wifeisafurd;842797837 said:

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Maybe because Greenwood is considered the Dean of offensive line coaches in the Pac?/QUOTE]

Greenwood WIAF? lol

I'm sorry, but no one knows the names of position coaches (well, at least 99% of us). Frankly it doesn't matter what their names are to the average fan. What is important is do we know their accomplishments?

I didn't know Greatwood's name prior to Cal hiring him but I was fully aware of the performance of his linemen over the years. So yes, I was happy we landed him. Great(wood) hire!

As a self-proclaimed Sunshine Pumper, even I have serious concerns over this entire firing/hiring process. It has not gone well. I am trying to hold off making early judgement about the new coaching staff, but I find myself smh and being underwhelmed.

Great that Cal hired a defensive coach, but completely unknown as a guy who can lead a Power Five team. Everyone points out how he has been DC for some great defenses at some great football programs. This is absolutely true and he should be proud of his successes. However, there are some significant red flags that Cal fans seem willing to overlook.

- He was never at any of his DC gigs for any serious length of time. Boise was his longest at 4 seasons. Tennessee 2 seasons, Washington 2 seasons, USC 2 seasons, Wisconsin 1 season. That means the talent he worked with were, by and large, inherited from prior coaches. All of those programs are top-tier programs that almost always attract top talent anyway. How will he do inheriting a team that clearly does NOT have talent on the defensive side of the ball?

- Speaking of those programs he worked for...considering Wilcox worked as a DC for five elite college football programs, which means he has worked with some of the most established and well known coaches in the nation, and success breeds success. Why hasn't any other named program attempted to hire Wilcox as their head coach? The only other program that I am aware of that (possibly) made an offer was San Jose State. When Cal fired Dykes, 21 other FBS schools had already HIRED new head coaches for 2017. None of them (except maybe SJSU) even attempted to lure him to their schools. I would think that if I was an AD at a Power Five school, I would be making contact with established coaches across the country asking for recommendations. Did none of Wilcox's prior head coaches give him an endorsement?

- Which leads to recruiting. Everyone seems to be excited about Wilcox's west coast recruiting ties....which excited me. But who has he recruited over the years? I looked up recruiting stats for coaches using 24/7's database. I'm sure it isn't 100% accurate, but I will assume it is directionally correct. Over the decade-plus years of coaching, 24/7 attributes 3 players that Wilcox has recruited: 3-star ILB Sean Constantine (UW) in 2012, 4-star OT Clayton Johnston (USC) in 2014 & 3-star OC Cole Smith (USC) also in 2014. That's it. Only one defensive player. For comparison sake, Tosh has 30 players attributed to him including seven 5-star recruits and thirteen 4-star recruits. I hope Wilcox can close on high end talent at Cal, but not sure we see a track record. It doesn't make me feel any better to read headlines on ESPN that read "Cal recruits' reaction to Wilcox hiring: 'Who?'"

- The Baldwin hire seems solid, but not necessarily an upgrade over what we previously had with Spav. More alarming is that for a defensive minded coach, we have made no progress on the defensive coaching staff. We had two very solid names that seemed exciting (I really didn't want Tosh to return, but at least he would have been a splashy hire). Now who are we left with at this late stage of the game? The talent pool of available coaches is razor thin. Even true Cal insiders don't seem to know where we go from here.

I don't want to be a downer...I really don't. I prefer to see the positive side of things in general and I really hope I am wrong with my concerns, but this entire process from the timing of firing Dykes to scrambling to patch a coaching staff together (with some BIG swings and misses) isn't giving me any comfort. It really doesn't matter what I think though. Only time will tell if these hires were good ones or not. If they are, I will happily eat crow (and you can hold me to it).

How could you not know that EWU has beat Oregon State a few years ago and almost beat Washington just last year. Then they also beat Washington State this year! How could you not have heard all the commotion that caused when a small school team did that. Sure you may not know the name of the coach, but you should know that they scored a ton of points against at least those teams and we got the guy behind that offense. So sure you may not know his name but you should know what he has done.

Also you should also know very much that Oregon for the last 10 years has been the best rushing team in the Pac-12. That it is because they have had great OL play and while sure you may not know the name greatwood you should know again what he has done!

Tui QB at Washington, he coached at USC and UCLA, he was pac-12 recruiter of the year in 2015, he played on the Raiders.

I am going to go out on a limb and say when you were told you won't have to look up names for a lot of the staff that wasn't directed at you. You wont know anyone that hasnt played or coached at Cal.

You're definitely being a downer.

