and Cal.

A quick count on the RB offers shows Cal at 4, UCLA at 8 and Stanford at 2 with the need being greatest being at both Cal and UCLA. Stanford has no need. Again Cal could offer maybe as many as 10 more. I'm not sure because I lost count.

Cal is doing a better job of offering based on need than Stanford, but not at the most needed safety position. And they are trailing UCLA almost across the board even though UCLA's needs are far less for these positions. It is odd that UCLA has offered 9 CBs when there is really no room for them. Maybe they will use them on special teams. Our recruiters should mention that.

Anyway, I know it's early and many things will change before next LOI day, but a guy can dream and I dream that we have a little more balance in where our offers go so that we can fill some much needed spots at the above positions. No reason we can't out-recruit UCLA when it is clear that Cal can offer more immediate playing time.

I hope this made sense but this is supposed to support my feeling that we need to do more to take seriously the weaknesses that have plagued our secondary in recent years. A poor offensive line and a poor secondary equals blow-outs and a 3-9 season like we had last year.

Some conclusions for now: UCLA is recruiting better this year because they are aggressive about making offers. Cal is ignoring their defensive needs at Safety and DT. All this is happening while making 18 WR (WR+TE+FB) offers when we should already have 16 effective WRs on the roster through 2015, many of them quite talented.

I don't want Cal to become another Arizona, West Virginia or Louisiana Tech. We can play defense here and can recruit defensive players if we choose to. So let's do it.

edit on 3/30: I made some changes to the conclusions to more accurately reflect my point of view. They are not meant to invalidate responses made prior to this update.
ykes:

You say UCLA recruits better because they recruit more aggressively. I would guess this refers to the past under JT, for the new coaches had little time to assess personnel and then change direction to their need last year. Do we really know that our current coaching team is not aggressive in recruiting? Or is the reference to past performance?

From what I understand Buh has a fair amount of control over on the defensive side. I'm sure if he felt the need, he'd shift scholarship offers from positions that are deep to positions of need. There are so many different things he could be doing its impossible to speculate on them all without being inside his head.

I have no knowledge of the situation, but it might be that our needs are so dire he's spending his time combing the JC's for safeties (JC recruiting always seems to be a little quieter), and if that is his strategy he might not be extending an abnormal number of offers to high school recruits. Again this is all speculation about what could be going on behind the scenes.

Also your overlooking the obvious strategy: if all the best wide receivers are on our team and not elsewhere in the Pac-12, we have no need for good DB's or Safeties.

Where is Harris on the list of WR's?

- "6 [CBs] have been offered...but we could offer an additional 6 guys"
- "We have exactly 2 offers [for Safety] out but could offer 4 more guys.

And what's qualification for offering, as opposed to the staff's? Which recruits are oyu talking about? Are you talking about guys like the Webster twins, Malik Beachum and such?

The only person we "should offer" is Bishard Baker, and that's only speaking to his pure ability, nothing about his potential interest in Cal--which till now has been always low.

- We have 13 WR offers right now.

So? You think we'll even take half of that if they all decided to commit? Look at the actual offers on the table for WR:

Lazard - slim chance, OOS
Kitt - slim chance, OOS
Harris - slim chance, OOS
Quinn - slim chance, OOS
Blacknall - slim chance, OOS
Godwin - slim chance, OOS
Sims - okay chance, OOS
Booth - okay chance, OOS

8 out-of-state national offers to get our brand out there, on kids we're unlikely to get. We didn't offer guys like Vernon Hargreaves, Leon McQuay, Carl Lawson, and Adam Brenenman from 2013 because we think had a good shot; we only did it because they were OOS Top50 talent that we wanted to get our names out to.

here's 3 we're slightly more likely to get, and I'm sure there will be additional in-state offers as football season starts. Guys like Rashead Johnson, Andrew Celis, Shay Fields, etc.

Jalen Harvey
Alex Van Dyke
TV Williams

Dykes knows we're only taking in 3 or so WRs this season. Last season under JT, we offered 18 WRs and only took 3 (but willing to take in 4 I'm sure). How is that any different?

It's only April, 2.5 months removed from the last NSD and people are already freaking out over how our coaches evaluate talent and offer prospects.

It's what...10 months until signing day...so your critique is really 'at this point in time, early in the 2014 process' you don't like the mix, and infer poor judgment on the coaching staff. May be a bit pre-mature to start taking the staff to the wood shed.

Deutsch;842107371 said:

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It's what...10 months until signing day...so your critique is really 'at this point in time, early in the 2014 process' you don't like the mix, and infer poor judgment on the coaching staff. May be a bit pre-mature to start taking the staff to the wood shed.

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Regional priority: First priority is doing a better job on locals. 6 or so kids in top 200, and Cal is making a strong push for them. Have to own your backyard. Next priority is California, and then kids wanting academics nationally.

Academics: Recruit needs to have a focus on academics.

Immediate needs: D-tackle, safety. SD also said there always will be more emphasis on linemen.

