FiatSlug;842317872 said:

---

Or maybe the guys who left were the problem.

I guess we'll see, won't we?

---

i think its safe to say that for whatever the reason, the environment wasnt a fun or positive one. otherwise people would make an effort to want to be a part of it.

beyond winning, i think thats part of the challenge of coaching and thats to try to make the experience a positive one even if the results arent necessarily there and to still try to make it positive even for players that have some issues and problems with their behavior at times.

slider643;842317815 said:

---

No two locker rooms are the same. Granted, I don't follow UCLA or ASU as closely as Cal, but I don't remember the kind of noxious fumes I saw coming from Cal's locker room before the coaching change.

---

Google "UCLA going over the wall tradition"

Quote:

---

Not only was the locker room more cancerous than I imagined, we didn't have talent and we had a ridiculous amount of injuries.

---

This is an example of the sentiment that just drives me crazy. Almost no one thought Tedford left with a talentless squad with an irreparable locker room. Almost no one thought 1-11 was in the cards. Then Dykes spends 8 months with them and instead of wondering why 1 guy whose job it is to lead young men failed to reach so many of them, or why guys that could tackle before suddenly couldn't, we decide - guess we were wrong about all that talent and boy the lockerroom was more cancerous than I thought.

I really don't think we had 25 or so bad apples on the team.

Coaching can makes players look better or worse. It amazes me that people who thought players were garbage under Tom Holmoe, who laughed at our postseason ban, and who got proven wrong when those players got a modicum of coaching don't see that.

It's Dykes damned lockerroom. If it is still cancerous after 8-12 months, it is his fault. 2 or 3 guys are a problem, that is on them. This many, it is on him.

Those guys were stoked to get a new start last year. He had the benefit of the doubt. He squandered it. I'm sorry, they were worse after spending 8 months with Dykes.

freshfunk;842317130 said:

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KevBear, thanks for the long post. I'm in entire agreement with your analysis of year 1 of Sonny.

I don't think Sonny's the devil or a bad guy. Heck he may even be a good coach... but not at this level. I think the guy is in over his head. The lack of defense at LaTech and hiring of Buh / mismanagement of our defense shows that he's lacking in this department as head coach. Even on offense the guy looks like he's trying different combinations of players out of desperation rather than something purposeful.

Art might help him pull off a couple wins but I don't see long term success for this coaching staff as a whole.

---

Oh good, so I will see you next year then. Have a wonderful season, rooting for whoever you will root for now.

btw, he had a good defense in his first (or second) year at LA Tech. He lost a bunch of seniors from that team, and they went on to not be good the year after.

gobears725;842317875 said:

---

i think its safe to say that for whatever the reason, the environment wasnt a fun or positive one. otherwise people would make an effort to want to be a part of it

---

Congratulations. You've managed to belittle the courage and commitment of the large majority of the team that has stuck with the program.

You've also demonstrated your clairvoyance by telling us what kind of environment exists among the players and coaches on the team.

For your next trick, please tell us the winning MegaMillions numbers for tomorrow night's draw.

grandmastapoop;842317839 said:

---

And people keep conveniently ignoring that this was for the 12-13 school year. The school year that Tedford was still the coach for half the year. Without seeing the raw data, it is hard to know if things were already getting during the first semester, when Tedford was still at Cal, or if there was a lot of make-up and summer work done to fix what Tedford left.

---

Actually, it was reported previously that the results were going up in the first semester.

Honestly, I don't think that takes away from Dykes. The way Cal is (stupidly, moronically) set up, the coach has to be doing a good job to get good results, whether he continues what was going on previously or improves upon it. I think one has to wonder why Gladstone + Tedford = stellar results, and Barbour + Tedford = terrible results until the issue hits the papers.

FiatSlug;842317893 said:

---

Congratulations. You've managed to belittle the courage and commitment of the large majority of the team that has stuck with the program.

You've also demonstrated your clairvoyance by telling us what kind of environment exists among the players and coaches on the team.

For your next trick, please tell us the winning MegaMillions numbers for tomorrow night's draw.

---

Congratulations to you too. You've managed to belittle someone who tries to make reasonable inferences on a discussion forum thread.

FiatSlug;842317872 said:

---

Or maybe the guys who left were the problem.

---

Would you like to assign some "character issues" to Whitener and Ragin for why they chose to transfer from the team despite seeing time as true freshmen? you MUST be psychic to suggest they had problems, right?

beeasyed;842317898 said:

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Congratulations to you too. You've managed to belittle someone who tries to make reasonable inferences on a discussion forum thread.