UCBerkGrad;842797879 said:

---

wifeisafurd;842797837 said:

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Maybe because Greenwood is considered the Dean of offensive line coaches in the Pac?/QUOTE]

Greenwood WIAF? lol

I'm sorry, but no one knows the names of position coaches (well, at least 99% of us). Frankly it doesn't matter what their names are to the average fan. What is important is do we know their accomplishments?

I didn't know Greatwood's name prior to Cal hiring him but I was fully aware of the performance of his linemen over the years. So yes, I was happy we landed him. Great(wood) hire!

As a self-proclaimed Sunshine Pumper, even I have serious concerns over this entire firing/hiring process. It has not gone well. I am trying to hold off making early judgement about the new coaching staff, but I find myself smh and being underwhelmed.

Great that Cal hired a defensive coach, but completely unknown as a guy who can lead a Power Five team. Everyone points out how he has been DC for some great defenses at some great football programs. This is absolutely true and he should be proud of his successes. However, there are some significant red flags that Cal fans seem willing to overlook.

- He was never at any of his DC gigs for any serious length of time. Boise was his longest at 4 seasons. Tennessee 2 seasons, Washington 2 seasons, USC 2 seasons, Wisconsin 1 season. That means the talent he worked with were, by and large, inherited from prior coaches. All of those programs are top-tier programs that almost always attract top talent anyway. How will he do inheriting a team that clearly does NOT have talent on the defensive side of the ball?

- Speaking of those programs he worked for...considering Wilcox worked as a DC for five elite college football programs, which means he has worked with some of the most established and well known coaches in the nation, and success breeds success. Why hasn't any other named program attempted to hire Wilcox as their head coach? The only other program that I am aware of that (possibly) made an offer was San Jose State. When Cal fired Dykes, 21 other FBS schools had already HIRED new head coaches for 2017. None of them (except maybe SJSU) even attempted to lure him to their schools. I would think that if I was an AD at a Power Five school, I would be making contact with established coaches across the country asking for recommendations. Did none of Wilcox's prior head coaches give him an endorsement?

- Which leads to recruiting. Everyone seems to be excited about Wilcox's west coast recruiting ties....which excited me. But who has he recruited over the years? I looked up recruiting stats for coaches using 24/7's database. I'm sure it isn't 100% accurate, but I will assume it is directionally correct. Over the decade-plus years of coaching, 24/7 attributes 3 players that Wilcox has recruited: 3-star ILB Sean Constantine (UW) in 2012, 4-star OT Clayton Johnston (USC) in 2014 & 3-star OC Cole Smith (USC) also in 2014. That's it. Only one defensive player. For comparison sake, Tosh has 30 players attributed to him including seven 5-star recruits and thirteen 4-star recruits. I hope Wilcox can close on high end talent at Cal, but not sure we see a track record. It doesn't make me feel any better to read headlines on ESPN that read "Cal recruits' reaction to Wilcox hiring: 'Who?'"

- The Baldwin hire seems solid, but not necessarily an upgrade over what we previously had with Spav. More alarming is that for a defensive minded coach, we have made no progress on the defensive coaching staff. We had two very solid names that seemed exciting (I really didn't want Tosh to return, but at least he would have been a splashy hire). Now who are we left with at this late stage of the game? The talent pool of available coaches is razor thin. Even true Cal insiders don't seem to know where we go from here.

I don't want to be a downer...I really don't. I prefer to see the positive side of things in general and I really hope I am wrong with my concerns, but this entire process from the timing of firing Dykes to scrambling to patch a coaching staff together (with some BIG swings and misses) isn't giving me any comfort. It really doesn't matter what I think though. Only time will tell if these hires were good ones or not. If they are, I will happily eat crow (and you can hold me to it).

---

Well I know when Wilcox was announced I was pretty underwhelmed for the reasons you mentioned. His name has been thrown around for half a decade as a coaching candidate, but no other school had taken a chance on him. Then when it sounded like he was coming as a package deal with Tosh, things looked up. They continued to stay up when it was sounding like we were going to get UW's DB and recruiting maven, but now it feels like we're back down to reality. The offensive coaching hires are impressive so I'm optimistic JW can put together a solid staff on the defensive side as well but it seems like it will be a while before we can get back to the days of 8-10 win seasons, especially since this recruiting cycle doesn't appear salvageable unless some amazing D.C. Candidate is announced on Monday out of the blue. Who knows. Maybe the other schools that passed on Wilcox will regret it a few years from now and Williams will look like a genius.

