NYCGOBEARS;842316950 said:
Then following Cal football right now would not be conducive to your emotional well being.
Davidson;842316945 said:
imo, Trigga isn't a YAC guy. He is an excellent route runner and has good hands. Through hard work, he has basically made himself into a solid D1 player, he has squeeze every ounce of his potential. But his size, speed and agility aren't at the same level as D1 stars or shoe-in NFL guys. I see him as the #4 best WR we have, behind Lawler, Harper and T. Davis, who are all more physically gifted, whether it be speed, size, or agility.
gobears725;842316974 said:
uhh im pretty sure his times were getting better. 40 time, 100 yd time. i dont think we've seen the best of him yet. i think hes also going to benefit from playing the inside receiver/slot position. it'll line him up with the linebacker or safety a lot of the time. it'll be a role where he can be used to edelman/welker
OaktownBear;842316844 said:
Regarding the 98 underclassmen - so that is fewer than 1 per team on average. And 36 is fewer than 1/3 per team. How many did we have in each category?
Here is the problem I have with your general opinion. You have set up criteria where essentially there was nothing Dykes could have done that would have been unacceptable. We not only went 1-11, we got decimated in almost every game. We are a passing team that was last in conference in pass efficiency. We are an offense oriented team that was last in conference in scoring. (Hiring Buh was the best thing he could have done for himself. Buh's performance distracted from the offense's total failure). We did not have many injuries on offense and our offensive personnel was not bad. We were last or near the bottom of conference in almost every category (unless it was a negative stat where we were 1st or near the top) Our play was undisciplined and mistake prone. We'll have to agree to disagree on quitting. You don't lose by 50 without quitting and there was video evidence of obvious half-assing.
The problem is that I can tell you that 1-11 is not what has me thinking Dykes isn't the guy. I can tell you all the things I observed beyond the score, and you are just going to pin everything on injuries and youth. That is fine, you aren't ready yet, but I'd like you to ask yourself what Dykes could have possibly done to make you think - okay, that did suck.
I was not expecting big things. I was here before the season saying people were getting carried away and needed to temper expectations. A couple of wins and being competitive would have placated me.
I'll challenge you as I've challenged this board twice before. Instead of telling me all the reasons he had to fail, tell me one thing he did that was football related (I'm happy APR has improved) that was a positive. One reason from last year that makes you think he will succeed. One thing he accomplished. Not a bunch of yapping at alumni functions. One thing he accomplished. No matter what the obstacles, there has to be SOMETHING positive. Something that progresses. For instance, CU sucked - got tragically beat down in every Pac-12 game other than us. But they played us like they believed and the they took us down easily. I don't think they had a ton of positives, but they had SOME. The last two times I did this I got nothing from anyone other than several admissions that no, there were no positives. Basically, it was a lost year. Good coaches don't have lost years.
Vandalus;842316953 said:
True. I learned that lesson in spades in 2012. I stopped being such a stress case and just learned to appreciate what was important. Stressing out over a game played by kids who are trying their hardest to win faded away into the background.
gobears725;842316974 said:
uhh im pretty sure his times were getting better. 40 time, 100 yd time. i dont think we've seen the best of him yet. i think hes also going to benefit from playing the inside receiver/slot position. it'll line him up with the linebacker or safety a lot of the time. it'll be a role where he can be used to edelman/welker
Davidson;842316987 said:
he was moved to inside receiver to play the slot role...
that should tell you about his physical attributes as you're comparing him to edelman/welker.
CALiforniALUM;842316929 said:
The number of CAL underclassmen departures is on par with several other teams including Southern California, LSU, Alabama, Florida State and Notre Dame, who like CAL tend to put a lot of players into the draft. Not all programs historically do. An average across the NCAA FBS does not accurately characterize the dynamics behind the numbers. Interestingly, there appears to be a strong connection in this draft between head coaching changes and players leaving early for the NFL. Roughly 25% of the 98 (101 by some lists) underclassmen left after a head coaching change in their program. I think one has to get at the underlying dynamics that influence a player to leave to understand the numbers. We have all read reasons on why our players have left including receiving favorable draft grades, projections for going in early rounds, academic issues, greed, discipline issues, coaching changes and new systems etc..
