socaltownie;842235350 said:

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Beachy -

I think that is probably a decent reconstruction of the facts. But I think that the issue is that IF Sandy was in this position it is the time to go back to the alums and rethink the firing. If we could only afford SD with Tedford having 2+ years on the books and it was a "bad" years to be a buyer then wait. It is a multiyear (multi-decade) kind of decision and you have to get it right.

So.....

A) Sometime around October 31, 2012 Sandy should have understood both the major donor sentiment AND the competitive landscape for coaches. Peterson could have been felt out for the umpteenth time. My own hard on satisfied by approaching Franklin's people to find his interest/price to leave Vandy.

B) After Oregon State 2012, Sandy meets with Tedford. Gets his side of the story/plan. Lets him dangle for a week.

C) Go back to donors. Tell them it will take X to make a major move. Absent X the best thing she can advise is waiting a year.

THAT is what a good AD does. It is about managing multiple stakeholders and managing revenues and outflows. The firing of Tedford in 2012 when this is the best we could do is a fireable offense. Maybe not entirely within her sphere of control and fate of god with the injuries but that is why she makes bank.

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If Sandy kept JT another season, the criticism from the fans would have been absolutely withering. You may think we don't matter, but I'd imagine at least a few big donors have a similar mindset and they were in Sandy's ear starting after the Nevada game.

Sandy obviously caves under pressure, but I see few ADs standing up to the wave of criticism at all levels that would have been directed their way under the circumstances.

Lastly, this is all hindsight. Dykes was considered a strong candidate at the time by most observers and, indeed, by most fans.

I just don't see your scenario as realistic.

Besides, who would we hire this year anyway? Enough folks on this board want Dykes fired AND consider a firing as realistic to have expected some serious names mentioned as candidates. Instead, I haven't seen a single one in any of the "fire Dykes!" threads. Either nobody's bothered to think about it, or maybe the market for a coach is poor this year.

SchadenBear;842235359 said:

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Way to break it down. Firing JT when we did was dumb.

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Uh, NO. Firing that burnt-out, formerly good, coach was a no-brainer.
JT had totally lost it, enough was enough, NO doubt about it.

Actually, regarding the OP, the rumor I heard through several layers of absolutely reliable sources, is that "Peterson" was a pseudonym for Andrei Petroviskivich, a defected former KGB agent who was skilled at getting prisoners to perform in interrogation. His motivational credentials were immaculate. He got the job done.
Unfortunately, "Peterson's" offer was written in ink which would disappear in 48 hours, per his instructions. That, however, was irrelevant since the courier, while dashing from the Wall Street investment bankers, with the mega-mega-million derivative compensation documents, slipped on the streets, dropping the documents near a sewer opening, whereupon it was grabbed and swallowed by a Huge alligator which lives in the NYC sewers.

So, Sandy hired Sonny.

BerlinerBaer;842235387 said:

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If Sandy kept JT another season, the criticism from the fans would have been absolutely withering. You may think we don't matter, but I'd imagine at least a few big donors have a similar mindset and they were in Sandy's ear starting after the Nevada game.

Sandy obviously caves under pressure, but I see few ADs standing up to the wave of criticism at all levels that would have been directed their way under the circumstances.

Lastly, this is all hindsight. Dykes was considered a strong candidate at the time by most observers and, indeed, by most fans.

I just don't see your scenario as realistic.

Besides, who would we hire this year anyway? Enough folks on this board want Dykes fired AND consider a firing as realistic to have expected some serious names mentioned as candidates. Instead, I haven't seen a single one in any of the "fire Dykes!" threads. Either nobody's bothered to think about it, or maybe the market for a coach is poor this year.

