wanderlust;842265327 said:

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That's pretty much where I'm at as well. A D that makes our 2nd halves matter

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I don't think Nick Saban could've gotten more out of that unit last year. Buh (though I do believe that he's under qualified) was unfairly vilified. Hopefully, last year results will lead to a more dynamic D coaching staff that can game plan and recruit.

slobear;842265330 said:

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Maybe this will cheer you up (or maybe you'd just rather complain like most people here):

From Wikipedia on Art Kaufman:

Kaufman inherited a Red Raider defense ranked 114 out of 120 in total defense, and last in the country in rushing defense.[8] In the opening game of the 2012 season against the Northwestern State Demons, Kaufman's defense set a school record of only 84 yards allowed.[9] After the third game versus the New Mexico Lobos, the Red Raiders were 2nd in total defense in the country.[10] Following a bye the week of September 22, the Red Raiders rose to number 1 in total defense.[11] The Red Raiders maintained their number 1 ranking after a Week 5 defeat of their first Big 12 conference opponent, the Iowa State Cyclones. Kaufman's defense held the Cyclones to 189 yards of total offense.[12] Following this performance, Kaufman was named by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as the frontrunner for the Broyles Award.[13]

After a loss at home to the 14th ranked Oklahoma Sooners and an upset victory over 5th ranked West Virginia Mountaineers, Kaufman's defense ranked 4th in total yards allowed.[14] In the upset victory over West Virginia, the Red Raiders held Heisman Trophy-frontrunner Geno Smith to 275 yards, a passing efficiency rating of 100.71, and one touchdown pass.[15] The win marked the most lopsided victory over a top-5 opponent in school history, and marked the debut of the Red Raiders in the BCS rankings at number 17. Kaufman was again praised for the performance of the defense, with Bruce Feldman of CBS Sports also naming him as the frontrunner for the Broyles Award.[16]

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Someone tell me why he wants the Cal job or that other schools haven't gone all out for him? Honest question

I've read that. I didn't watch their D play, so I coukdnt say if that 114th ranked D was underachieving.

You see this as complaining, I don't. I'm stating what I see as a reality. Some disagree, so were bantering. I guess you could say I'm complaining about other people not "getting" it.

If I didn't see with my own eyes how we were outmatched individually and as a unit last year, and just saw the box scores, I'd be more optimistic that a DC could do a 180. And being decent on offense would help our D's overall #s independent of talent/coaching

tommie317;842265334 said:

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Someone tell me why he wants the Cal job or that other schools haven't gone all out for him? Honest question

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Because most other teams already have a DC...

tommie317;842265334 said:

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Someone tell me why he wants the Cal job or that other schools haven't gone all out for him? Honest question

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sonny probably has more pull in the coaching community than what we give him credit for especially in the south. his dad goes back a long ways

NYCGOBEARS;842265333 said:

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I don't think Nick Saban could've gotten more out of that unit last year. Buh (though I do believe that he's under qualified) was unfairly vilified. Hopefully, last year results will lead to a more dynamic D coaching staff that can game plan and recruit.

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Again, we are on the same page

NYCGOBEARS;842265256 said:

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With him in there, could anyone else fit?

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Nope. just him.

gobears725;842265338 said:

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sonny probably has more pull in the coaching community than what we give him credit for especially in the south. his dad goes back a long ways

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I don't think his PULL or his dad matter IMO. I think simply: Kaufman is unemploymed, and has a chance to rebound with a BCS conference gig with a pay raise. Seems like a win win, especially when you just got canned. Cal is a better job than Cincy (and better pay), current states of the respective programs not withstanding

wanderlust;842265335 said:

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I've read that. I didn't watch their D play, so I coukdnt say if that 114th ranked D was underachieving.

You see this as complaining, I don't. I'm stating what I see as a reality. Some disagree, so were bantering. I guess you could say I'm complaining about other people not "getting" it.

If I didn't see with my own eyes how we were outmatched individually and as a unit last year, and just saw the box scores, I'd be more optimistic that a DC could do a 180. And being decent on offense would help our D's overall #s independent of talent/coaching

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some of the things buh said and did last year indicates that he was kind of clueless. early in the season buh said it was crazy to let the DEs get up field to rush the qb. the way we'd always get caught in bad matchups in the passing game indicates that he was always a step behind. single covering montgomery the entire big game. we may not have top end talent but it was also obvious buh put them in some pretty bad situations. having a coach that at least puts them where theyre supposed to be should at least give them a chance

gobears725;842265346 said:

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some of the things buh said and did last year indicates that he was kind of clueless. early in the season buh said it was crazy to let the DEs get up field to rush the qb. the way we'd always get caught in bad matchups in the passing game indicates that he was always a step behind. single covering montgomery the entire big game. we may not have top end talent but it was also obvious buh put them in some pretty bad situations. having a coach that at least puts them where theyre supposed to be should at least give them a chance

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I agree with everything you said here. It's exactly my perspective on Buh. When he spoke, it wreaked incompetence. And his strategy/philosophy showed to be so counterintuitive that laymen could see in the play calling that this guy seemingly had no clue.