Criteria. What criteria? What I gave was situational context. Trust me, I am neither happy about the 1-11 season nor am I content with that sort of performance. My opinion is simply that any new coach deserves some [U]time[/U] to put in place their system. What your opinion sounds like to me is that the coach must win now or he should be shown the door. I think what we differ on is not that the season was abysmal, it was, but how long we should give the coach to show acceptable improvement before we make a change. There is also this issue of how to pay in order to show him the door, which doesn't seem be considered by some on this board.
I'm not ready yet? Not sure how you intended that to come across, but you aren't my Yoda.
Injuries and youth are contextual and do play a role, however, what I pin this on is how long we need to give the coach before we can determine his ability to make us a winner. The season sucking and giving the coach time to right the ship given the context doesn't strike me as all that radical of an approach. What strikes me as radical is hiring and firing several coaches (Tedford, Buh and Dykes) all within 18 months or so. To me that adds to the instability of the program and what you seem to want to get away from in Dykes. I think Dykes deserves a bit longer before anybody can determine whether his skills and leadership are substandard.
Why wouldn't some wins placate you now? How many wins would it take to make you forget last season? My preference is to look at Dykes' body of work similar to the 4-year rolling academic APR average. Give him 2-3 seasons to average a certain number of wins, but as soon as the fourth season kicks in the average bar will go up, no excuses. At some point you drop the first season from the average and move forward.
I think Dykes has shown a willingness to make changes based on how things went for the better and worse last year. Addition by subtraction. Buh is gone and Kaufman appears to have the entire defense headed in the right direction. This may turn out to be one of the more significant positive things Dykes has done, but I can't show the improvement until we play some games this year, and Dykes didn't have the luxury to fire Buh halfway through the season with few options to replace him. So I think your request for a positive from last year, once again, will require some [U]time[/U].
OaktownBear;842317025 said:
We agree that a coach needs time to turn around a program. The difference is, I think you are the one looking only at wins and losses. You are essentially saying that we should give 3 free years and start judging in year 4 based on wins and losses. I'm saying you can judge a coach's performance in the interim. Not that he is supposed to win 10 games. But you can look at what he is doing and see if there is any progress. That is why I referenced Colorado. They didn't beat anybody of consequence. Their in conference performance was terrible. But the coach had the players believing in the path forward and was rewarded with his team looking at us as a chance to do something positive and they took advantage. I would be fine with that in year 1.
For me, I've seen enough. I think he was THAT bad. I never thought he could fail so much that I wouldn't give him more of a chance, but I think he has. Since it is not my choice, he gets another year and if he improves, I will reevaluate. But I'm not suspending judgment for three years. The coach gets a presumption that he has some time to turn things, but he can rebut that presumption with incompetence.
If you draft a pitcher out of high school, it may take 2-3 years to reasonably develop him into a major league pitcher. But if he shows up and he has a 40mph fastball, you don't wait 3 years. You pull the plug.
CALiforniALUM;842316789 said:
I actually don't think the 1-11 record says anything at all about Dykes' competence or there lack of. The team was not successful, but it doesn't mean Dykes doesn't have the skills to right the ship. You are extremely short sighted if you think pulling the plug after the first season after transition, even at 1-11, will do anything to right the ship faster. It suggests to me that you are not looking at the bigger picture and taking all potential factors into consideration. Do you not agree that we had injuries more than the average NCAA Div I team? Do you not agree that we had to play younger players as a result? Do you not agree that when younger players play you are prone to making mistakes and being physically outmatched by more mature teams? Do you not agree that new systems take time to install?