These are different priorities (at least to degree) that are being implemented. Thus, I would echo what Deutsch says about patience.

Deutsch;842107371 said:

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It's what...10 months until signing day...so your critique is really 'at this point in time, early in the 2014 process' you don't like the mix, and infer poor judgment on the coaching staff. May be a bit pre-mature to start taking the staff to the wood shed.

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We should add that last night Sonny mentioned recruiting is a 365 day job and yesterday afternoon he had spent 2 1/2 hours on the phone recruiting. Our guys are not asleep at the wheel.

NortonBear;842107363 said:

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Where is Harris on the list of WR's?

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LOL
I just knew I was leaving someone out. My bad. Well add 1 more to the list.

so many offers, and so many out of state ... but probably none can be accepted until the staff has checked out their academics which is said to be step one.

Seems like they're just tossing their hat in the ring and probably doing initial contacts ... or ... hmmm ... I haven't a clue but the coaches are obviously working on it.

6bear6;842107385 said:

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We should add that last night Sonny mentioned recruiting is a 365 day job and yesterday afternoon he had spent 2 1/2 hours on the phone recruiting. Our guys are not asleep at the wheel.

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Amen. Dec - SD hired -> firm up 2013 class and add to -> LOI Day -> Prep for Spring ball/Spring ball/Spring Game -> Finally, free to devote time to recruiting -------------> Fall ball begins, etc.

Smart to have Spring ball early - now out on the trail while others are still in practice. Expect much more happening before Fall.

I've been pretty clearly on the fence about Sonny and waiting to see what he produces, but c'mon, give the guy a chance. That wasn't a chicken little post. It was a chicken little with his head cut off post.

Quote:

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Anyway, I know it's early and many things will change before next LOI day

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You should have started and finished your post right there. First of all, information on who actually has offers is notoriously bad even late in the process. It is almost useless at this stage. Second of all, there are offers and there are offers. Geez, wait and see what we actually sign, or at least wait and see how the verbals start coming in. You cannot tell at all what the priorities are based on the data you've provided.

Quote:

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Some conclusions: UCLA recruits better because they are aggressive about making offers

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Well, that was a REALLY poor conclusion. UCLA recruits well because they are in the biggest recruiting hotbed west of Texas and every kid that wants to play in LA but either doesn't like SC or doesn't get an offer from SC walks into the office and begs to be recruited. They've had complete slackers recruit well there. The only time they have recruited poorly is when their coach is clearly on the way out.

You may ultimately prove to be correct about Dykes priorities, but there is no way you can know that now. That level of panic is not warranted at this point.

Folks, I know it is early and it is not a criticism of Dykes or a claim that I know better. It was a chance to share some information about what is going on currently. Let me clarify some issues that have been commented on.

1) The comment that UCLA is more aggressive is based on the numerical superiority of their offers this year.

2) The criteria I used to determine additional offers we could make has to do with 4 factors.

a) The academic fit- based on the fact that other academic schools like Stanford, UCLA, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Duke, Yale, Harvard and the like had already offered.

b) The player has an interest in playing in the west (Arizona, Washington, Oregon or California)

c) The player is highly rated by at least 2 (usually 3) agencies.

d) Player has not yet picked a favorite school.

3) The point about Buh and/or Dykes having strategies that I don't understand is exactly the point of the post. I was just pointing out that I do not understand what they are doing by revealing what seem to be some pretty severe imbalances.

4) I don't have a problems with the # of WR offers. My point is that we should be doing that at every position that we can, especially at positions of great need.

5) Despite my comment on an earlier thread, Budda Baker has been offered, at least according to one site. sites are not in agreement on this. Nor are they in agreement about his interest level. What else is new.

6) Interest level usually goes up when you offer. Only a small percentage are interested first. So there is no way to tell what our chance are for someone who has not been offered.

7) I'm not impatient-my point was that there is a pretty big imbalance at the present time. Hopefully that changes.

8) LOL about cornering the market on WRs so won't need a pass D. Look around the conference. It's a little late for that strategy. I know you were joking.

9) In the case of RB my data got a little jumbled so I may not have the names right but here is a list of players Cal could offer according to what I think is "fit". But what do I know?

[U]SAFETY[/U]
Brandon Simmons
Marcus Allen
Andre Godfrey
Mattrell McGraw
Montae Nicholson
Quincy Wilson
the 7th one got offered since my OP

[U]CORNERBACK[/U]
Tony Brown
Jabrill Peppers
Kyle Gibson
D'Andre Payne
Kendall Randolph
Nick Watkins
Jonathan Lockett
Vashon Tucker
Aaron Springs

[U]CENTER[/U]
Connor Mayes
Trenton Noller

[U]DEFENSIVE TACKLE[/U]
Travonte Valentine
Dontavius Russell
Enoch Smith Jr.
Michael Sawyers

[U]RUNNING BACK[/U]
Tony James
Christian McCaffrey
Derrell Scott
Shai McKenzie
Donte Thomas-Williams
Mikale Wilbon
Isaiah Brandt-Sims
Jonathan Hilliman

As far as I know none of the above have been offered. But that is according to only 1 site. And it could be unreliable. I will update if another site shows that an offer has been made.