I never saw a team with less pass rush ever. And you could tell the linemen weren't really trying to rush upfield. Frustrating

wanderlust;842265340 said:

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Again, we are on the same page

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Both of you are being too kind to the coaching staff. In 2013, we had the worst defense in the history of Cal football and the third worst in the history of the conference. No matter what you think about the talent, we had way better talent than those results. It is 100% on coaching. Coaching is the difference in college sports and the defense last year essentially had none.

MoragaBear;842265355 said:

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LOL @ people that think they aren't going to see a totally different defense next year with a better DC, better DB coach, Scarlett, Sina and 2 stud JC's in Kelly and Johnson starting on the DL, Jefferson returning as a junior and promising frosh Barton back as a soph along with a more experienced Nickerson, Atoe in as a nickel lb/s, hopefully Forbes back in some capacity (we'll see), stud frosh Downs who will likely play and McClure and Sebastian back after missing most of the season and frosh db's like Wills, Walker, Dozier and Drew back with more experience and Allensworth ready to step in, along with frosh Farmer, most likely.

If the hirings get finalized as they're supposed to, if this defense doesn't move up at least 30-40 spots in the overall rankings, I'll eat my hat.

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I don't think any of those players showed they are any good except Forbes, Avery, Scarlett. Mcclure was good 3 years ago, has been awful since coming back. Maybe with a pass rush, our DBs won't get so exposed.

More importantly, what was it about Buh to you showed he wasn't very good.

And, where shoukd last year's unit should have ranked nationally and in the Pac if they were playing to potential. I don't exaggerate when I say we were the least talented unit in conference and one of the worst in the country.

I thought we were going to see a totally different team this year (2013 season) and I could give you a laundry list of reasons from Sonny's last season at LaTech to all the talent we had. And we did look like a different team... completely in the opposite direction. Remember in August when most people were predicting 5-7 wins?

I'm cautious where we end up next year no matter who's hired at DC given the depth we've lost. In any given year, we will have injuries. Who will fill those spots on our team?

Perhaps some posters have over rotated in the opposite direction but you can't really blame them for it. Heck I mention that WSU and Colorado are beatable teams and people look at me like in smoking crack. There's really no way of knowing whether we'll be better or worse next year (or the same). The only silver lining is that it's hard to see how things could get worse from here.

HKBear97;842265357 said:

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Both of you are being too kind to the coaching staff. In 2013, we had the worst defense in the history of Cal football and the third worst in the history of the conference. No matter what you think about the talent, we had way better talent than those results. It is 100% on coaching. Coaching is the difference in college sports and the defense last year essentially had none.

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I do.t get caught up in rankings. Nobody is excusing the staff. But 100% coaching? In what field is this actually true? NONE. it was a perfect storm of talent, depth, injuries, coaching, and competition and schedule, and offense, that led to the 120 ranking. But how can you say our unit warranted being a madiocre D?

I won't argue that we didn't underachieve. But we were bad, very bad and no coach could have changed that. It wasn't supposed to be that bad. But injuries and coaching exacerbated it

What kind of ethnicity is Duane akina? He looks white to me.

wanderlust;842265314 said:

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Do you honestly believe Cal had the kind of personnel they had. Half our unit should not have seen the field, let alone start or get considerable minutes. Good coaching would have made us more like 100 out of 120, rather than 2nd to last

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wanderlust;842265335 said:

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If I didn't see with my own eyes how we were outmatched individually and as a unit last year, and just saw the box scores, I'd be more optimistic that a DC could do a 180. And being decent on offense would help our D's overall #s independent of talent/coaching

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I agree completely that we lacked the horses to be competitive in the conference on defense. We were at best the 7th most talented team in the Pac 12 on that side of the ball, and that was only when fully healthy... I also agree that even a great coach wouldn't have improved us much.

What I don't get is why you are dumping on a potential hire for doing very well with players who had seriously underperformed the year before his arrival. It makes far more logical sense to conclude that he was able to improve the play of the defense in that one year than to postulate that Tech somehow became loaded with talent that offseason.

It's fair to say we are a ways away from a better than average defense. It's equally fair to think that Kaufman would be able to get better production from our squad, based on what he did at Tech.

wanderlust;842265363 said:

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I do.t get caught up in rankings. Nobody is excusing the staff. But 100% coaching? In what field is this actually true? NONE. it was a perfect storm of talent, depth, injuries, coaching, and competition and schedule, and offense, that led to the 120 ranking. But how can you say our unit warranted being a madiocre D?