CALiforniALUM said:
You do realize that in this latest NFL draft there was a record 98 underclassmen who declared and a record 36 of those players going unselected. That tells me this is not an issue with Dykes so much as it is with the system of college football relative to the NFL. The draw to play on Sundays balanced by the risk of injury (we had some of those didn't we) leads to players doing what is in their best interest regardless of the coaches competence or leadership.
CALiforniALUM said:
You certainly inferred that the players left solely because of Dykes' poor leadership and so much as suggest the same above. Frankly what I saw last year despite the difficult result in the W/L column was a team that gave it their all every game. I actually don't recall Tedford's last few teams showing nearly as much fight in games as Dykes' team did, although they won a few extra games.
KevBear;842317051 said:
...If instead, Dykes had gone 0-12 and lost every game by 50+, wouldn't you say "uh, maybe we made a mistake?" Is that an absurdly unrealistic example? Of course it is. Of course a coach who performs that unfathomably badly should lose the benefit of the doubt. You couldn't just say "it's too short-sighted to pull the plug after Year 1, that's not going to help right the ship." But on the scale of actual results, the season Dykes just produced was the realistic equivalent of unfathomably bad. It was the worst season in Cal history. One of the worst seasons in the modern history of the conference. That alone, before any other factors are looked at, should at least open the door to a reevaluation. Why? Because it's very rare that a program ever recovers after a season like that with the same coach at the helm.
...
KevBear;842317051 said:
Here's the trap. You've fallen victim to the conventional wisdom that a new coach must be given X number of years in a fair process.
It's not that there's nothing valid behind this sentiment. Sample size is of course important when assessing data, and right now our sample size with Dykes is essentially one season. What's more is rebuilding a program is a process where Year 5 is expected to look very much better than Year 1. I have no problem with these as guidelines. What they do not say, however, is that the Year 1 results are insignificant. It is perfectly possible for a coach to return, even in a single year, results that cut through the natural ambiguity of the rebuilding process and cast real concern on his competency.
In these instances, coaches are still not fired after Year 1, but that's because of practical limitations associated with AD resources and the dynamics of appearances (that a school may not want to get a reputation for firing coaches unjustly, or that an AD would not want the pressure and accountability that would follow making such a controversial executive decision), not because there isn't a rational basis to judge the coach's performance.
You don't think that the team's performance in '13 was bad enough to warrant removing Dykes (practical limitations notwithstanding). Ok, I think you're wrong, but we'll look the details next. For now, can't we agree that there is a level of poor team performance even in the first year where you would have to reevaluate and consider immediate action (again, notwithstanding practical limitations)?
If instead, Dykes had gone 0-12 and lost every game by 50+, wouldn't you say "uh, maybe we made a mistake?" Is that an absurdly unrealistic example? Of course it is. Of course a coach who performs that unfathomably badly should lose the benefit of the doubt. You couldn't just say "it's too short-sighted to pull the plug after Year 1, that's not going to help right the ship." But on the scale of actual results, the season Dykes just produced was the realistic equivalent of unfathomably bad. It was the worst season in Cal history. One of the worst seasons in the modern history of the conference. That alone, before any other factors are looked at, should at least open the door to a reevaluation. Why? Because it's very rare that a program ever recovers after a season like that with the same coach at the helm.
Now, about last season. Yes, Dykes did not take over a strong roster. But before the start of the 2013 season, typical preseason predictions had this team winning 4-5 games. Dykes himself corroborated those predictions by stating his positive appraisal of the talent left behind by Tedford. As we all know, it didn't turn out that way, so we look for explanations.
The explanation that casts Dykes positively is, of course, the injuries. There were a lot of them, they are presumably outside of Dykes' influence and they unquestionably affected the team's performance. Are they enough by themselves to cast enough ambiguity on the product that was last season to warrant holding judgment against Dykes?
No.
The defense was absolutely terrible from the very beginning. Yes they were missing guys against Northwestern, but NU was missing key guys too. They still got shredded by one of the worst teams in the Big Ten. Then there was Portland State. What happened there cannot be explained by injuries, and makes a mockery of attempts to paint the defense's subsequent failures on the accelerating injuries. It was coaching, a fact that Dykes himself tacitly declared when he fired the entire defensive staff after the season--a staff that he picked earlier that year!