---

Nope. Try again. gobears725 clearly implies that the remaining players are clearly resigned to an environment that was neither fun nor positive.

Quote:

---

i think its safe to say that for whatever the reason, the environment wasnt a fun or positive one. otherwise people would make an effort to want to be a part of it.

---

beeasyed;842317898 said:

---

Would you like to assign some "character issues" to Whitener and Ragin for why they chose to transfer from the team despite seeing time as true freshmen? you MUST be psychic to suggest they had problems, right?

---

I decline to assign any character issues to anybody. I'm only positing that, again, an unnecessarily broad brush was applied. I meant nothing more than that.

FiatSlug;842317893 said:

---

Congratulations. You've managed to belittle the courage and commitment of the large majority of the team that has stuck with the program.

You've also demonstrated your clairvoyance by telling us what kind of environment exists among the players and coaches on the team.

For your next trick, please tell us the winning MegaMillions numbers for tomorrow night's draw.

---

i think that its a lot easier to disagree than to act like an asshole. this was one of the most blatant acts of collective f#ck you to a football coach that ive seen. players quitting and finding every excuse to not be a part of the team. im sorry but if youre going to try to sass people into agreeing with you i suggest u find another weak minded fool to fall for your belittling tricks. the job of any coach is take what u have and make the best of it. sonny got a big fat F and small people like yourself would do Cal football a favor if they quit following.

theres no reason why someone like Alex Logan should feel the need to quit midseason in his senior year. ive talked to people that know Alex and you can tell that they were very disappointed in the experience. actions like that fall squarely on dykes. not Buh, not stewart, but dykes and people like you say the team will be better off. your the one that spits on players like that to defend an overpaid, underachieving coach. think of that one for a minute. u say the team will be better off, perhaps, but dont act like every kid was a bad kid and problem for the program when they werent. id probably say most of the kids that left are good kids and the fact that you keep defending the coach says more about how brainwashed u are

FiatSlug;842317893 said:

---

Congratulations. You've managed to belittle the courage and commitment of the large majority of the team that has stuck with the program.

---

Why is it necessarily interpreted as a put-down against the remaining players? Since gobears725 didn't specify either way, why can't it be interpreted as a compliment of the individual determination and resilience of the players who have battled through an unfavorable environment? Don't put words in other people's mouths.

slider643;842317815 said:

---

I'm not apologizing. But I don't see last season as utter failure. If he's a good coach, he's run off the problem players and set a good foundation so we'll see a definite improvement in attitude and results. If he's not a good coach, we'll go down in flames again. That's been my experience with coaching changes, both as a player and a coach, year two is when you really see if the team is headed in the right direction.

No two locker rooms are the same. Granted, I don't follow UCLA or ASU as closely as Cal, but I don't remember the kind of noxious fumes I saw coming from Cal's locker room before the coaching change. I doubt either Mora or Graham (or anyone else) could have improved on Tedford's 3 wins with last season's team. Not only was the locker room more cancerous than I imagined, we didn't have talent and we had a ridiculous amount of injuries.

---

Slider, who were the problem players? You keep pointing to this straw man but I'd like to know who they were and how you know they were problem players.

Is this based on rumors or did you see any official GPAs?

Yes, there was an Apr problem, a problem that was already being addressed by Tedford. Also, if you paid attention to the study released by Cal, the issue wasn't "problem" kids but football players who weren't finishing out their degree because they were prepping for the NFL.

I think your label of "problem kid" is being thrown around too cavalierly against many players on the team. Cal's own study showed that they take very few academically risky players in any given year, no different than schools like ucla who've adopted a similar system.

Lastly I find this line of argument insulting to the players, including those who've come back to finish their degree. I find it shameful that you use the tactic of smearing former players in order to give an excuse to Sonny's poor mismanagement.

gobears725;842317714 said:

---

HKbear97,

Have you ever traveled to the south, east coast, Hawaii or midwest? At every place, what I will tell you is that the culture is vastly different at each stop. Theres definetely an adjustment period as to understanding the culture of an area. It just seems to me that it is hard to reach kids of which 80-90% are from the west coast if you're not used to those types of kids. It actually wouldnt surprise if Cuonzo Martin runs into some similar problems dealing with the personalities on his team, but luckily in basketball, i think that its probably easier to develop interpersonal relationships with the players because theres much less of them. The biggest problem that I think Dykes may have is that I fear is that he already lost the lockerroom and there were a lot of things that I saw last year that indicated that there was likely very bad chemistry problems and that he didnt understand the type of kids that he was working with well enough to fix those problems. Thats why in retrospect, hiring someone with at least some experience working on the west coast should probably have been taken more into account, especially since there were already some lingering chemistry problems from Tedford's late teams. I think Dykes because of his lack of understanding of the kids that he was working with took an already bad situation under Tedford and made it worse.