Sonny is an offensive coach...he's going to be bias for offensive players. Not intentionally...that's just how it is. Perfect example is moving Joel Willis to WR. There was really no reason to move him but they did. He would've been the 3rd or 4th best CB on the team next year, but they chose to move him to WR so he can be the 7th or 8th best WR.

hanky1;842107471 said:

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Sonny is an offensive coach...he's going to be bias for offensive players. Not intentionally...that's just how it is. Perfect example is moving Joel Willis to WR. There was really no reason to move him but they did. He would've been the 3rd or 4th best CB on the team next year, but they chose to move him to WR so he can be the 7th or 8th best WR.

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2 things:

- Joel was an ATH in HS that played almost entirely on offense. Dykes/Franklin says they need 10 dependable WRs (+FB/TE) rotating regularly in a game. if Willis pans out as such, that's one less WR we need to recruit.

- How do you know he would've been the 3rd/4th best CB on the team next year? (McClure, Jackson, Lee, and whoever else + incoming Walker)

Sonny is an offensive-oriented coach, and of course assessing talents and offering players on offense is his speciality, but this is a poor example.

Willis a year younger than Lee but already passed him last year. As for the true frosh...can't depend on them. What ifs...

hanky1;842107471 said:

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Sonny is an offensive coach...he's going to be bias for offensive players. Not intentionally...that's just how it is. Perfect example is moving Joel Willis to WR. There was really no reason to move him but they did. He would've been the 3rd or 4th best CB on the team next year, but they chose to move him to WR so he can be the 7th or 8th best WR.

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Hanky I don't really believe he is biased but, if this is true then we aren't going to get to the Rose Bowl under Dykes IMO. These days, the pac-12 has too many teams that are quality on both sides of the ball for that to happen. The Arizona vs. Stanford game last year is case in point. Even with a subpar QB Stanford was able to come back late and win a shoot-out because Arizona had no way to stop them.

With limited sholarships you have to place limits at every position. I mean how many WRs do you need? Right now we have over 20 on the roster and have offered 18 more (forgot to include the TE/FBs before). If you have that many receivers it means you are planning on rotating players a lot. If you rotate players too much, they won't get the stats they need for the NFL. Once word gets around it will be hard to recruit any WRs.

I'm all for a wait and see approach to Dykes. But, by the same token, I wish the staff would take a wait and see approach before assuming our current WRs need an upgrade. I mean WTF, WR is probably our most talented position on the field next to LB. It would not be a stretch to say we have 5 or 6 future NFL players on the teams right now.

Whitehurst-maybe
Harper-probably
Lawler-yes
Treggs-probably
Harris-probably
Powe-probably
Rodgers-probably

5 of these will be around through 2015.
You can run this kind of offense with those guys plus back-ups like
Espitia
Austin
Coleman
Worstell
Willis
Piatt
Hudson
S. Anderson

That's 13 serviceable guys through 2015. Dykes said he needs 12. I'm all for making the offers if it means we get a couple of top 25 WRs to come to Cal. I'll be the first one cheering. But if it is at the expense of our defense, we won't be smelling roses under Dykes.

Here is what I think a reasonable breakdown of schollies per postion would be for this system.

QB=3-4
RB=5-6 som go on special teams
WR=15 (include FB/TEs) -some go on special teams
OL=16
DL=13
LB=13-some go on special teams
DB=15 some go on special teams
P/K=3

heartofthebear;842107487 said:

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If this is true then we aren't going to get to the Rose Bowl under Dykes IMO.

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This is an excellent deduction, but imagine for a moment that the coaching staff really knows what it is doing. What if their short term priority is to build an offense that scores lots of points, without regard for defense? This will attract additional fans, pump money into the program, make recruits take note, and reinforce the Dykes/Franklin reputation as offensive wizards. Once the offense is established, they can think about shoring up the defense.

Another possibility is that Dykes plans to be the Paul Westhead of football.

hanky1;842107484 said:

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Willis a year younger than Lee but already passed him last year. As for the true frosh...can't depend on them. What ifs...

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1. Lee has been injured. Dykes has said Lee's looked good in the brief time this spring that he's been healthy.

2. Nobody's depending on frosh, but Dykes also said Walker has the best chance to compete for a playing time from day 1.

beeasyed;842107503 said:

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1. Lee has been injured. Dykes has said Lee's looked good in the brief time this spring that he's been healthy.

