Looperbear;842310976 said:

---

Then he should STFU and focus on coaching instead of wasting energy coming up with stupid analogies.

---

...judging from the response to his press conferences, it doesn't sound like Sonny is wasting a whole lot of energy on these things. I couldn't care less about a coach's press conference performance, I care about what happens on the field and classroom. We'll see how the season goes and judge from there.

heartofthebear;842311819 said:

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First let me be clear that I am pretty much done defending Dykes as I had during most of his first season. The reasons why I am changing my tone would require another thread.

But here is a list of what Dykes has to deal with that make his job more difficult than JT had when he was first hired.

[LIST=1]

Dykes has to dig Cal out of an academic situation. Yes, JT had one too, but this one is different. This one requires an entire shift in how Cal recruits so that the students don't just survive through their junior year but are capable of completing their degree.

Dykes has to work under SB from the start. SB is a great AD in general, but not so much with regard to football.

Dykes is not his own man when it comes to offense. He is tied to an offensive philosophy that is not timed well for success in the pac-12. Note: This is his fault and the main reason why I no longer can defend him.

Dykes' learning curve is longer than JT's because JT came directly from the pac-12, pac-10 at the time.

There is considerably more $$ and high stakes involved in the conference which often leads to more disparity between schools that try to maintain academic standards for their players (ie Cal) and those that don't (ie ASU).

The NCAA, which is supposed to regulate the above so their isn't a disparity, is so much more bought out by ESPN and other TV folks that they are perfectly willing to ignore what is becoming an increasingly unlevel playing field tilted against schools like Cal.


All of this, which is partly just conjecture on my part, is not to say that Dykes, even without the injury problems, is going to turn it around at Cal.

I think Dykes is very much out of touch himself with what it takes to win at Cal, which is not necessarily the same as what it takes to win other places.

If you look at what Kaufman has done, you can get a blueprint for what works at Cal----SIMPLIFICATION!!

Especially when this generation of football players at Cal have so much academic pressure on them to improve Cal's standing, they do not need exotic and complex schemes that require extra work to perfect.

This was JT's problem. I thought, because I believed the rhetoric coming from Tony Franklin, that the new scheme was going to be easy to perfect. That is not really true.

After more than a year, a very talented WR core, many with good size and strength, can't seem to block effectively. And the OL has to make manuevers akin to a yoga master in order to execute the vertical blocking set. And expecting that Cal can get the same kind of linemen they get in Texas or Kentucky is yet again an example of misapplying what works other places to what needs to happen at Cal.

What needs to happen for Cal to be succcessful is less requirements for execution and more time getting in shape so they can compete with the Oregons and the Stanfords, each of whom have great conditioning programs. This is particularly true of our OLs.

We also need to get high school recruits that want to get beyond their high school system and begin to prepare for what is successful and has been successful in the pros for decades...power football. Despite the fact that the NFL is more pass happy, almost none of them run a TFS type system. And Seattle was and is very much a power run team, using, BTW, a Cal back which was recruited to a power run system at Cal.

The other and bigger problem I have with Dykes is something that many here were concerned with from the start, his lack of defensive focus.

Lost amongst all the drama and injuries last year was the fact that Dykes put Griffin Piatt at WR and flipped Joel Willis to WR from DB. They are now both at DB. But, had he developed them as DBs from the start last spring, last season might have gone a bit better.

The really frustrating thing about this is that he already had plenty of WR/TE players on the roster. Piatt and Willis would have been buried 3 deep. He even did this knowing that Piatt was a legit safety prospect as folks can see now.

Dykes history is largely as a WR coach and imo, that is what he basically still is. His bias towards WRs in recruiting is evidenced by the disparity in offers between that position and others. To say that we need more WRs because of the system just begs the question. If the system requires a large disparity of one position over others, then it is no wonder we are thin at other positions like LB and DT. Despite what Dykes says, the TF system does not need 12 WR/TE. Only about 8 guys got meaningful playing time last year (Rodgers, Harper, Treggs, Lawler, S. Anderson, Grissom, Powe, Bouza). The 3rd string hardly saw the field and, if more guys are needed, the RB unit can be used to supplement as was the case when Bigelow and Muhammed were last year.

