With all the talk of him going to the nfl as an OC, I'm starting to miss the guy. He gave us a renovated stadium and new facilities, we gave him one year.

I don't know if he would have turned the program around after the fiasco, but maybe he deserved a shot. It sounded like he was willing to make some changes.

I just know we won't produce the NFL players like we did with him anymore. When cal was bad, at least we had all the past bears to root for in the nfl.

I hope Dykes can turn things around. He has only got one more year to do so.

FrankBear21;842253023 said:

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With all the talk of him going to the nfl as an OC, I'm starting to miss the guy. He gave us a renovated stadium and new facilities, we gave him one year.

I don't know if he would have turned the program around after the fiasco, but maybe he deserved a shot. It sounded like he was willing to make some changes.

I just know we won't produce the NFL players like we did with him anymore. When cal was bad, at least we had all the past bears to root for in the nfl.

I hope Dykes can turn things around. He has only got one more year to do so.

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I think most posters here really like and miss Tedford. But I would be prepared to get a lot of flack on this site for suggesting that we mistreated him and only gave him one year. Tedford is a great coach and a Cal legend, but he was in a rut and his firing at Cal, if anything, came a year late.

Not me. My opinion, sonny wil have two more years to get us going forward.

Miss him? No. It's good he's gone and it has nothing to do with Dykes

I thought firing JT was the right thing to do at the time, but now I am not so sure. JT had lost his way in the last few years and was being pretty stubborn and more withdrawn. Could he have bounced out of it? I don't know but I miss going to bowl games and winning Big Game.

FrankBear21;842253023 said:

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With all the talk of him going to the nfl as an OC, I'm starting to miss the guy. He gave us a renovated stadium and new facilities, we gave him one year.

I don't know if he would have turned the program around after the fiasco, but maybe he deserved a shot. It sounded like he was willing to make some changes.

I just know we won't produce the NFL players like we did with him anymore. When cal was bad, at least we had all the past bears to root for in the nfl.

I hope Dykes can turn things around. He has only got one more year to do so.

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Tedford didn't seem to acknowledge any mistakes. He blamed injuries.

He also tried to make dramatic changes during nearly every offseason, including after the 2007 debacle.

I do miss the early Tedford era. Who doesn't?

But his last year made clear he wasn't doing basic coaching, the fundamentals that would've won us a few more games.

He was totally oblivious.

GB54;842253038 said:

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Miss him? No. It's good he's gone and it has nothing to do with Dykes

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Yes, good riddance.

If Dykes wins a Holiday Bowl he will have already almost matched Tedford's legacy at Cal. And I'm talking about the "good" legacy.

From 6 years ago:
http://calgoldenbearfootball.blogspot.com/2008/07/contra-costa-times-cals-tedford.html

Quote:

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Cal begins training camp for the 2008 football season in less than three weeks, and when the Bears take the Memorial Stadium field for their first practice on Aug. 4, they hope they've shored up the deficiency in intangibles that plagued them during the second half of last year.

Along with their usual strength and conditioning program, Cal has spent a lot of the offseason focusing on non-football issues such as leadership, discipline and commitment. To that end, coach Jeff Tedford employed the book "Talent is Never Enough" by leadership guru John Maxwell as a teaching tool, having each of his assistant coaches break down a chapter in a classroom setting.

"I started reading it and I found myself highlighting half of pages, or full pages. It was so relevant to what our situation was," Tedford said. "I felt like we needed to spend time on a lot of the things in the book and go back and redefine who we are. There were a lot of things that we needed to hear as a football program."

Maxwell, who has written several successful books on leadership, argues that simple talent will never translate into success unless other factors related to character and attitude are strong as well. In "Talent is Never Enough," Maxwell has chapters on belief, passion, initiative, focus, preparation, practice, perseverance, courage, teachability, character, relationships, responsibility and teamwork. Last season, few questioned the Bears had talent. That showed when they started 5-0 and ascended to No. 2 in the national rankings. But it also became clear that the talent wasn't enough when they lost six of their final seven regular-season games. "It's like the whole book was written for us," Cal center Alex Mack said. "It was odd to see us so talented and not doing well last year. I think it did a good job helping us redefine the culture of our team. It reminded us what goes into winning games. I think that kind of got away from us last season."