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For coaching, you need look no farther than Tedford's first season turnaround. To say Saban couldn't have done better? Not sure how to respond to that. Someone of his caliber absolutely would have done better.

Other posters on here have already debunked the strength of schedule, injuries and youth excuses.

As to why they wouldn't be mediocre, I would point to their rankings out of high school and that many were coveted by our opponents. We'll see where some of these guys get drafted. More importantly, if we do in fact hire as good of a DC as we hope, I'm sure we'll see improvement.

At the heart of it, I wonder if you watched the games and determined issues came from speed and failure to adjust. I would posit that due to coaching and instruction, the players were out of position, didn't have the proper technique, spacing and angles which made them look subpar. That's where coaching comes in.

BerlinerBaer;842265369 said:

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What I don't get is why you are dumping on a potential hire for doing very well with players who had seriously underperformed the year before his arrival. It makes far more logical sense to conclude that he was able to improve the play of the defense in that one year that to postulate that Tech somehow became loaded with talent that offseason.

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Where was I dumping on Kaufman or any other candidate? I'm indifferent towards him and some of the others. Some good things (the TT turnaround; history at high profile schools; assistant of the year award etc.) some bad things (he gets around, can't keep a gig very long) but I don't claim to know anything substantive about him or his chops as a coach. I actually think having strong opinioins about guys we know nothing about other than how their teams fared -- which, as I have been saying, is more dependent on talent level than people here seem to be acknowledging -- is like banging your head against a wall. I haven't spoken on any particular candidate thus far; I'm trying to suggest that A) believing that unit ranking = quality of unit coach is to ignore so many fundamental truths about sports and B) many are in denial about the caliber of player that suited up for us last year on D.

MoragaBear;842265355 said:

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LOL @ people that think they aren't going to see a totally different defense next year with a better DC, better DB coach, Scarlett, Sina and 2 stud JC's in Kelly and Johnson starting on the DL, Jefferson returning as a junior and promising frosh Barton back as a soph along with a more experienced Nickerson, Atoe in as a nickel lb/s, hopefully Forbes back in some capacity (we'll see), stud frosh Downs who will likely play and McClure and Sebastian back after missing most of the season and frosh db's like Wills, Walker, Dozier and Drew back with more experience and Allensworth ready to step in, along with frosh Farmer, most likely.

If the hirings get finalized as they're supposed to, if this defense doesn't move up at least 30-40 spots in the overall rankings, I'll eat my hat.

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put some of that speed to use on the defense side of the ball

HKBear97;842265373 said:

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For coaching, you need look no farther than Tedford's first season turnaround. To say Saban couldn't have done better? Not sure how to respond to that. Someone of his caliber absolutely would have done better.

Other posters on here have already debunked the strength of schedule, injuries and youth excuses.

As to why they wouldn't be mediocre, I would point to their rankings out of high school and that many were coveted by our opponents. We'll see where some of these guys get drafted. More importantly, if we do in fact hire as good of a DC as we hope, I'm sure we'll see improvement.

At the heart of it, I wonder if you watched the games and determined issues came from speed and failure to adjust. I would posit that due to coaching and instruction, the players were out of position, didn't have the proper technique, spacing and angles which made them look subpar. That's where coaching comes in.

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maybe I misspoke or you took me too literally. Saban would have made a difference but we still would have been a bad defense, probably still one of the 2 worst Ds in conference. Maybe we're 100 not 120 or something of that sort, but nobody would have mistaken Cal's defense for something respectable. That's what I'm saying.

MoragaBear;842265355 said:

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LOL @ people that think they aren't going to see a totally different defense next year with a better DC, better DB coach, Scarlett, Sina and 2 stud JC's in Kelly and Johnson starting on the DL, Jefferson returning as a junior and promising frosh Barton back as a soph along with a more experienced Nickerson, Atoe in as a nickel lb/s, hopefully Forbes back in some capacity (we'll see), stud frosh Downs who will likely play and McClure and Sebastian back after missing most of the season and frosh db's like Wills, Walker, Dozier and Drew back with more experience and Allensworth ready to step in, along with frosh Farmer, most likely.

If the hirings get finalized as they're supposed to, if this defense doesn't move up at least 30-40 spots in the overall rankings, I'll eat my hat.

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Moving up 30 or 40 spots on D means we will end up ranked 85th to 95th in the country. That is still very mediocre. Cal should be able to do that with the talent level of players we have now and getting relatively healthy alone. Better coaching might get us to 60th overall. Regardless of how much the D improves, the offense has to score more than 23 points a game in order for us to win 4-6 games... If the offense can score over 30 a game we have a chance for real improvement.