So Kev.-- I am not a Dykes defender, but I do think his job is more difficult than some people think. In all honesty, if Chip Kelly, David Shaw and Jim Mora had all coached at Cal as part of the same staff, Cal would not win more than a few games per year. And that is why coaches like that won't come to Cal, because they know what it takes to win and Cal makes that very difficult.

But Dykes has made a difficult job practically impossible by rigidly adhering to his biases despite the evidence. I can't forgive him for that, even though the injuries last year were significant and would have devasted the season under any coach.

---

I really think you are just more aware of the challenges now than you were in JT's time. They both had their unique challenges. I just disagree though with your six points above:

1. Tedford took over with grad rates at about the same level and a long history of grad rates at that level. Also, he was specifically challenged by Gladstone to improve it. AND whether he had to or not, he did what he had to do to get the grad rates into the sixties. If Dykes does that, he is fine. Also, to be clear, I assume that Cal is making the similar requirement that Dykes improve grad rates, but what Cal NEEDS to do is improve APR which is much different and much easier to do. Tedford did not have the APR challenge, though he did have very good APR at the time you are talking about. No question the academic record tanked, but you are talking about what Tedford did at the beginning and I think you would find that if Dykes matches that, everybody would be ecstatic, so his challenge is not greater.

2. Gladstone was the crew coach. Sandy is a much more professional AD. I appreciate what Gladstone did, but mostly he hired JT and established the philosophy that Holmoe style performance is unacceptable. I think if anything Dykes has it better here.

3. You really don't give Dykes enough credit here. Dykes is not tied to Franklin. He is an offensive coordinator in his own right. Franklin is of like mind and yes, his offense has some differences from Dykes, but if Franklin leaves, Dykes will be fine. Dykes IS tied to this offense, but his ties to the offense are based on his own history, not Franklin bringing it to him. He'd be running about the same offense if he never met Franklin. He got the job at LaTech based on his own performance as an OC.

4. I just don't see the learning curve argument. Dykes ran roughly the same offense at UA three years before.

5. There is also APR which may be a joke but at least remotely keeps programs honest. It is much harder to fill your team with illiterates then it was. College football has always been big money. If anything, I believe the gap has been shrinking over the years.

6. You really don't know the history on this one. As big a joke as the NCAA is today, it is far less than it has ever been. The joke was for decades that SC got caught paying players so WSU or Cal or OSU was put on sanctions. The NCAA has always bowed to the big guys an screwed over the little guys. Remember that between the time JT started and Dykes started, SC finally got taken down after 70 years of cheating.

Also, you are not mentioning that Dykes doesn't have to deal with by far the worst facilities in the conference.

I'm not saying Dykes has it easier. In some ways he does. In some ways it's tougher. They both had a really tough job, but discounting JT's job is just revisionist history. Also, it is not like one was slightly better. We are talking a giant chasm between the two performances.

Well stated, Heartofthebear.

Complete agreement.

Dysfunctional on all levels.

SonOfCalVa;842311475 said:

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But, that was last year, gone.

Improvement this year? Things seem better and summer and fall camp will help things improve more.
August 30 is the start of the next season.
Groveling in doom and gloom seems pointless to me but many seem to actually enjoy it.

---

Given how you spent all last offseason saying how much better things were, forgive me if I don't buy that from you again.

In the month of April, I had 12 football posts. You had 290. I have been restrained. I have not groveled in doom and gloom. I just posted my analysis of what I saw were the big problems with Dykes last year and how I don't see it changing. You don't have to agree, but you can stop belittling everybody with these kind of comments. I'd think you'd be a little humble after you mocked people all offseason last year and let's just say the results did not support your position.