I'm not seeing the 'pumper' element in this post.

jamonit;842797882 said:

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How could you not know that EWU has beat Oregon State a few years ago and almost beat Washington just last year. Then they also beat Washington State this year! How could you not have heard all the commotion that caused when a small school team did that. Sure you may not know the name of the coach, but you should know that they scored a ton of points against at least those teams and we got the guy behind that offense. So sure you may not know his name but you should know what he has done.

Also you should also know very much that Oregon for the last 10 years has been the best rushing team in the Pac-12. That it is because they have had great OL play and while sure you may not know the name greatwood you should know again what he has done!

Tui QB at Washington, he coached at USC and UCLA, he was pac-12 recruiter of the year in 2015, he played on the Raiders.

I am going to go out on a limb and say when you were told you won't have to look up names for a lot of the staff that wasn't directed at you. You wont know anyone that hasnt played or coached at Cal.

---

Yeah i don'tget the negas either. The one big hire was the OC. He got the guy who not only has hc experience, but who's team competed with pac 12 teams with guys no pac 12 teams want. There is no DR at EWU. then you add greatwood!!!! Are you kidding. Wilcox could run our defense and we would be improved, he might not sleep for 6 months but he could do it.

The timing sucks. It does show some lack in planning but wow did he rally with the current hires.

Spin all you want but this is a big loss on a number of levels if it's final.

Keep in mind....Wilcox is a defensive minded coach and he has to either promote someone who hasn't been a DC before and is hoping to learn from him, or he has to be able to convince someone with experience that it will be their defense and that he won't be in their ear telling them what to do micromanaging their job...

We went after two extremely high profile guys that fit the former description. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

In either case...He has to make some effort to convince the guy he hires that it is their defense...Not his. That becomes extremely difficult if they comes into a situation where all of the defensive position coaches have been hired and hand picked by Wilcox.

I know it sucks to play the waiting game and the timing is God awful...But at this point I think Wilcox is playing this smart and doing a great job considering the circumstances.

~MrGPAC

MrGPAC;842797911 said:

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Keep in mind....Wilcox is a defensive minded coach and he has to either promote someone who hasn't been a DC before and is hoping to learn from him, or he has to be able to convince someone with experience that it will be their defense and that he won't be in their ear telling them what to do micromanaging their job...

We went after two extremely high profile guys that fit the former description. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

In either case...He has to make some effort to convince the guy he hires that it is their defense...Not his. That becomes extremely difficult if they comes into a situation where all of the defensive position coaches have been hired and hand picked by Wilcox.

I know it sucks to play the waiting game and the timing is God awful...But at this point I think Wilcox is playing this smart and doing a great job considering the circumstances.

~MrGPAC

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I'm very happy with the people who have been hired. I wish we had some defensive hires in place, that's disappointing, but the staff he's hired on the offensive side of the ball is first class. We'll continue to run a variation of the spread and we'll continue to score points. I'm concerned about the defensive side of the ball but at least we have a head coach with a defensive pedigree. That already puts us ahead of where we were last year. Wilcox does not appear to be closing on his top DC candidates but there are other well qualified candidates available. I'm encouraged by the amount of money allocated for defensive hires. That's an improvement as well. Should attract a good candidate. This is not a complete rebuild. The roster Wilcox inherits is better than it was four years ago. Cal won five games last year without much of a defense. So a winning record in the first or second year is not unreasonable.

UCBerkGrad;842797879 said:

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- Speaking of those programs he worked for...considering Wilcox worked as a DC for five elite college football programs, which means he has worked with some of the most established and well known coaches in the nation, and success breeds success. Why hasn't any other named program attempted to hire Wilcox as their head coach? The only other program that I am aware of that (possibly) made an offer was San Jose State. When Cal fired Dykes, 21 other FBS schools had already HIRED new head coaches for 2017. None of them (except maybe SJSU) even attempted to lure him to their schools. I would think that if I was an AD at a Power Five school, I would be making contact with established coaches across the country asking for recommendations. Did none of Wilcox's prior head coaches give him an endorsement?

- Which leads to recruiting. Everyone seems to be excited about Wilcox's west coast recruiting ties....which excited me. But who has he recruited over the years? I looked up recruiting stats for coaches using 24/7's database. I'm sure it isn't 100% accurate, but I will assume it is directionally correct. Over the decade-plus years of coaching, 24/7 attributes 3 players that Wilcox has recruited: 3-star ILB Sean Constantine (UW) in 2012, 4-star OT Clayton Johnston (USC) in 2014 & 3-star OC Cole Smith (USC) also in 2014. That's it. Only one defensive player. For comparison sake, Tosh has 30 players attributed to him including seven 5-star recruits and thirteen 4-star recruits. I hope Wilcox can close on high end talent at Cal, but not sure we see a track record. It doesn't make me feel any better to read headlines on ESPN that read "Cal recruits' reaction to Wilcox hiring: 'Who?'"