The offense was terrible too. It was a palliative to a lot of people that the offense racked up a lot of yards through the air, but it was still the worst scoring offense in the conference. Unlike the defense, the offense's performance doesn't have a laundry list of injuries to hide behind. They lost two starters they whole year, Adcock and Cochran. Does it suck to lose guys? Yeah. But two lost starters on a unit is not anything egregious. If that is all it takes to sink Dykes then the program should load up on life preservers.
As for the excuses of installing a new system or cleaning up team morale, they're both bullshit.
Dykes' system is supposedly geared for simplicity. We heard constantly about that simplicity being a virtue, about how few plays the players needed to know. Goff quoted Dykes as saying he could teach his system to a bunch of 4th graders. Now you want to use a learning curve as an explanation for the offense's failures?
The team morale should have been an opportunity for improvement, not an albatross. The most immediate benefit that good coaches usually bring to foundering programs is an improvement in morale. The dissension on the team was an indictment of Dykes' leadership abilities. The synthesis of leadership is to get guys to perform as you want them to within their capabilities. So long as it's not abusive, how you go about doing it--buddy-buddy or hard-ass disciplinarian or professional decorum--is immaterial. It's the results you're going to be accountable for. Now, one could say that Dykes took some sort of long-view approach here, giving the team some tough medicine in Year 1 in order to instill habits and attitudes that would pay dividends in later years. Maybe, but I doubt it. When a new coach takes over a program, there's often friction in the beginning, as the new coach imposes his methods and personality over the old system--but by year's end, you usually don't hear about this as a complication any more with good coaches. You don't have the head coach yelling at the players and telling those who won't buy-in to get lost after the season ending game. The time to do that was in preseason.
So by ourselves we had 8.3% of all early declarants who didn't get drafted? That's not good.
In Tedford's entire 10 year tenure, how many players declared early and didn't get drafted?
Yes, but I didn't say I knew why they left. I never represented it as anything other than my opinion that Dykes' leadership is the overarching factor, which is why when you called me out originally for not knowing why each of them left, I took exception. It was never claimed to be more than speculative, but since, as your pointed out, none of us know on an individual basis why each player left, and since an unusual volume of players have departed, we should be compelled to speculate and look for overarching factors.
As for the supposed "fight" in the team last year, that's not what I saw. I saw a team that came to the realization that they were going to get blown out every week no matter what they did and became comfortable with it. They showed up and went through the motions, like a particularly intense set of scrimmages.
Bottom line: If I could wave a magic wand void Dykes' contract, I would. I don't really know what's happened behind closed doors on the team, and I don't really know exactly how much of the disaster last year was because of injuries. To know both, you'd have to be both a football expert and an intimate of the team. I am neither of those things. All I can do is look at the results, and the results are really bad. The last 30 years of this conference's history furnishes a lot of examples of new coaches trying to rebuild a failing program and there is a very consistent pattern to their Year 1 results: when the new coach's first year is worse than the previous year, the tenure almost always turns out badly. A lot of the same excuses being used by the people who still believe in Dykes are the same excuses used by the people who still believed in Paul Wulff after his initial failure. Those excuses proved to be a smokescreen. One year should have been enough to alert them to the fact that when the new coach has a worse record than the old coach and gets blown out a lot more than the old coach, something is probably wrong with the new coach.
gobears725;842317057 said:
quite honestly, i think Dyke's performance was bad enough to warrant removal after one season. whats clear in my mind is that he was the wrong person to transition from tedford and the problems that tedford created because i think that Dykes was slow to recoginize how f'd up a lot of the attitudes were. However, it doesnt mean that hes not the right person for the job once a lot of those players arent here.
gobears725 said:
I think the bottomline is that our program would NEVER EVER remove a coach after one season barring a huge ethical scandal. so we might as well give Dykes a chance. we're stuck with him, so we might as well try to make the best of it.