You are entitled to take the don't worry be happy approach if you want and post it 20 times more than I post my position if you want to do that too. Don't act like I'm wallowing when I post my opinion sparingly. I'm sorry, but people who employed these same "don't say anything negative" tactics proved to be enablers to Kasser who fired Holmoe 2 years too late. Holmoe had significantly better results than Dykes. I'm not going to be pressured into not holding Dykes accountable for his performance. If you can post 290 times about what a wonderful job he's done, I can post my opinion once in a while.

Dykes will be judged by his whole career at Cal. He doesn't get a free pass on last season no matter how much you try and wish it away.

If only Teddy and Tosh would come back.

OaktownBear;842311897 said:

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I'm not saying Dykes has it easier. In some ways he does. In some ways it's tougher. They both had a really tough job, but discounting JT's job is just revisionist history. Also, it is not like one was slightly better. We are talking a giant chasm between the two performances.

---

Co-signed.

HotB, for me it really is the chasm between what Tedford delivered early and what Dykes is delivering that is telling.

If, for instance, we had gone 3-9 last year with only a few blowout losses and several close losses, I would be much more generally tolerant of the rationalizations associated with his performance. It is the severity of the results that is difficult to escape. A lot of the factors you pointed out are long-term constraints which even if they are worse than what Tedford was faced with should not have enabled the immediate belly flop that was 2013.

Man, this is depressing. It's like trying to assess what smells worse, a rotting corpse or a pile of fresh dung.

Bobodeluxe;842311927 said:

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If only Teddy and Tosh would come back.

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Because Tedford and Dykes are the only two coaching options we have.

KevBear;842311948 said:

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If, for instance, we had gone 3-9 last year with only a few blowout losses and several close losses, I would be much more generally tolerant of the rationalizations associated with his performance. It is the severity of the results that is difficult to escape.

---

Me too. This is the same thing that people did in Holmoe's time. Of course there are a percentage of people that if the coach goes 11-1 will be mad at losing that game. Just like there are a percentage of people that will support the coach's no matter how ludicrous that may be (like if he goes 1-11). So if you complain about going 1-11, it couldn't possibly be because 1-11 is unacceptable. You have to be one of those crazy fans who always hates the coach.

He had such a low bar to meet to get my approval. In fact, I did not envision we could be so bad that I would even criticize the guy first year. I can't believe he missed that bar, let alone by as much as he did.

OaktownBear;842311897 said:

---

I really think you are just more aware of the challenges now than you were in JT's time. They both had their unique challenges. I just disagree though with your six points above:

1. Tedford took over with grad rates at about the same level and a long history of grad rates at that level. Also, he was specifically challenged by Gladstone to improve it. AND whether he had to or not, he did what he had to do to get the grad rates into the sixties. If Dykes does that, he is fine. Also, to be clear, I assume that Cal is making the similar requirement that Dykes improve grad rates, but what Cal NEEDS to do is improve APR which is much different and much easier to do. Tedford did not have the APR challenge, though he did have very good APR at the time you are talking about. No question the academic record tanked, but you are talking about what Tedford did at the beginning and I think you would find that if Dykes matches that, everybody would be ecstatic, so his challenge is not greater.


2. Gladstone was the crew coach. Sandy is a much more professional AD. I appreciate what Gladstone did, but mostly he hired JT and established the philosophy that Holmoe style performance is unacceptable. I think if anything Dykes has it better here.

3. You really don't give Dykes enough credit here. Dykes is not tied to Franklin. He is an offensive coordinator in his own right. Franklin is of like mind and yes, his offense has some differences from Dykes, but if Franklin leaves, Dykes will be fine. Dykes IS tied to this offense, but his ties to the offense are based on his own history, not Franklin bringing it to him. He'd be running about the same offense if he never met Franklin. He got the job at LaTech based on his own performance as an OC.

4. I just don't see the learning curve argument. Dykes ran roughly the same offense at UA three years before.

5. There is also APR which may be a joke but at least remotely keeps programs honest. It is much harder to fill your team with illiterates then it was. College football has always been big money. If anything, I believe the gap has been shrinking over the years.