2. Nobody's depending on frosh, but Dykes also said Walker has the best chance to compete for a playing time from day 1.

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Yes Lee has been hurt but he's hardly played in his three years. And McClure looks good but he's still coming off a major surgery. Lets pretend those injuries never happened and assume Lee would be the #3 corner (I don't think Lee would beat out Willis even when healthy but lets pretend he will)...that leaves Willis competing as for #4 CB spot with a true frosh or him competing for the #7-10 WR spot. Where do you suppose his greater impact would be? CB is the thinnest position on the team and it doesn't make any sense to remove players there.

beeasyed;842107503 said:

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1. Lee has been injured. Dykes has said Lee's looked good in the brief time this spring that he's been healthy.

2. Nobody's depending on frosh, but Dykes also said Walker has the best chance to compete for a playing time from day 1.

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I remember posts from the early practices where Lee was the standout db, very unfortunate that he got hurt, not only does he have good size, but he is extremely fast, hopefully he can make a quick recovery and blossom, because we really need some depth in the backfield.

hanky1;842107535 said:

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Yes Lee has been hurt but he's hardly played in his three years. And McClure looks good but he's still coming off a major surgery. Lets pretend those injuries never happened and assume Lee would be the #3 corner (I don't think Lee would beat out Willis even when healthy but lets pretend he will)...that leaves Willis competing as for #4 CB spot with a true frosh or him competing for the #7-10 WR spot. Where do you suppose his greater impact would be? CB is the thinnest position on the team and it doesn't make any sense to remove players there.

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That move did not make sense to me either, however, didn't he make the move to wr last year under JT (if I remember correctly Willis wanted to play wr) and then switched back to db because of need a db?

It may be early but not too early for the following:

1.Louisiana Tech finishes near the bottom of D-1 in points allowed

2.No safety recruited leaving Cal with a total of 5 safetys and only 2 proven players at the position.

3. Puts incoming walk-on early enrollee, rated a 3 star safety before coming to Cal, on offense.

4. Allows Willis to move to WR because he is a better WR than DB.

5. Tells early 2014 commit Koa Farmer, a safety, he would consider allowing him to play offense as well.

6. Sends over 10 offers to WRs accross the country, including some that little to no interest in Cal.

7. Sends only 4 offers to safetys despite the fact that some safetys list Cal as a desired school but don't have an offer.

8. Has over 10 walk-on WRs on offense for spring practice making 17 the total WRs, not including the TEs, FBs, incoming freshmen and converts. Our DB roster is at 12, will be 15 in the fall. But nowhere near the talent at WR.

9. Not a single conversion to DB, even though Jefferson played some DB in HS.

I don't need to be chicken little to see that a good HC is not an "offensive minded" coach or a defensive minded coach. There are coordinators for that. He should be a winning minded coach and should know that both sides of the ball need to be successful to win in the Pac-12. I am not suggesting that Dykes does not know this. But there do seem to be some rather severe imbalances in the early going. Offensive football is entertaining and will sell tickets for a while, unless it starts to look like a circus and we lose a lot. Most of the lower D-1 conferences play this brand of football. Not many of them end up as national title contenders. Boise St., TCU and Utah were BCS busters because they could play defense as well.

Don't get me wrong, I am very excited to be getting back to passing the football at Cal, something that I looked forward to as a kid during the 70s when White and Theder were mentoring QBs. So, I hope things change. But so far 9 different things have happened under Dykes that all point to an imbalance. And, if true, it will soon be all of you whining about Dykes more than it will be me.

What concerns me is I see a conference that is getting ever tougher to win. When Tedford started he was one of the better HCs in the conference. Now the conference is chock full of great coaches. Now, even a ridiculously talent laden program like $C can't win the conference. Now we have 4 or 5 teams capable of winning the conference ever year, and that is just from the north division. Each year there is one less push-over team in the conference. Pretty soon, WSU and even Colorado will no longer be doormats either. We used to blow out WSU by great margins but our average score over the last 3 years has been 27 to 12 (or 2 TDs). 27 points as an average against a no defense team like WSU for 3 years?! We go to Colorado this year. The last time we went our D gave up almost 300 yards of receiving to one guy and it took OT to squeek out a victory. Guess what, that guy, Paul Richardson is still playing WR for Colorado. How are our DBs going to handle the altitude if the don't have the depth to rotate players? Just saying that we can't afford to be anything less than great on both sides. We can't stengthen one side at the expense of the other.

As regards UCLA, I realize that they have always recruited well. My comment is based on what I uncovered this year, which is above and beyond what hapened before. Clearly Mora is being very aggressive about getting the Bruin brand out to highly regarded recruits, even when the position they play is already stocked 3 deep at UCLA. 9 offers out to top CBs when they just signed a great CB class for the 2nd year in a row.

Edit: The bottom line is this. If you set the table and only put out spoons, all you are going to be doing is eating soup for dinner. If all you had before was forks and salad, soup sounds great. But eventually you will get tired of that too and wish you had salad again. Why can't we have soup and salad? We are never going to be eating like the familys at Stanford, Oregon and USC if we can't think big enough to understand what is really going to satisfy our hunger. Mora recruits both defense and offense. He recruits every position like he expects to be king of the pac-12 some day. And he is getting close. Harbaugh did the same thing for Stanford. Kelly did it at Oregon. Sark, as much as you love to hate him, is at least trying to do that in Seattle. Regardless of what side of the ball they came from, as HC they have been relentless in getting quality on both sides of the ball. That is all I'm asking for. If our identity revolves around 1 position (WR) then we are going to be a joke to others in the conference.