By the end of last season, most involved with Cal's program could see the team was lacking in such things as leadership, passion and trust. It resulted in a stunning collapse during the second half of the season that left college football observers across the country dumbfounded.

In his chapter on teamwork, Maxwell demonstrates the importance of some of these intangibles. He argues that teams don't simply come together on their own; that they require leadership to do so. He also claims that the more talented a team is, the more leadership is needed.

"I think every player got something out of this," Cal linebacker Zack Follett said. "I knew right from the beginning by seeing the looks on their faces. Everyone was paying attention and there was a lot of talk about it around the team." Tedford joked that he rarely received a book in the mail offering help during his first five years at Cal. After last season, "I had 15 books stacked up in my mailbox," he said. "Talent is Never Enough," actually was a gift from athletic director Sandy Barbour, who gave a copy of the book to each coach in the athletic department. "I just chose to put that one in my bag," Tedford said. "I got on a plane and started reading it, and there were just so many great things that I thought would be beneficial."

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battered wife syndrome is rampant around here.

Whatever his shortcomings the last few years, I actually thought that our fundamentals were always sound. That was why our WRs, RBs, Lineman, etc., had a high draft rate.

The struggles to me seemed primarily do to bad talent evaluations at the OL position, combined with a string of misses at the QB position post Riley. I think there were 3 years straight of bad QB evaluations - Bridgford, Sweeney and Mansion (in reverse order). That in itself can kill a program. While I think the staff was remedying that situation in Tedford's last two years with kline and Goff, and improved OL recruiting, we will never know, and I understand there is still some debate regarding the last two years of OL recruits.

I know there is also some debate about Cal offensive identity from 2010-2012, so I am interested in what sort of offense he runs in the NFL, assuming that rumour is true. (Heard Mike Silver confirm the rumor on the NFL network last night). Although in the NFL, the players have a lot of time to study the playbook, so a complex offense that provides lot of looks, both pro-set and spread, will be easier to use than in College. In fact, it seems to me that lots of NFL offenses do exactly what Tedford was trying to do at CAL, which is combine elements of Pro-style with spread elements, or spread plays mixed in.

Looperbear;842253039 said:

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I thought firing JT was the right thing to do at the time, but now I am not so sure. JT had lost his way in the last few years and was being pretty stubborn and more withdrawn. Could he have bounced out of it? I don't know but I miss going to bowl games and winning Big Game.

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This is exactly how I feel. I mean, we were playing Texas in the holiday bowl the year before he got fired.

FrankBear21;842253054 said:

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This is exactly how I feel. I mean, we were playing Texas in the holiday bowl the year before he got fired.

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We were a 7-5 team playing a 7-5 team.

BobbyG is tearfully busy crafting a very long homage at this very moment.

Jeff Tedford had become formulaic. Even I, sitting in the stands, could accurately predict his next move. We saw it in the tOSU game where he continued going for field goals when the team was within a yard or two from a first down and continuing their run to the end zone. A player like Goff, with enormous talent, wouldn't see the field for a minimum of two years. He was rigid and stubborn to a fault.

He recruited well without Lupoi and with Lupoi. He made a couple of poor choices in his travels to Australia to get a punter who pretty much cost us the SC game in 2004; he went to Mullen High to get Alex Logan who cost us the tOSU game and certainly wasn't the answer in the defensive backfield. But he and Ron Gould and Jim Michalzic put players in the NFL.

Finally, I don't believe he completely abandoned recruiting in his last years. Tosh certainly was instrumental in bringing in some of the talent, but Tedford was the closer. Parents found in him a degree of trust. Unfortunately, that trust didn't follow through when it came to graduating players, but some of that must fall on the players themselves. He was a benevolent father-figure to the players - a player's coach. A good guy and a poor disciplinarian.

It was time for him to go in 2012. His era was past.

HaasBear04;842253047 said:

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battered wife syndrome is rampant around here.