6. You really don't know the history on this one. As big a joke as the NCAA is today, it is far less than it has ever been. The joke was for decades that SC got caught paying players so WSU or Cal or OSU was put on sanctions. The NCAA has always bowed to the big guys an screwed over the little guys. Remember that between the time JT started and Dykes started, SC finally got taken down after 70 years of cheating.

Also, you are not mentioning that Dykes doesn't have to deal with by far the worst facilities in the conference.

I'm not saying Dykes has it easier. In some ways he does. In some ways it's tougher. They both had a really tough job, but discounting JT's job is just revisionist history. Also, it is not like one was slightly better. We are talking a giant chasm between the two performances.

---

Good lord, I thought we had finally agreed on something.
At least I made good on my promise to you last season that I wouldn't continue to defend Dykes indefinitely.

At this point I'm really not interested in arguing over the JT/Dykes comparison. I will defer to your better knowledge there. And it is true that many of positions could be influenced by an increasing awareness rather than a change in conditions.

Sometimes I wonder if coaching money would be better spent by not having a head coach at all and, instead, spending more on the assistants. Then hire a special assistant to SB for football operations. Have any of our recent HCs really come close to earning the $$?

OaktownBear;842311964 said:

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He had such a low bar to meet to get my approval. In fact, I did not envision we could be so bad that I would even criticize the guy first year. I can't believe he missed that bar, let alone by as much as he did.

---

Thank you OTB for writing this. This is exactly how I feel.

I have "low" expectations for Cal football relative to what I read on this board. My expectation (which may not be your expectations OTB) is for Cal to win more than not (win 7-9 games most years with the possibility of sub .500 record in rebuilding years) and hopefully win the conference once in a decade or so. Dykes looks like he will not even attain the low side of that standard. There are few on this board that are forecasting 6 wins in the 2014 season and I bet not that many more are willing to forecast a 6 win season next season.

OaktownBear;842311964 said:

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Me too. This is the same thing that people did in Holmoe's time. Of course there are a percentage of people that if the coach goes 11-1 will be mad at losing that game. Just like there are a percentage of people that will support the coach's no matter how ludicrous that may be (like if he goes 1-11). So if you complain about going 1-11, it couldn't possibly be because 1-11 is unacceptable. You have to be one of those crazy fans who always hates the coach.

He had such a low bar to meet to get my approval. In fact, I did not envision we could be so bad that I would even criticize the guy first year. I can't believe he missed that bar, let alone by as much as he did.

---

+1 On the low bar. It was set super low and he still missed everything.

Yes it was a tough season, lots went wrong but any coach worth his salt should have figured how to win 1 or 2 games against a D1 team.

Seriously if you see that trajectory for your team you circle the wagons and get your staff to bone up on the 1 or 2 teams you think you can beat and devise a plan to get 1 or 2 wins. You throw out the playbook and system and design a game plan to win that game and nothing else.

Heck, Tedford did this with Levy in the BG. He knew he had to have the win and he knew things had to be mixed up.

OaktownBear;842311454 said:

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You are starting to see it gmp. Yes, people will poke holes in your post saying you are reading too much into one statement. But it’s not one statement. I’ll tell you the one that speaks to me this spring. The “they need to learn how to win” statement.

Here is the thing people are not getting. When you take over as head coach of a losing team, job 1 is psychological . You need to get that team to believe in you, believe in themselves, believe they can win when no one else thinks they can, believe that the program is working toward something better. Get them to trust you and themselves. You don’t do it with pie in the sky, BS pronouncements that can’t be backed up. You need to get buy in. Without this, nothing else matters. Nothing else will work. He failed in this. Massively. A couple guys don’t buy in. Fine. Happens. Guys quit on him literally and figuratively all over the place. Their performance indicated they didn’t trust the coaches or themselves. There was no confidence.

And why would there be. When the going got tough, Dykes had no confidence and he flailed all around. One week he’s congratulating them for beating PSU because it’s tough to win a football game. Then he’s telling the media we badly need a win for our morale – not only telling the world we are in a fragile psychological state, but reinforcing the fact to the players. They just need to learn how to win. Guess who is supposed to teach them!