I trust Dykes understands this but I thought I would post some early concerns now instead of waiting until it is too late.

hanky1;842107535 said:

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Yes Lee has been hurt but he's hardly played in his three years. And McClure looks good but he's still coming off a major surgery. Lets pretend those injuries never happened and assume Lee would be the #3 corner (I don't think Lee would beat out Willis even when healthy but lets pretend he will)...that leaves Willis competing as for #4 CB spot with a true frosh or him competing for the #7-10 WR spot. Where do you suppose his greater impact would be? CB is the thinnest position on the team and it doesn't make any sense to remove players there.

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well, i'm just an internet nobody. Coach Dykes said he'll play players to their strengths, wherever that may be. if that's at WR, then he should stay at WR--his hs position of strength as well.

the thing i don't wanna see is plugging in players at "positions of need" only to see them get burned on their match-ups. which is then followed by people saying, "dammit xxx player is so freaking bad at corner."

i rather have a player at his best position, than his not-so-good position simply b/c of depth issues. if other people can't step up as Dykes predicts, then maybe we'll have to bring Willis back, then this whole thing will be moot. until, i think this makes sense.

heartofthebear;842107556 said:

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1.Louisiana Tech finishes near the bottom of D-1 in points allowed

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1. if you want to bring up this point, then you should also bring up the fact that his LaTech defense in 2011 was lights out.

heartofthebear;842107556 said:

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2.No safety recruited leaving Cal with a total of 5 safetys and only 2 proven players at the position.

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2. So, not picking up guys like Cravens, McQuay, Redfield, Goodman, Willis, Byrd, McWilson, Thompson, Barton, O'Brien, Arnold, King was all on Dykes?

The only guys we had a chance with was Moore and Foreman.

heartofthebear;842107556 said:

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It may be early but not too early for the following:

4. Allows Willis to move to WR because he is a better WR than DB.

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4. Yup. Dykes should've instead continued to play Willis at a spot he is not great in simply b/c of depth issues.

heartofthebear;842107556 said:

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6. Sends over 10 offers to WRs accross the country, including some that little to no interest in Cal.

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6. Oh yeah, JT didn't do that. Other schools don't either. Oh wait, how do you explain offering guys like: WRs Drae Bowles, Ra'shaad Samples, or TEs like Hunter Henry, Adam Breneman, Desean Smith, Josh McNeil, Scott Orndoff. or DLs like Jonathan Bullard, Noah Spence, Carl Lawson, Tim Williams, Caleb Brantley, or DBs like Vernon Hargreaves, or Jalen Ramsey, Leon McQuay?

why does it matter how many we offers we hand out to top250 national players? did Dykes also guarantee we'll take as many commitments as we have offers?

heartofthebear;842107556 said:

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7. Sends only 4 offers to safetys despite the fact that some safetys list Cal as a desired school but don't have an offer.

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7. since you follow recruiting, you know top-notch safeties are hard to come by. so who else deserves an offer besides Bishard Baker, who, even though doesn't have a big interest in Cal, is at least on the West Coast?

heartofthebear;842107556 said:

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8. Has over 10 walk-on WRs on offense for spring practice making 17 the total WRs, not including the TEs, FBs, incoming freshmen and convert. Our DB roster is at 12, will be 15 in the fall. But nowhere near the talent at WR.

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8.
a. walk-ons don't take up schools spots, who cares?
b. yes, Dykes is responsible for JT taking the 5 WRs in 2012 and 3 WR + 1 TE in 2013?
c. Dykes is also responsible for JT taking 3 DBs in 2012--[COLOR="Red"]only 1 of which is still at Cal[/COLOR]. he is also responsible for JT not being able to land any top250 California DBs before getting fired. (reminder: Cheek and Akins were recommended by Thompson, and Allensworth is good, not great)

gotta love BI

beeasyed;842107574 said:

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1. if you want to bring up this point, then you should also bring up the fact that his LaTech defense in 2011 was lights out.



2. So, not picking up guys like Cravens, McQuay, Redfield, Goodman, Willis, Byrd, McWilson, Thompson, Barton, O'Brien, Arnold, King was all on Dykes?

The only guys we had a chance with was Moore and Foreman.



4. Yup. Dykes should've instead continued to play Willis at a spot he is not great in simply b/c of depth issues.



6. Oh yeah, JT didn't do that. Other schools don't either. Oh wait, how do you explain offering guys like: WRs Drae Bowles, Ra'shaad Samples, or TEs like Hunter Henry, Adam Breneman, Desean Smith, Josh McNeil, Scott Orndoff. or DLs like Jonathan Bullard, Noah Spence, Carl Lawson, Tim Williams, Caleb Brantley, or DBs like Vernon Hargreaves, or Jalen Ramsey, Leon McQuay?

why does it matter how many we offers we hand out to top250 national players? did Dykes also guarantee we'll take as many commitments as we have offers?