---

Well, this is a new one. I have seen posters pointing to injuries, youth, tough schedule, new systems, Tedford and poor S&C program as excuses for last year. Now we have a new reason - cultural differences.

When we struggled with Portland State last year, posters on here pointed to their roster of players that had D1 offers and noted they were better than the average FCS team. Portland State ended up finishing ninth in the Big Sky Conference. Is it really that difficult to acknoweldge that just maybe Dykes may be a poor coach without going to such great lengths to make excuses?

As to your question, I've lived and worked in Asia for the past eight years. I've built an extremely succesful team consisting of people from Singapore, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Canada, China and Australia. We've worked in countries throughout the region and have built a great business. An important aspect of leadership is getting a group of people to work together, regardless of their differences. So yes, I'm aware of cultural differences. That doesn't explain what happened last year.

HKBear97;842317931 said:

---

Well, this is a new one. I have seen posters pointing to injuries, youth, tough schedule, new systems, Tedford and poor S&C program as excuses for last year. Now we have a new reason - cultural differences.

When we struggled with Portland State last year, posters on here pointed to their roster of players that had D1 offers and noted they were better than the average FCS team. Portland State ended up finishing ninth in the Big Sky Conference. Is it really that difficult to acknoweldge that just maybe Dykes may be a poor coach without going to such great lengths to make excuses?

As to your question, I've lived and worked in Asia for the past eight years. I've built an extremely succesful team consisting of people from Singapore, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Canada, China and Australia. We've worked in countries throughout the region and have built a great business. An important aspect of leadership is getting a group of people to work together, regardless of their differences. So yes, I'm aware of cultural differences. That doesn't explain what happened last year.

---

actually it was a very big issue not the only factor but sizable one no less ... from inside source .

gobears725;842317912 said:

---

i think that its a lot easier to disagree than to act like an asshole. this was one of the most blatant acts of collective f#ck you to a football coach that ive seen. players quitting and finding every excuse to not be a part of the team. im sorry but if youre going to try to sass people into agreeing with you i suggest u find another weak minded fool to fall for your belittling tricks. the job of any coach is take what u have and make the best of it. sonny got a big fat F and small people like yourself would do Cal football a favor if they quit following.

theres no reason why someone like Alex Logan should feel the need to quit midseason in his senior year. ive talked to people that know Alex and you can tell that they were very disappointed in the experience. actions like that fall squarely on dykes. not Buh, not stewart, but dykes and people like you say the team will be better off. your the one that spits on players like that to defend an overpaid, underachieving coach. think of that one for a minute. u say the team will be better off, perhaps, but dont act like every kid was a bad kid and problem for the program when they werent. id probably say most of the kids that left are good kids and the fact that you keep defending the coach says more about how brainwashed u are

---

i got a question not being a smart ass ... curious since you have another perspective do you want sonny gone now ? whole staff gone ?

does it put you in awkward position of .. do you root for them to win ? ( bad for sonny leaving later then sooner ) or lose bad now F the program up more ( get rid of sonny now )

or is there another boat you would put yourself in ?

HKBear97;842317931 said:

---

Well, this is a new one. I have seen posters pointing to injuries, youth, tough schedule, new systems, Tedford and poor S&C program as excuses for last year. Now we have a new reason - cultural differences.

---

actually, cultural differences and the staff's inability to relate, understand, connect, and motivate these kids last year is a LOT more valid of a reason than some of the bullsh*t excuses made on here.

the best so far: "APR issues caused all this."

going4roses;842317935 said:

---

i got a question not being a smart ass ... curious since you have another perspective do you want sonny gone now ? whole staff gone ?

does it put you in awkward position of .. do you root for them to win ? ( bad for sonny leaving later then sooner ) or lose bad now F the program up more ( get rid of sonny now )

or is there another boat you would put yourself in ?