SacBear87;842265382 said:

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Moving up 30 or 40 spots on D means we will end up ranked 85th to 95th in the country. That is still very mediocre. Cal should be able to do that with the talent level of players we have now and getting relatively healthy alone. Better coaching might get us to 60th overall. Regardless of how much the D improves, the offense has to score more than 23 points a game in order for us to win 4-6 games... If the offense can score over 30 a game we have a chance for real improvement.

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Auburn was 87th in Total Defense, so improve the offense and Cal could be playing in the Natl Championship Game. :p

SacBear87;842265382 said:

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Moving up 30 or 40 spots on D means we will end up ranked 85th to 95th in the country. That is still very mediocre. Cal should be able to do that with the talent level of players we have now and getting relatively healthy alone. Better coaching might get us to 60th overall. Regardless of how much the D improves, the offense has to score more than 23 points a game in order for us to win 4-6 games... If the offense can score over 30 a game we have a chance for real improvement.

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If we improve 40 spots (not that I think national rankings in pts/yards is the end all be all) our DC should get assistant coach of the year and I'd be thrilled. Our offense improving, by itself, would improve the D's rankings a bit

burritos;842265368 said:

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What kind of ethnicity is Duane akina? He looks white to me.

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his [URL="http://www.hawaiian-roots.com/chinese_4.htm"][U][COLOR="Navy"]surname[/COLOR][/U][/URL] would indicate he's Chinese and native Hawaiian at a minimum and possibly other ethnicities as well as is common here. Should he be hired at Cal, I'd be totally happy for him!

When I say nothing, I mean we still won't be good unless we get impact new comers

calbearo;842265048 said:

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I'm sure there is more info on the insider boards, but I don't have access.

It looks like we are out of it for Walker and I doubt English was a serious candidate, though I would be very happy if we hired him.

Right now, I'm hoping we get Greg Robinson for DC and Marvin Sanders for DB coaches. IMO, those would be solid hires.

Rumors that Art Kaufman is a candidate - that would be very underwhelming. Not quite a re-Buh, but still pretty underwhelming given our situation.

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Kaufman was let go after one year as DC at Cincinnati according to The Bleacher Report and "247 Sports' the premier recruiting site, by HC Tommy Tuberville for poor recruiting. Only one recruit out of the 25 recruits in their current recruiting cycle was directly recruited by Kaufman.
Their embarrassing defeat to a barely bowl eligible team, North Carolina (39-17), in the 2013 Belk Bowl, according to U. of Cincy insiders, played a part in Kaufman's dismissal. It was his third HC job in three years:North Carolina (2011), Texas Tech (2012) and Cincy (2013).

Really 2 jobs, tuberville hated him at TT so much that he brought him to UC.

RDB73;842265398 said:

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Their embarrassing defeat to a barely bowl eligible team, North Carolina (39-17), in the 2013 Belk Bowl, according to U. of Cincy insiders, played a part in Kaufman's dismissal. It was his third HC job in three years:North Carolina (2011), Texas Tech (2012) and Cincy (2013).

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The third job in 3 years (and fourth in four if he's the guy) is a bit misleading. UNC fired their coach after the 2011 season and the new coach, Fedora, didn't retain him so he went to Texas Tech with Tuberville. Tuberville left TTU after 2012 and brought Kauffman with him to Cincy but did let him go this year. It's not like he sucks and was fired in 3 straight years.

I don't get it, if tuberville needed him to be more active in recruiting, why not communicate that? What did art say, no? Isn't it part of a Coordinators job, to spend certain amounts of time recruiting? Dont they get on the same page with the HC when they're hired in regards totime requirements in recruiting?

RDB73;842265398 said:

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Kaufman was let go after one year as DC at Cincinnati according to The Bleacher Report and "247 Sports' the premier recruiting site, by HC Tommy Tuberville for poor recruiting. Only one recruit out of the 25 recruits in their current recruiting cycle was directly recruited by Kaufman.
Their embarrassing defeat to a barely bowl eligible team, North Carolina (39-17), in the 2013 Belk Bowl, according to U. of Cincy insiders,played a part in Kaufman's dismissal. It was his third HC job in three years:North Carolina (2011), Texas Tech (2012) and Cincy (2013).

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Not dismissing all your points, but I jUst refuse to narrowly use team results in a vacuum to characterize a coach/coordinator when factors like personnel, offense success, and quality of opposition are huge factors in measures of total output like yards and points.

His short tenures can't be seen positively though, that's for sure

Is Kaufman a 3-4 or 4-3 guy?

B.A. Bearacus;842265107 said:

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Ok, someone here actually knows who our new coach will be. Without stating his or her name, please give us a clue about who this person is. Thank you.

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cough [indistinguishable noise] cough