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He beat me but we always had a banquet at the end of the year to celebrate

okaydo;842253045 said:

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From 6 years ago:
http://calgoldenbearfootball.blogspot.com/2008/07/contra-costa-times-cals-tedford.html

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Funny. I've only been around a few people in my life who I'd consider to be good leaders. None of them became good leaders by reading a book on leadership. It is a fascinating topic but I think good leaders have the genetics and something in their upbringing that make them good leaders. I'd venture that very few if any good leaders got that way by studying the topic in books. With that said I think Tedford was a very good leader early on and then started to doubt his abilities in seemingly all coaching areas.

This is only the opinion of someone who is an admittedly average leader (my kids are sorry to hear me say).

OskiMD;842253043 said:

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Yes, good riddance.

If Dykes wins a Holiday Bowl he will have already almost matched Tedford's legacy at Cal. And I'm talking about the "good" legacy.

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Dykes will be lucky to win 3 games next year, let alone win the 8 or 9 required to get to the holiday bowl. wait til his shoddy recruiting catches up with us in a year or two. think the cupboard is empty now. Dykes will be lucky to live up to Tedford's bad years of winning 5-7 games.

a move had to be made, but hiring Dykes and his band of used car salesmen wasnt the right move

okaydo;842253040 said:

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Tedford didn't seem to acknowledge any mistakes. He blamed injuries.

He also tried to make dramatic changes during nearly every offseason, including after the 2007 debacle.

I do miss the early Tedford era. Who doesn't?

But his last year made clear he wasn't doing basic coaching, the fundamentals that would've won us a few more games.

He was totally oblivious.

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Totally agree.

It was time for Tedford to go. The team and the program (including the academic situation) was in complete disarray.

He did indeed take Cal Football out of the cellar after Holmoe had dismantled it, and was the main man behind the stadium and facility renovations.

For that, he deserves nothing but respect from all Cal Football fans.

But even the great Pappy Waldorf had begun to wear out his welcome after his first five phenomenal seasons as head coach, and finished his last two years at Cal with a 5-14-1 record . Not that I'm comparing JT to Pappy, because Waldorf took the Bears to three Rose Bowls vs zero for Tedford. The point being we needed to make a change when we did.

I think the real question is - did we replace him with the right man? :confused:

okaydo;842253055 said:

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We were a 7-5 team playing a 7-5 team.

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In the 20 years leading up to JT, 7-5 was a better season than all but 3 (1 Gilby, 2 Snyder), and we won't be seeing 7-5 again any time soon.

I don't miss Tedford's APR.

Looperbear;842253039 said:

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I thought firing JT was the right thing to do at the time, but now I am not so sure. JT had lost his way in the last few years and was being pretty stubborn and more withdrawn. Could he have bounced out of it? I don't know but I miss going to bowl games and winning Big Game.

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Toward the end, Tedford had become an expert at losing the Big Game.

82gradDLSdad;842253062 said:

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Funny. I've only been around a few people in my life who I'd consider to be good leaders. None of them became good leaders by reading a book on leadership. It is a fascinating topic but I think good leaders have the genetics and something in their upbringing that make them good leaders. I'd venture that very few if any good leaders got that way by studying the topic in books. With that said I think Tedford was a very good leader early on and then started to doubt his abilities in seemingly all coaching areas.

This is only the opinion of someone who is an admittedly average leader (my kids are sorry to hear me say).

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I disagree somewhat about the value about reading about leadership. Clinton, Churchill, Eisenhower, MacArthur, JFK, Phil Jackson, all read extensively about leadership prior to becoming leaders.

I agree with your conclusion about JT starting off as a good leader and then tailing off. I think he got absorbed with X's and O's and forgot the human element of leading men. He was a great game planner--which is why SD's team is so frustrating, our game plans sucked--but wasn't good with clock management or thinking on his feet and in later years his ingame adjustments often were lacking.