---

Those are fair concerns, but a couple things I had been thinking were...

(1) what if he didn't want to be a HC yet from 2010-16? Lots of coordinators don't throw their hats in the ring, either because they don't ever want to move up or (more likely in Wilcox's case) are biding their time and trying to build their resumes. If programs know this, they might not come knocking, or if they do, it may not be in a way that any of us ever find out about. Was Wilcox himself knocking on doors for HC gigs like Sonny did?

(2) Can any football player's recruitment really be attributed to a single person? It's hard to believe Wilcox had nothing to do with anyone's recruitment except those three guys.

Polodad;842797890 said:

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I'm not seeing the 'pumper' element in this post.

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He forgot to add Dykes in front of the pumper.

510Bear;842797924 said:

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Those are fair concerns, but a couple things I had been thinking were...

(1) what if he didn't want to be a HC yet from 2010-16? Lots of coordinators don't throw their hats in the ring, either because they don't ever want to move up or (more likely in Wilcox's case) are biding their time and trying to build their resumes. If programs know this, they might not come knocking, or if they do, it may not be in a way that any of us ever find out about. Was Wilcox himself knocking on doors for HC gigs like Sonny did?

(2) Can any football player's recruitment really be attributed to a single person? It's hard to believe Wilcox had nothing to do with anyone's recruitment except those three guys.

---

I also unaware of Dykes or even Tedford's impressive HC resume before they came to Cal. LaTech is basically EWU, but with confederate flags.

SFBear2012;842797888 said:

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UCBerkGrad;842797879 said:

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Well I know when Wilcox was announced I was pretty underwhelmed for the reasons you mentioned. His name has been thrown around for half a decade as a coaching candidate, but no other school had taken a chance on him. Then when it sounded like he was coming as a package deal with Tosh, things looked up. They continued to stay up when it was sounding like we were going to get UW's DB and recruiting maven, but now it feels like we're back down to reality. The offensive coaching hires are impressive so I'm optimistic JW can put together a solid staff on the defensive side as well but it seems like it will be a while before we can get back to the days of 8-10 win seasons, especially since this recruiting cycle doesn't appear salvageable unless some amazing D.C. Candidate is announced on Monday out of the blue. Who knows. Maybe the other schools that passed on Wilcox will regret it a few years from now and Williams will look like a genius.

---

It's not who we hired - which is fine, he seems like a good hire on paper - but how. Like was said, Williams waited until every other school hired to bring him in, right before signing. That's just idiotic. So Williams, through his incompetence (and this is apart from the more recent idiocy around losing Tosh and Lake) condemned the recruiting class. If Wilcox had been hired in December he could have time to shore up the class. Williams month of dithering cost the Cal program a year of progress, leaving everything else as is. No excuse for that. Williams is a technocrat and Cal needs a passionate, visionary AD who is proactive. That's the main reason Cal fans are upset. Firing Dykes and hiring Wilcox was not a rocket science move.

Uthaithani;842797940 said:

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SFBear2012;842797888 said:

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It's not who we hired - which is fine, he seems like a good hire on paper - but how. Like was said, Williams waited until every other school hired to bring him in, right before signing. That's just idiotic. So Williams, through his incompetence (and this is apart from the more recent idiocy around losing Tosh and Lake) condemned the recruiting class. If Wilcox had been hired in December he could have time to shore up the class. Williams month of dithering cost the Cal program a year of progress, leaving everything else as is. No excuse for that. Williams is a technocrat and Cal needs a passionate, visionary AD who is proactive. That's the main reason Cal fans are upset. Firing Dykes and hiring Wilcox was not a rocket science move.

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Passionate, visionary AD could be used to describe Sandy, notwithstanding her other faults.

We have to face the fact that Cal AD will always find it hard to navigate the greater Cal admin system, and sometimes not every we expect to come out of a modern athletic program does. I think Williams has so far at least demonstrated some willingness to work with both the Cal system and the market realities, even from the Dykes extension/firing. He thought he had to extend Dykes despite his uneasiness with his performance and loyalty in order to save the season, but when Dykes failed the next season he was ready to pull the plug but perhaps was ordered to save money by waiting until Jan.

MiltyBear;842797926 said:

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He forgot to add Dykes in front of the pumper.

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Hardly. I had no problem with firing Dykes. Timing was horrible and lacked foresight though.