KevBear;842317067 said:
Sure, it's theoretically possible. But practically speaking, I think it's more likely that he's simply not the right person, period.
Yeah, I recognized that practical limitation, and I think your sentiment represents a good attitude for skeptics to bring into Year 2. I'm going into the season hoping to be proven wrong. And whatever happens, I'm going to be at every home game, just like I was last year and in 2001. What I want, however, is for a less unreasonably hopeful appreciation for last year to inform people's judgments about what transpires going forward. I am afraid that people who have seen fit to give Dykes a pass on 2013 will find ways to extend that mentality going forward. It's already happened, in one respect. The expectations people have for this season are so incredibly low that Dykes is set up to get a passing grade in the eyes of many with even 3 or 4 wins.
going4roses;842317085 said:
alrighty then...
my thought from reading this thread ...
if you do not want sonny as coach for whatever reason ? does that mean you rather the team lose so he is gone faster ? and start rebuilding again ?
what is your minimum number of wins he has to get in 2014 to warrant staying til 2015
what coach would have fared better in 2013 at CAL ? in your opinion ? could CAL have afford that coach and his staff ?
Logy;842317086 said:
My thoughts from reading this thread ...
Sonny should be immediately fired. The next coach should not have any contract but rather his status would be determined on a game by game basis. All assistant coaches would need to reapply for their jobs at halftime.
going4roses;842317085 said:
what is your minimum number of wins he has to get in 2014 to warrant staying til 2015
going4roses;842317085 said:
alrighty then...
my thought from reading this thread ...
if you do not want sonny as coach for whatever reason ? does that mean you rather the team lose so he is gone faster ? and start rebuilding again ?
what is your minimum number of wins he has to get in 2014 to warrant staying til 2015
what coach would have fared better in 2013 at CAL ? in your opinion ? could CAL have afford that coach and his staff ?
going4roses;842317099 said:
well damn
here is to ( nice cold glass of ice water )
the players having a good / much improved season in 2014
i wonder who made the choice between sonny and mike .. mike was already here in the bay ...
that hiring firm was a waste of money and time ..
before any firings and hires of new people a football person needs to run the AD office ..
Bobodeluxe;842317104 said:
... Who knows?
Bobodeluxe;842317104 said:
The decision to not hire MM was a head scratcher. Maybe not as good an interview as SD? Who knows?
1947;842317112 said:
"before any firings and hires of new people a football person needs to run the AD office .."
Then people.......................................time is of the essence..........................start your engines...............let the show begin...........................and then let's end this complete clown act of a coach and his coaching staff.
4-5 wins......no way.
going4roses;842317117 said:
trying to make light of the uncertainty
who now says still hell no to HC being H. jackson and whom is willing to admit couldnt have hurt much more than it did ..
sonny and spread vs h jackson pro system ..
going4roses;842317117 said:
trying to make light of the uncertainty
who now says still hell no to HC being H. jackson and whom is willing to admit couldnt have hurt much more than it did ..
sonny and spread vs h jackson pro system ..
going4roses;842317117 said:
trying to make light of the uncertainty
who now says still hell no to HC being H. jackson and whom is willing to admit couldnt have hurt much more than it did ..
sonny and spread vs h jackson pro system ..
going4roses;842317117 said:
trying to make light of the uncertainty
who now says still hell no to HC being H. jackson and whom is willing to admit couldnt have hurt much more than it did ..
sonny and spread vs h jackson pro system ..
Logy;842317124 said:
Speaking of Hue Jackson. I think the Raiders of the last decade have shown that turning over the head coach every year or two years max, is not a winning formula.
Logy;842317086 said:
My thoughts from reading this thread ...
Sonny should be immediately fired. The next coach should not have any contract but rather his status would be determined on a game by game basis. All assistant coaches would need to reapply for their jobs at halftime.