---

Alright already ... enough of the two-bit psychoanalysis by so many on this board. "We need to learn to win." "We need buy in" "The players must be taught how to win."
All are true only but they overlook the fact that both George Washington and Bruce Snyder acknowledged.

You learn to win by actually winning.
I remember when Bruce Snyder was turning Cal FB around in the 1990's, saying after a win, saying that the team was learing what it takes to win and is getting the needed confidence that it can win. But he wanted to team to learn what it takes to win in the close games. He wanted to play a tough team close down to the wire and pull out a victory. Only then would the team have the confidence to do it again. (This was just before his first win over UA by a FG at the end of the game in the Copper Bowl season.)

Washington had the same experience at Trenton in 1776. His soldiers needed to win a desperate battle over the Hessians under terrible weather conditions; before they gained the confidence that they really could stand up to the cream of the crop European soldiers. Up until then Washington was winless against the English in every open engagement. Up until then Washington could not teach his troups how to win - despite his prodigous powers of pursuasion. (The battle of Boston would be considered a tie. Ticonderoga would have been considered a forfeit) Only then did the Continentals learn how to win.

Tedford had a similar experience, his first team did not really come of age until it beat MSU at MSU against the odds.

Winning does not just validate good coaching. Winning makes good coaches.

This is why I would be OK with a 4-8 season. It is enough wins to show that the wins were not flukes and enough to build real confidence for 6-6 season in 2015 and a 8-4 season in 2016.

heartofthebear;842311978 said:

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Good lord, I thought we had finally agreed on something.
At least I made good on my promise to you last season that I wouldn't continue to defend Dykes indefinitely.

At this point I'm really not interested in arguing over the JT/Dykes comparison. I will defer to your better knowledge there. And it is true that many of positions could be influenced by an increasing awareness rather than a change in conditions.

Sometimes I wonder if coaching money would be better spent by not having a head coach at all and, instead, spending more on the assistants. Then hire a special assistant to SB for football operations. Have any of our recent HCs really come close to earning the $$?

---

One thing I would tell you, hotb, is that the NCAA has always been a freaking cesspool. I obviously don't accept failure, but I'm actually fine with a good part of Cal's. losing history - in my opinion, if you show me a school that succeeded in basketball or football prior to the eighties, they were knee deep in sleaze. What you see today with the NCAA is their apex in integrity and fairness, as sad as that is

OaktownBear;842311915 said:

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Given how you spent all last offseason saying how much better things were, forgive me if I don't buy that from you again.

I'd think you'd be a little humble after you mocked people all offseason last year and let's just say the results did not support your position.

---

So true.

68great;842312007 said:

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Alright already ... enough of the two-bit psychoanalysis by so many on this board. "We need to learn to win." "We need buy in" "The players must be taught how to win."
All are true only but they overlook the fact that both George Washington and Bruce Snyder acknowledged.

You learn to win by actually winning.
I remember when Bruce Snyder was turning Cal FB around in the 1990's, saying after a win, saying that the team was learing what it takes to win and is getting the needed confidence that it can win. But he wanted to team to learn what it takes to win in the close games. He wanted to play a tough team close down to the wire and pull out a victory. Only then would the team have the confidence to do it again. (This was just before his first win over UA by a FG at the end of the game in the Copper Bowl season.)

Washington had the same experience at Trenton in 1776. His soldiers needed to win a desperate battle over the Hessians under terrible weather conditions; before they gained the confidence that they really could stand up to the cream of the crop European soldiers. Up until then Washington was winless against the English in every open engagement. Up until then Washington could not teach his troups how to win - despite his prodigous powers of pursuasion. (The battle of Boston would be considered a tie. Ticonderoga would have been considered a forfeit) Only then did the Continentals learn how to win.

Tedford had a similar experience, his first team did not really come of age until it beat MSU at MSU against the odds.

Winning does not just validate good coaching. Winning makes good coaches.

This is why I would be OK with a 4-8 season. It is enough wins to show that the wins were not flukes and enough to build real confidence for 6-6 season in 2015 and a 8-4 season in 2016.