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I think the fallacy in these retro analysis is the idea that Sandy thought it was a poor market to hire a coach or couldn't get the one she wanted for $2million. She absolutely got who she wanted

GB54;842235395 said:

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I think the fallacy in these retro analysis is the idea that Sandy thought it was a poor market to hire a coach or couldn't get the one she wanted for $2million. She absolutely got who she wanted

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Well then she should be fired for being dumb. Cause really most observers except the bunker mentality of the coaching fraternity think it was a stupid hire - albeit probably the one we could afford in 2012.

I am NOT defending JT. But there is absolutely no indication that SD is turning things around EXCEPT (perhaps) in respect to APR. It isn't clear that sonny is some extreme academic guru on that account. And even if he is, unless he radically improves next year, the bitching after the Nevada game will in comparison sound like crickets, he will be gone, and we will probably be in a 5-6 rebuilding program because of the huge gapping holes in the recruiting cycle.

Here is how you ACTUALLY do it. Mack Brown is currently getting at LEAST as much fire as Jeff Tedford because...well the expectations at Texas as high. But in all likelihood Texas will be in the market in the same year as U$C, Florida and POSSIBLY Michigan. THAT is a bad market. Unless your number 1 says he WILL be coming you wait, because otherwise you risk a really bad hire.

PS. The interesting question is why Sandy didn't give more consideration to Doeren. I wonder if North Carolina beat her to the punch - cause it is clear both at NC and at NIU that he knows how to actually BUILD things.

socaltownie;842235401 said:

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THAT is a bad market. Unless your number 1 says he WILL be coming you wait, because otherwise you risk a really bad hire.

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... and 2-3 more years of mediocrity.

Thread title is ungood..

SchadenBear;842235403 said:

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... and 2-3 more years of mediocrity.

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Except that Mack Brown isn't THAT bad. The question is where things would stand this year if we had waited. We would have "saved" a year of JT. We might have a better class of second years. We would be in the market at a hard time but it isn't clear to me that there is as "deep" of mid-level buyers this year (it is really top heavy - Florida, USC and then who? West Virginia and Kansas? Take a shot in that market) compared to last year when a BUNCH of mid tiers (North Carolina, CU, Wisconsin, Cal) were all trying to fill slots.

socaltownie;842235401 said:

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Well then she should be fired for being dumb. Cause really most observers except the bunker mentality of the coaching fraternity think it was a stupid hire - albeit probably the one we could afford in 2012.

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If Dykes is a failure then Sandy should be fired, yes. But as 54 just wrote, Dykes was her man and she got him.

Show some sources for your second claim. This was looked upon in the media and by the fan base as a whole as a good hire. Not spectacular, but good.

I think we are misunderstanding ourselves.

I think the Tedford fire was poorly timed.

" Andrei Petroviskivich, a defected former KGB agent"

I would have gone for this guy over the dykester any day of the week..............

SchadenBear;842235416 said:

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I think we are misunderstanding ourselves.

I think the Tedford fire was poorly timed.

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is the truth

BeachyBear;842234798 said:

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Peterson turned Cal down. We went after him hard. I'm not sure why we felt we had a better chance than UCLA or all the other schools that have pursued him, but he didn't take it. We got beat out by Wisconsin for Anderson. There were probably some NFL people available but we decided we wanted a college coach with current experience who would take the job. That left us with Dykes or McIntyre, both of whom looked like about equal quality hires at the time.

And quite frankly, given what we're paying, we wouldn't get better than a middling lower-conference coach for the money.

This is why I find the "fire Sandy because she hired Dykes" argument particularly annoying. We have these unrealistic expectations for success and we're ridiculously cheap on salaries (then Cal fans complain we're paying too much). Not exactly a recipe for success.

Lots of good reasons to fire Sandy. Hiring Dykes isn't one of them.

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I agree that it's unfair to put this on Sandy, but you're still perpetuating the myth that Cal is "ridiculously cheap" on salaries. We have the second highest paid OC and DC in the conference, in a conference that is half in the BCS top 25. What part of that says cheap?