7. since you follow recruiting, you know top-notch safeties are hard to come by. so who else deserves an offer besides Bishard Baker, who, even though doesn't have a big interest in Cal, is at least on the West Coast?



8.
a. walk-ons don't take up schools spots, who cares?
b. yes, Dykes is responsible for JT taking the 5 WRs in 2012 and 3 WR + 1 TE in 2013?
c. Dykes is also responsible for JT taking 3 DBs in 2012--[COLOR="Red"]only 1 of which is still at Cal[/COLOR]. he is also responsible for JT not being able to land any top250 California DBs before getting fired. (reminder: Cheek and Akins were recommended by Thompson, and Allensworth is good, not great)

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Bee.. I'm really not interested in fighting although I realize that these type of posts irritate some people because they appear critical. That was not my intent. My intent was to shine light on some facts that some may not have been noticed before. The answer to your #7 question was listed in an earlier post of mine 3 heart posts back. Check for yourself. I don't have any problem with what Dykes did or did not do with the 2013 class. All of these points can be assailled individually, as you have done. Any single one is OK with me. But collectively they are a bit of a concern. That is all.

So I take it that you have 0 concern about our DB situation next year? Why didn't he put Griffin Piatt on D? That would have made a big difference.

I'm not saying DB isn't a concern, bc it is. but my point is that these problems were caused by the previous staff and Dykes hasn't continued to exacerbate these problems as some posts have suggested. he's gotten 2/12 months of a full recruiting cycle, I don't know what people expect to be able to conclude?

heartofthebear;842107556 said:

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It may be early but not too early for the following:


I trust Dykes understands this but I thought I would post some early concerns now instead of waiting until it is too late.

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Heartofthebear: I read what you had to say with interest. It was insightful, but my conclusion is that everything between your first sentence (above) and your last sentence (above) does everything to contradict what you conclude in the last sentence. You do not think that SD understands at all. You have your stats and input, and have more or less concluded he is an idiot. Your list of concerns, bring you to early conclusions that I cannot imagine any other Cal fan would tolerate.

SD was hired when? SD has taken mostly JT players and is trying to introduce his system. How? Well, not in two months. We would like everything to be solved with the coaching change, but you, heartofthebear, are the biggest bucket of cold water thrown on new hope. Keep posting, but cut the implied negativity. Give Sonny a year or two. The cards he holds are not necessarily his own. He may know much better than you how he has to change that hand to get what he wants first in the short term and then in the long haul. Chill, instead of wanting dearly to be the first Cal fan to say "I told you so" if SD does not succeed. I would rather bet on the come line, but then my glass is usually half full, until I drink too much.....

heartofthebear;842107556 said:

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I trust Dykes understands this but I thought I would post some early concerns now instead of waiting until it is too late.

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If it turned out you were right and we eventually couldn't field a defense because all the WR and RB offers signed LOI's and completely filled our 2014 class - what would change for the Bears if you missed your window in late March and posted your concerns too late - say next February?

We are barely 3.5 months into the Dykes era, have not even gotten to his first season of actual football, and we're not ever going to the Rose Bowl under Dykes if your concerns are not addressed 10+ months before LOI day, 2014 - wow.

And this handwringing comes even though you trust Dykes undersatnds this?

Some of you guys thrive on negativity. To each his own.

In the meantime, is it too much to ask that you acknowledge that Dykes & company know more about putting together a football team than you do?

OdontoBear66;842107596 said:

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Heartofthebear: I read what you had to say with interest. It was insightful, but my conclusion is that everything between your first sentence (above) and your last sentence (above) does everything to contradict what you conclude in the last sentence. You do not think that SD understands at all. You have your stats and input, and have more or less concluded he is an idiot. Your list of concerns, bring you to early conclusions that I cannot imagine any other Cal fan would tolerate.

SD was hired when? SD has taken mostly JT players and is trying to introduce his system. How? Well, not in two months. We would like everything to be solved with the coaching change, but you, heartofthebear, are the biggest bucket of cold water thrown on new hope. Keep posting, but cut the implied negativity. Give Sonny a year or two. The cards he holds are not necessarily his own. He may know much better than you how he has to change that hand to get what he wants first in the short term and then in the long haul. Chill, instead of wanting dearly to be the first Cal fan to say "I told you so" if SD does not succeed. I would rather bet on the come line, but then my glass is usually half full, until I drink too much.....

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This would make sense had I not stumbled upon this somewhat innocently in the context of following up on another thread recently posted and still active expressing concern about the number of scholarships we have available for the 2014 class. I was asked in the course of that thread to weigh in on where our offers should go, assuming the worst case scenario that we would be limited to around 10 scholarships due to an extremely low # of seniors on scholarship.