---

No offense, but you answered my two-bit psychoanalysis with your own two-bit psychoanalysis which is worth every bit as much but no more than mine. I think you have two examples that show both sides. Snyder, where I agree with your characterization of what happened, and Tedford where I'm sorry that is just not what happened.

Tedford's team came out of the tunnel game one with a whole different attitude and went for the jugular from the opening snap. Trounced Baylor, scoring 70. Then beat down NMSU. Then they beat down MSU. MSU didn't make them winners or teach them how to win. It was just the first good team they played and it was on national television so it announced to the world that we were a new team. Now if MSU was where they came of age, than why did they lose 2 in a row after that including the next week against AFA at home where they frankly didn't play very well.

Tedford's 2002 team did not slowly build confidence through winning. They had it from play number 1. I'm sure you were there. The change in mindset was obvious. Also, Tedford had already described the deliberate process he went through to identify leaders and build up the team's confidence. He specifically made that one of his highest priorities.

OaktownBear;842312078 said:

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Tedford's 2002 team did not slowly build confidence through winning. They had it from play number 1. I'm sure you were there.

---

Right you are. Tedford sold the fanbase on his system in one play. That continued into 2011.

Dykes' fake field goal in game one was huge for me too. But the almost loss to Portland State ended my excitement.

KevBear;842311948 said:

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Co-signed.

HotB, for me it really is the chasm between what Tedford delivered early and what Dykes is delivering that is telling.

If, for instance, we had gone 3-9 last year with only a few blowout losses and several close losses, I would be much more generally tolerant of the rationalizations associated with his performance. It is the severity of the results that is difficult to escape. A lot of the factors you pointed out are long-term constraints which even if they are worse than what Tedford was faced with should not have enabled the immediate belly flop that was 2013.

Man, this is depressing. It's like trying to assess what smells worse, a rotting corpse or a pile of fresh dung.

---

Do we really need to revisit this issue again and again and again.
Let's compare apples to oranges. Then let's compare apples to watermellons. Then let's compare oranges to watermellons. There is some legitimate basis for such comparisons since apples, oranges, and watermellons are all fruits.

68great;842312123 said:

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Do we really need to revisit this issue again and again and again.
Let's compare apples to oranges. Then let's compare apples to watermellons. Then let's compare oranges to watermellons. There is some legitimate basis for such comparisons since apples, oranges, and watermellons are all fruits.

---

Evidently we do. I'd be more than happy to stop visiting issues such as these if only one of three things would happen:

1) Dykes starts winning football games

2) Dykes is fired

3) People would stop making fallacious rationalizations for Dykes' failure to win football games

68great;842312007 said:

---

Alright already ... enough of the two-bit psychoanalysis by so many on this board. "We need to learn to win." "We need buy in" "The players must be taught how to win."
All are true only but they overlook the fact that both George Washington and Bruce Snyder acknowledged.

You learn to win by actually winning.
I remember when Bruce Snyder was turning Cal FB around in the 1990's, saying after a win, saying that the team was learing what it takes to win and is getting the needed confidence that it can win. But he wanted to team to learn what it takes to win in the close games. He wanted to play a tough team close down to the wire and pull out a victory. Only then would the team have the confidence to do it again. (This was just before his first win over UA by a FG at the end of the game in the Copper Bowl season.)

Washington had the same experience at Trenton in 1776. His soldiers needed to win a desperate battle over the Hessians under terrible weather conditions; before they gained the confidence that they really could stand up to the cream of the crop European soldiers. Up until then Washington was winless against the English in every open engagement. Up until then Washington could not teach his troups how to win - despite his prodigous powers of pursuasion. (The battle of Boston would be considered a tie. Ticonderoga would have been considered a forfeit) Only then did the Continentals learn how to win.

Tedford had a similar experience, his first team did not really come of age until it beat MSU at MSU against the odds.

Winning does not just validate good coaching. Winning makes good coaches.