---

Do I think Sonny should have been fired after last year? Yes. Was there any possibility of that happening? Absolutely not. Extremely unlikely anyone would fire a head coach after one year. Therefore, he's our coach for better or worse. I always root for Cal to win, no matter what - not really an option.

But rooting for Cal to win and being critical of the coaching staff are not mutually exclusive. We can offer up hundreds of reasons for what happened last year, but at the end of the day, he and the staff didn't get the job done. I hope I'm 100% wrong on Sonny and he gets this thing going in the right direction. But if we're not and we get blown out, new scoring records, school records, individual records are put up against us, then two years would be enough of this regime.

going4roses;842317935 said:

---

i got a question not being a smart ass ... curious since you have another perspective do you want sonny gone now ? whole staff gone ?

does it put you in awkward position of .. do you root for them to win ? ( bad for sonny leaving later then sooner ) or lose bad now F the program up more ( get rid of sonny now )

or is there another boat you would put yourself in ?

---

of course i want sonny to win and stay as long as possible. but i want him to learn from his mistakes, especially with how he handled some of our guys. but i cant deny that i have frustration towards how i believe he ran the program last year. how he runs the program directly affects the kids that play in it. having family that played at Cal, i feel i have a decent understanding about how when coaches dont handle their players well, how it directly affects the kids and how it directly affects how the feel about the sport and their experience. i feel strongly that the experience should be one that they enjoy and treasure, not one where people are quitting and dont want to play. if sonny doesnt understand and have enough awareness in order to create those kinds of bonds amongst the team, then i do believe at some point, he'll need to move on and i think his results will reflect the job hes doing at creating an environment that fosters improvement but also makes it enjoyable for the players. a lot of this is on the head coach. we argue all day about scheme and coaches but i think one of the most important thing a coach can do is create an environment where the players fight for each other. how can that environment exist if theyre quitting at almost the first chance they get? that tells me that its very unlikely that hes building that in the team

HKBear97;842317931 said:

---

Well, this is a new one. I have seen posters pointing to injuries, youth, tough schedule, new systems, Tedford and poor S&C program as excuses for last year. Now we have a new reason - cultural differences.

When we struggled with Portland State last year, posters on here pointed to their roster of players that had D1 offers and noted they were better than the average FCS team. Portland State ended up finishing ninth in the Big Sky Conference. Is it really that difficult to acknoweldge that just maybe Dykes may be a poor coach without going to such great lengths to make excuses?

As to your question, I've lived and worked in Asia for the past eight years. I've built an extremely succesful team consisting of people from Singapore, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Canada, China and Australia. We've worked in countries throughout the region and have built a great business. An important aspect of leadership is getting a group of people to work together, regardless of their differences. So yes, I'm aware of cultural differences. That doesn't explain what happened last year.

---

i think that it may have some indirect influence. part of coaching is just understanding how to reach your players, get into their heads, make them believe they can do things they dont think is possible. but if hypothetically sonny doesnt understand the type of kids hes dealing with, then how can he reach them?

gobears725;842317944 said:

---

i think that it may have some indirect influence. part of coaching is just understanding how to reach your players, get into their heads, make them believe they can do things they dont think is possible. but if hypothetically sonny doesnt understand the type of kids hes dealing with, then how can he reach them?

---

These two consecutive posts were ... hilarious. :rollinglaugh:
Thanks.

:gobears:

HKBear97;842317942 said:

---

Do I think Sonny should have been fired after last year? Yes. Was there any possibility of that happening? Absolutely not. Extremely unlikely anyone would fire a head coach after one year. Therefore, he's our coach for better or worse. I always root for Cal to win, no matter what - not really an option.

But rooting for Cal to win and being critical of the coaching staff are not mutually exclusive. We can offer up hundreds of reasons for what happened last year, but at the end of the day, he and the staff didn't get the job done. I hope I'm 100% wrong on Sonny and he gets this thing going in the right direction. But if we're not and we get blown out, new scoring records, school records, individual records are put up against us, then two years would be enough of this regime.

---

thx for the rational answer ... you could learn a lil something beez

and as to the highlighted part of you comment .. im 100% in agreement no 3rd year at all period unless it well warranted

gobears725;842317944 said:

---

i think that it may have some indirect influence. part of coaching is just understanding how to reach your players, get into their heads, make them believe they can do things they dont think is possible. but if hypothetically sonny doesnt understand the type of kids hes dealing with, then how can he reach them?