If anything it's folks like you that drive this fatalistic narrative of doom and gloom. Almost every Top 25 coach today came from a middling lower conference. It's how college football works. The important part is hiring the right candidate.

I'm not saying Dykes was a bad choice given what we knew then, but his defensive weaknesses are well documented and the hiring of Buh was a real headscratcher that turned out to become a self fulfilling prophecy. Had Cal lucked into Anderson, a "middling lower conference" by your standards, we would very likely be close to bowl eligible.

socaltownie;842235401 said:

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PS. The interesting question is why Sandy didn't give more consideration to Doeren. I wonder if North Carolina beat her to the punch - cause it is clear both at NC and at NIU that he knows how to actually BUILD things.

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Doeren is at NC State. He's won 3 games and zero conference games. They won 7 games last year.

Darrell Hazell another up and comer who was mentioned as a Cal candidate has won one game at Purdue and zero conference games. They won six games last year.

Both are in Dykes territory.

BerlinerBaer;842235414 said:

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If Dykes is a failure then Sandy should be fired, yes. But as 54 just wrote, Dykes was her man and she got him.

Show some sources for your second claim. This was looked upon in the media and by the fan base as a whole as a good hire. Not spectacular, but good.

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You show sources. Beyond the typical honeymoon of decent press that a smooth salesman can generate, there was mostly just hopeful nervousness among Cal fans. No parades, no exuberance. People trying to subdue the obvious doubts. Assuming people knew he was even available, he wouldn't have made most people's top 8-10.

biely medved;842235590 said:

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You show sources. Beyond the typical honeymoon of decent press that a smooth salesman can generate, there was mostly just hopeful nervousness among Cal fans. No parades, no exuberance. People trying to subdue the obvious doubts. Assuming people knew he was even available, he wouldn't have made most people's top 8-10.

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Media reception was better for the Dykes hire than I recall seeing for other hires like Mora Jr. hire (which was pretty much unknown and ambivalence) and ASU's Todd Graham hire.

socaltownie;842235406 said:

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Except that Mack Brown isn't THAT bad. The question is where things would stand this year if we had waited. We would have "saved" a year of JT. We might have a better class of second years. We would be in the market at a hard time but it isn't clear to me that there is as "deep" of mid-level buyers this year (it is really top heavy - Florida, USC and then who? West Virginia and Kansas? Take a shot in that market) compared to last year when a BUNCH of mid tiers (North Carolina, CU, Wisconsin, Cal) were all trying to fill slots.

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So you're telling me the staffs & HC from Texas, USC, and Florida will all be available? Sounds like a Buyers market to me. Way better than the mid-major market Sandy pigeon holed herself in.

Id love to have Orgeron, or Mack Brown as our HC. But it sounds like we're stuck with Sonny. If Sonny was a smart man he'd be on the horn speaking with these assistants, coordinators and their agents from these staffs, in a proactive manner. Sonny almost needs to be more aggressive in finding a competent staff, than finding new recruits.

Calntheplay;842235608 said:

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So you're telling me the staffs & HC from Texas, USC, and Florida will all be available? Sounds like a Buyers market to me. Way better than the mid-major market Sandy pigeon holed herself in.

Id love to have Orgeron, or Mack Brown as our HC. But it sounds like we're stuck with Sonny. If Sonny was a smart man he'd be on the horn speaking with these assistants, coordinators and their agents from these staffs, in a proactive manner. Sonny almost needs to be more aggressive in finding a competent staff, than finding new recruits.

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Florida and USC will be on the market. Who knows about Texas.

But I am assuming there will be NO changes and we are stuck with this clown show for another year. I hope not 2. I have resigned myself to it.

Calntheplay;842235608 said:

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Id love to have Orgeron, or Mack Brown as our HC.

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I'd rather take the Tree as our mascot than Kneepads Brown as our coach.

BearEatsTacos;842235643 said:

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I'd rather take the Tree as our mascot than Kneepads Brown as our coach.

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I second that.