This is why I would be OK with a 4-8 season. It is enough wins to show that the wins were not flukes and enough to build real confidence for 6-6 season in 2015 and a 8-4 season in 2016.

---

Was the irony of calling for an end to two-bit analyses in the same post that you proffer a two-bit analysis lost on you?

KevBear;842312162 said:

---

Evidently we do. I'd be more than happy to stop visiting issues such as these if only one of three things would happen:

1) Dykes starts winning football games

2) Dykes is fired

3) People would stop making fallacious rationalizations for Dykes' failure to win football games

---

I can maybe forgive but won't forget last season. Sonny better show me something this year. He is completely accountable for the results. I hope like hell that he causes me to embrace him fully.

NYCGOBEARS;842312167 said:

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I can maybe forgive but won't forget last season. Sonny better show me something this year. He is completely accountable for the results. I hope like hell that he causes me to embrace him fully.

---

Believe it or not, but I feel the same way. There are sports situations where I'll root for something to happen in order to win an argument, but Cal football is not one of them. I'd be thrilled beyond belief if Dykes could make me eat crow.

KevBear;842312176 said:

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Believe it or not, but I feel the same way. There are sports situations where I'll root for something to happen in order to win an argument, but Cal football is not one of them. I'd be thrilled beyond belief if Dykes could make me eat crow.

---

I believe it. Even in your arguments that I've disagreed with, your thinking is sound and your arguments non ego based.

Just win.

NYCGOBEARS;842312179 said:

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I believe it. Even in your arguments that I've disagreed with, your thinking is sound and your arguments non ego based.

---

yes gotta give respect when its due " head nod"

BearlyClad;842312234 said:

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Just win.

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its all bout this .. hopefully a couple few people on here will be stuffed full of crow come this season...

we shall see .. time will tell

KevBear;842312163 said:

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Was the irony of calling for an end to two-bit analyses in the same post that you proffer a two-bit analysis lost on you?

---

No the irony was not lost. I have as much a right to "proffer" a two-bit analysis as any other poster on this board.
(Before you get down from your high horse, I would happy to match my 3 degrees from Cal against any you have received from Cal.)

68great;842312285 said:

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No the irony was not lost. I have as much a right to "proffer" a two-bit analysis as any other poster on this board.
(Before you get down from your high horse, I would happy to match my 3 degrees from Cal against any you have received from Cal.)

---

A two-sentence tour-de-force post. Bravo.

68great;842312285 said:

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No the irony was not lost. I have as much a right to "proffer" a two-bit analysis as any other poster on this board.
(Before you get down from your high horse, I would happy to match my 3 degrees from Cal against any you have received from Cal.)

---

Sure you do. You also have as much a right to be a hypocrite as anyone else on this board. You obviously enjoy exercising your rights.

OaktownBear;842311915 said:

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Given how you spent all last offseason saying how much better things were, forgive me if I don't buy that from you again.

In the month of April, I had 12 football posts. You had 290. I have been restrained. I have not groveled in doom and gloom. I just posted my analysis of what I saw were the big problems with Dykes last year and how I don't see it changing. You don't have to agree, but you can stop belittling everybody with these kind of comments. I'd think you'd be a little humble after you mocked people all offseason last year and let's just say the results did not support your position.

You are entitled to take the don't worry be happy approach if you want and post it 20 times more than I post my position if you want to do that too. Don't act like I'm wallowing when I post my opinion sparingly. I'm sorry, but people who employed these same "don't say anything negative" tactics proved to be enablers to Kasser who fired Holmoe 2 years too late. Holmoe had significantly better results than Dykes. I'm not going to be pressured into not holding Dykes accountable for his performance. If you can post 290 times about what a wonderful job he's done, I can post my opinion once in a while.

Dykes will be judged by his whole career at Cal. He doesn't get a free pass on last season no matter how much you try and wish it away.

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Well said.. It was severe pressure from the fan base that got Neuweasel chased as well as the incompetent ASU athletic director. UCLA has Mora, and ASU now has a solid, Harvard JD, former NFL exec as their AD.

I miss Teddy and Tosh, too.