As a result, I decided to research the issue further to see where our offers actually are going. The information I found made me think that a pattern may be developing that is somewhat unprecedented at Cal. That pattern reflects a bias that placed the position of WR way above other positions, even positions of need. I felt I could not do justice to the topic via the original thread but decided to start a new one.

But to call me a bucket of cold water is to accuse the canary in the coal mine of being the poison that it died by.

Despite the confidence with which you convey your thoughts, I have to say you are dead wrong about my feelings towards Dykes. It is not a black and white issue. You can have a good friend but still be worried about him. I really like Dykes and trust him. But I don't trust him as much as I did. I am a little concerned that the bias toward WRs goes a little beyond what is necessary for success at Cal and could actually harm the defense. By no means do I think he is an idiot, even if it proves over time that my concerns were founded.

This whole thread probably would have gone slightly better had I posted the names of the recruits I would like to see get offers and gently ask why they have not been given offers. The time that Dykes has had at Cal is not an issue since it is what he has done that concerns me not what hasn't done. For example, over 15 WR/TE offers have been made while only 5 offers for safety. And he put incoming walk-on Griffin Piatt out of Campolindo at WR when he also plays safety. They are concerns to me. But I don't think the sky is falling and there may end up being some good explainations for these things. For example, maybe the recruiting team recruiting WRs got an early start and the DB recruiting team was on vacation and will pick it when they get back. I don't know. That is why I posted the thread because I don't know and I hoped someone would/could fill me in and allay my concerns. Instead I was met with a good deal of the usual stuff that contaminates this board; accusations, defensiveness, rudeness, and blatant mischaracterizations. The good news is that I half expected it and am used to it. And I think it is appropriate to be frustrated with stories that are somewhat premature.

The OP has attempted to deflect all rational replies ("to accuse the canary in the coal mine of being the poison that it died by" is my personal fave), so I'll just say that this poster thrives on much ado about nothing. This isn't the first time and it won't be the last.

heartofthebear;842107556 said:

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It may be early but not too early for the following:

1.Louisiana Tech finishes near the bottom of D-1 in points allowed

2.No safety recruited leaving Cal with a total of 5 safetys and only 2 proven players at the position.

3. Puts incoming walk-on early enrollee, rated a 3 star safety before coming to Cal, on offense.

4. Allows Willis to move to WR because he is a better WR than DB.

5. Tells early 2014 commit Koa Farmer, a safety, he would consider allowing him to play offense as well.

6. Sends over 10 offers to WRs accross the country, including some that little to no interest in Cal.

7. Sends only 4 offers to safetys despite the fact that some safetys list Cal as a desired school but don't have an offer.

8. Has over 10 walk-on WRs on offense for spring practice making 17 the total WRs, not including the TEs, FBs, incoming freshmen and converts. Our DB roster is at 12, will be 15 in the fall. But nowhere near the talent at WR.

9. Not a single conversion to DB, even though Jefferson played some DB in HS.

I don't need to be chicken little to see that a good HC is not an "offensive minded" coach or a defensive minded coach. There are coorfdinators for that. He should be a winning minded coach and should know that both sides of the ball need to be successful to win in the Pac-12. Offensive football is entertaining and will sell tickets for a while, unless it starts to look like a circus and we lose a lot. Most of the lower D-1 conferences play this brand of football. Not many of them end up as national title contenders. Boise St., TCU and Utah were BCS busters because they could play defense as well.

Don't get me wrong, I am very excited to be getting back to passing the football at Cal, something that I looked forward to as a kid during the 70s when White and Theder were mentoring QBs. So, I hope things change. But so far 9 different things have happened under Dykes that all point to an imbalance. And, if true, it will soon be all of you whining about Dykes more than it will be me.

What concerns me is I see a conference that is getting ever tougher to win. When Tedford started he was one of the better HCs in the conference. Now the conference is chock full of great coaches. Now, even a ridiculously talent laden program like $C can't win the conference. Now we have 4 or 5 teams capable of winning the conference ever year, and that is just from the north division. Each year there is one less push-over team in the conference. Pretty soon, WSU and even Colorado will no longer be doormats either. We used to blow out WSU by great margins but our average score over the last 3 years has been 27 to 12 (or 2 TDs). 27 points as an average against a no defense team like WSU for 3 years?! We go to Colorado this year. The last time we went our D gave up almost 300 yards of receiving to one guy and it took OT to squeek out a victory. Guess what, that guy, Paul Richardson is still playing WR for Colorado. How are our DBs going to handle the altitude if the don't have the depth to rotate players? Just saying that we can't afford to be anything less than great on both sides. We can't stengthen one side at the expense of the other.

As regards UCLA, I realize that they have always recruited well. My comment is based on what I uncovered this year, which is above and beyond what hapened before. Clearly Mora is being very aggressive about getting the Bruin brand out to highly regarded recruits, even when the position they play is already stocked 3 deep at UCLA. 9 offers out to top CBs when they just signed a great CB class for the 2nd year in a row.