---

He just needs to watch Dangerous Minds. "They say I gotta learn, but nobody's here to teach me. If they can't understand it, how can they reach me? I guess they can't, I guess they won't, I guess they front. That's why I know my life is out of luck, fool!"

freshfunk;842317930 said:

---

Slider, who were the problem players? You keep pointing to this straw man but I'd like to know who they were and how you know they were problem players.

Is this based on rumors or did you see any official GPAs?

Yes, there was an Apr problem, a problem that was already being addressed by Tedford. Also, if you paid attention to the study released by Cal, the issue wasn't "problem" kids but football players who weren't finishing out their degree because they were prepping for the NFL.

I think your label of "problem kid" is being thrown around too cavalierly against many players on the team. Cal's own study showed that they take very few academically risky players in any given year, no different than schools like ucla who've adopted a similar system.

Lastly I find this line of argument insulting to the players, including those who've come back to finish their degree. I find it shameful that you use the tactic of smearing former players in order to give an excuse to Sonny's poor mismanagement.

---

I don't know who the problem players were. I said if Dykes is a good coach, he ran them off. So those could be the problem players. I also said if he's not a good coach, we'll go down in flames, in which case those weren't problem player and he's run off players unnecessarily. We won't really know until we see what kind of improvement the team makes this season.

slider643;842317815 said:

---

I'm not apologizing. But I don't see last season as utter failure.

Not only was the locker room more cancerous than I imagined, we didn't have talent and we had a ridiculous amount of injuries.

---

"I'm not apologizing"... but here are more excuses. incredible

MiZery;842317892 said:

---

Oh good, so I will see you next year then. Have a wonderful season, rooting for whoever you will root for now.

btw, he had a good defense in his first (or second) year at LA Tech. He lost a bunch of seniors from that team, and they went on to not be good the year after.

---

more excuses and more proof of poor recruiting skills.

GoBears58;842318157 said:

---

more excuses and more proof of poor recruiting skills.

---

:rollinglaugh:
You guys are funny

SonOfCalVa;842318160 said:

---

:rollinglaugh:
You guys are funny

---

You really like this green guy. :rollinglaugh:

Maybe you don't realize that putting it in your post doesn't make your post funny. :rollinglaugh:

It is kind of like laughing at your own jokes. :rollinglaugh:

It also doesn't make you right. :rollinglaugh:

:rollinglaugh:

OaktownBear;842318188 said:

---

You really like this green guy. :rollinglaugh:
Maybe you don't realize that putting it in your post doesn't make your post funny. :rollinglaugh:
It is kind of like laughing at your own jokes. :rollinglaugh:
It also doesn't make you right. :rollinglaugh:

---

:rollinglaugh:

This thread is going really well.

SonOfCalVa;842318192 said:

---

:rollinglaugh:



:rollinglaugh:

---

Oh yeah! Well

:rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh:

So there!

SonOfCalVa;842318192 said:

---

:rollinglaugh:



:rollinglaugh:

---

and furthermore,

:moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon: :moon:

SonOfCalVa;842318192 said:

---

:rollinglaugh:



:rollinglaugh:

---

.

:woohoo

ok getting way out hand lol .. yall something else

icon fighting ... that is new one on BI for me anyhow

Geezus, phuck.

Fire Dykes for even allowing this to happen on BearInsider.

dupdadee;842318231 said:

---

Geezus, phuck.

Fire Dykes for even allowing this to happen on BearInsider.

---

FIRE BearInsider....damn, what a collection of Neanderphucks.....:beer:

Cal_Fan2;842318247 said:

---

damn, what a collection of Neanderphucks.....:beer:

---

Thanks?

KevBear;842317917 said:

---

Why is it necessarily interpreted as a put-down against the remaining players? Since gobears725 didn't specify either way, why can't it be interpreted as a compliment of the individual determination and resilience of the players who have battled through an unfavorable environment? Don't put words in other people's mouths.

---

Maybe you didn't read the same words I read. Here's gobears725's quote:

Quote:

---

i think its safe to say that for whatever the reason, the environment wasnt a fun or positive one. otherwise people would make an effort to want to be a part of it.

---

The reasonable inference is that anyone who sticks around in an environment that is neither fun nor positive is either a glutton for punishment or doesn't have the simple nerve to leave.

I simply object to the characterization of the environment as necessarily not fun or negative. I also object to the spreading of innuendo and character assassination.