Some of us may miss winning more than Tedford. I really hope for his sake he stays as a coordinator because from this angle it appeared that he was a workaholic that couldn't balance life and head coaching.

stivo;842253028 said:

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I think most posters here really like and miss Tedford. But I would be prepared to get a lot of flack on this site for suggesting that we mistreated him and only gave him one year. Tedford is a great coach and a Cal legend, but he was in a rut and his firing at Cal, if anything, came a year late.

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Generally agree with this but I believe the one year argument is that he only got one year with new facilities so couldn't really reap the benefits of it.

chazzed;842253080 said:

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Toward the end, Tedford had become an expert at losing the Big Game.

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When he refused to replace Longshore with Riley in the 2007 BG at stanfurd he lost me. Had Riley played even the 4th quarter, Cal would have won that game. But JT was stubborn to the end and refused to bring in Riley.

chazzed;842253080 said:

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Toward the end, Tedford had become an expert at losing the Big Game.

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63-13.

If Tedford was the expert, what the heck do we have now?

Tedhead94;842253088 said:

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63-13.

If Tedford was the expert, what the heck do we have now?

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Dykes isn't the issue at hand, though. His reckoning will come in the next year or two.

Tedhead94;842253088 said:

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If Tedford was the expert, what the heck do we have now?

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His understudy.

So you were done with Tedford in 2007???

Riley played in the next game, the Armed Forces Bowl. Hate to break it to you, as evidenced by Dykes, most coaches are stubborn when it comes to pulling the QB. Not just Tedford, and not just when you are replacing your veteran with a freshman like with Riley. . . and after seeing said freshman run with the ball a few weeks before with no TOs.

There's lots of good reasons and times to have jumped ship, but yours seems a bit premature, imo.

GivemTheAxe;842253087 said:

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When he refused to replace Longshore with Riley in the 2007 BG at stanfurd he lost me. Had Riley played even the 4th quarter, Cal would have won that game. But JT was stubborn to the end and refused to bring in Riley.

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I think that the game was mostly lost by one of our receivers (his name escapes me right now), actually. I agree that he should have used a shorter leash with Longshore several times in 2007, but Nate didn't lose that Big Game for us. In fact, he threw two should-have-been TDs but the aforementioned WR dropped both of them near the end zone. If he catches either one, we tie the game and I like our chances in OT.

Tedhead94;842253094 said:

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So you were done with Tedford in 2007???

Riley played in the next game, the Armed Forces Bowl. Hate to break it to you, as evidenced by Dykes, most coaches are stubborn when it comes to pulling the QB. Not just Tedford, and not just when you are replacing your veteran with a freshman like with Riley. . . and after seeing said freshman run with the ball a few weeks before with no TOs.

There's lots of good reasons and times to have jumped ship, but yours seems a bit premature, imo.

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No, I wasn't. Please don't put words in my mouth and read my reply right above this one for more clarification. I'm not one to always blame the head coach.

GB54;842253038 said:

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Miss him? No. It's good he's gone and it has nothing to do with Dykes

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+1

Yes (comparing http://www.sfgate.com/collegesports/article/Tedford-s-tenure-the-highs-and-lows-4055586.php#photo-3769932 and



with "Daniel Dykes' one year at Cal includes eleven losses (including 10 double-digit losses), one victory (against FCS Portland State in Berkeley), and zero wins against FBS opponents. That year also includes a number of transfers leaving the team, the hiring of Andy Buh, an unidentified player suspended for a locker room altercation, a team visit by a sports psychologist, appearances in ESPN.com's Bottom 10 list, et al.").

Some of you guys don't get that keeping Tedford was not an option. In the eyes of the administration he was a dead man.

chazzed;842253089 said:

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Dykes isn't the issue at hand, though. His reckoning will come in the next year or two.

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I think JT was something like 7-4 in Big Games, which I think is the best record of any coach in the modern era, including 2 wins v. Harbaugh. I really liked Snyder but he was 0-4-1 in Big Games v. sub-.500 coaches.

JT had just 2 losing seasons and 9 winning ones. I'm now pretty skeptical that SB is going to hire someone who will be as successful as early JT so I am having second thoughts about the decision to fire him, particularly giving the cost of the buyouts.