Edit: The bottom line is this. If you set the table and only put out spoons, all you are going to be doing is eating soup for dinner. If all you had before was forks and salad, soup sounds great. But eventually you will get tired of that too and wish you had salad again. Why can't we have soup and salad? We are never going to be eating like the familys at Stanford, Oregon and USC if we can't think big enough to understand what is really going to satisfy our hunger. Mora recruits both defense and offense. He recruits every position like he expects to be king of the pac-12 some day. And he is getting close. Harbaugh did the same thing for Stanford. Kelly did it at Oregon. Sark, as much as you love to hate him, is at least trying to do that in Seattle. Regardless of what side of the ball they came from, as HC they have been relentless in getting quality on both sides of the ball. That is all I'm asking for. If our identity revolves around 1 position (WR) then we are going to be a joke to others in the conference.

I trust Dykes understands this but I thought I would post some early concerns now instead of waiting until it is too late.

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I have a lot more sympathy for your concerns than the argument you make in support of them or the code red mentality you seem to be taking toward them. Now, I guess adding a little unbridled pessimism to the unchallenged and unthinking optimism that has been pretty rampant is not bad, but repeated long posts of bad statistics and speculation that doesn't really follow isn't really helping the argument.

Why do I have sympathy for your concerns? I agree completely with your premise that we need to excel in all phases of the game. We hired a coach who is known for offense. That is worth some wait and see type of concern.

But in terms of demonstrating ACTUAL behavior, you are just piling numerous tenuous arguments on top of each other and seeming to think that sheer volume adds up to a conclusion:

1. La Tech finishing last one year - As I have been trying to get people who seem convinced that Dykes is an unstoppable offensive genius to look beyond one year of results to six years of results that DO NOT support the conclusion that we can expect years of dominant offenses, I feel I must in turn defend Dykes against drawing a conclusion about the defense based on one year. The year before they were 36th in defense which to me is pretty respectable in an offensive minded conference. Be fair and tell the whole story. I'm also not sure how relevant it is. He IS an offensive coach, so he relies on his defensive coordinator - Cal has a completely different set of defensive coaches.

2. How many proven wide receivers do you count? I count 2 for 4 positions. Yes we have more prospects at WR, but wide receiver IS more fundamental to our success than safety. As for recruiting more safeties, maybe he didn't see quality players at the position that late in the recruiting cycle.

3-4. Big deal. 2 personnel decisions. Maybe they are just better there.

5. Yeah, and we told SQT he could have a shot at WR also. That lasted about zero minutes. If guys want to take a shot at a position you give it to them. Generally they will see where they belong.

6 and 7. I get that you were motivated to look up info on offers. I was similarly motivated to look up his past offensive stats and definitely came out scratching my head about the conclusions that have been drawn. But what I looked up was solid, verifiable data. You don't seem to understand how poor the data you are citing is. I'm sure you did a great job looking through all the sources, but the sources stink. As far as we know, Dykes could have 35 offers out to safeties. I would also point out that UCLA's offer numbers are always overemphasized because recruiting reporters simply ask about them a lot more frequently. But bottom line is, offers do not equal recruiting anyway. It is way too early to draw any conclusions whatsoever about what Dykes is emphasizing in recruiting. I'd also say to you, we are not going to have a class of 10.

8. Sorry, but the number of walkons at various positions means extremely little.

9. Jefferson is not a DB. Anyone else you think should convert?

And I'm sorry, "the whole conference is getting better" argument is the hallmark of the pessimist and is made EVERY year. It can't possibly be always true. I'm not sure why you've became terrified of WSU and CU who don't show any signs of doing anything, but I find your argument regarding WSU amusing. 1. I'm not really concerned that we have ONLY averaged 15 point victories. 2. Seems like if you are concerned about us only scoring 27 a game against them, you might want an offensive coach. 3. The stat is hogwash when you look at the underlying games. 2 of those games were on the road at two of our lowest points in years. Brock Mansion beat them by 7 when he couldn't move the offense AT ALL against anybody. Last year, we got our last victory, easily by 15, on the road, against the mighty Mike Leach, being ahead 21 points in the fourth quarter. WSU should be ashamed not to have won both of those games, let alone neither. As for the third game, were you at that game? We were ahead 30 - 0 in the third quarter when two things happened almost at the same time. Our starting QB (who played well that day) got injured and the persistent showers turned into a downpour. Cal packed it in. WSU scored one touchdown on a short field after a fumble.

Again, I share your concerns. But there is really no indication whether they will prove to be valid, and there won't be until at least we get into the season, and later for recruiting purposes. The long dissertations setting out all the "evidence" that Dykes has the wrong approach is not timely at this point. Next year, at this time, maybe. I'm happy to point out some of the fantasies about Dykes past performance, but the guy deserves a season before we enumerate all the ways he's doing everything wrong.