UCBerkGrad;842797948 said:

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Hardly. I had no problem with firing Dykes. Timing was horrible and lacked foresight though.

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And it isn't just us Chicken Littles saying this. The experts called this a B+ coach and a D hiring process. It's not just a few whiners on this board who see problems.

Uthaithani;842797949 said:

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And it isn't just us Chicken Littles saying this. The experts called this a B+ coach and a D hiring process. It's not just a few whiners on this board who see problems.

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ultrahateme, if you told me you whine when the cal band comes thru the endzone onto the field (not that a fake model tv fan like you would know about that), i would believe you

So all arrows point back to AD Wms, his plan/decisions. It is late in the game, and this seems all too familiar - what are you going to do, "smartest man in the room"?...........

I think Williams made a very difficult decision. And with Cal's administration in flux, it likely wasn't easy to get clearance to spend $6 mil we don't have... I think Wilcox said it best in his first press conference: there are interested parties and we will take our time to find the right candidates. There have been some solid hires but DC may be tougher because any incoming coach will see it's going to be a high visibility/scrutiny, major re-build kind of job, from both an on-field performance and recruiting point of view: not a turnkey stepping stone.

So we are back to bitching about the process again? I guess some people just can't be happy. Hell, even if you guys are right, so what? This class will have like 14 kids in it and it was yet another middling Dykes effort where we can brag about recruiting great students and point to the exceptions so we feel better about landing 2 and 3 star recruits, then bitch about not having good enough players when SDSU drops 50 on us the next fall.

tequila4kapp;842798001 said:

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So we are back to bitching about the process again? I guess some people just can't be happy. Hell, even if you guys are right, so what? This class will have like 14 kids in it and it was yet another middling Dykes effort where we can brag about recruiting great students and point to the exceptions so we feel better about landing 2 and 3 star recruits, then bitch about not having good enough players when SDSU drops 50 on us the next fall.

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Agree. Glad Dykes is gone -- Williams made the right call here. The timing is neither here or there for me. We were all resigned to another crap season and then Dykes getting fired, at least we have some reason for hope now.

I was thinking how slightly sad it was that the East Washington's Pac12 game scores looked like our typical game scores under Dykes.

UCBerkGrad;842797879 said:

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wifeisafurd;842797837 said:

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Maybe because Greenwood is considered the Dean of offensive line coaches in the Pac?/QUOTE]

Greenwood WIAF? lol

I'm sorry, but no one knows the names of position coaches (well, at least 99% of us). Frankly it doesn't matter what their names are to the average fan. What is important is do we know their accomplishments?

I didn't know Greatwood's name prior to Cal hiring him but I was fully aware of the performance of his linemen over the years. So yes, I was happy we landed him. Great(wood) hire!

As a self-proclaimed Sunshine Pumper, even I have serious concerns over this entire firing/hiring process. It has not gone well. I am trying to hold off making early judgement about the new coaching staff, but I find myself smh and being underwhelmed.

Great that Cal hired a defensive coach, but completely unknown as a guy who can lead a Power Five team. Everyone points out how he has been DC for some great defenses at some great football programs. This is absolutely true and he should be proud of his successes. However, there are some significant red flags that Cal fans seem willing to overlook.

- He was never at any of his DC gigs for any serious length of time. Boise was his longest at 4 seasons. Tennessee 2 seasons, Washington 2 seasons, USC 2 seasons, Wisconsin 1 season. That means the talent he worked with were, by and large, inherited from prior coaches. All of those programs are top-tier programs that almost always attract top talent anyway. How will he do inheriting a team that clearly does NOT have talent on the defensive side of the ball?

- Speaking of those programs he worked for...considering Wilcox worked as a DC for five elite college football programs, which means he has worked with some of the most established and well known coaches in the nation, and success breeds success. Why hasn't any other named program attempted to hire Wilcox as their head coach? The only other program that I am aware of that (possibly) made an offer was San Jose State. When Cal fired Dykes, 21 other FBS schools had already HIRED new head coaches for 2017. None of them (except maybe SJSU) even attempted to lure him to their schools. I would think that if I was an AD at a Power Five school, I would be making contact with established coaches across the country asking for recommendations. Did none of Wilcox's prior head coaches give him an endorsement?

- Which leads to recruiting. Everyone seems to be excited about Wilcox's west coast recruiting ties....which excited me. But who has he recruited over the years? I looked up recruiting stats for coaches using 24/7's database. I'm sure it isn't 100% accurate, but I will assume it is directionally correct. Over the decade-plus years of coaching, 24/7 attributes 3 players that Wilcox has recruited: 3-star ILB Sean Constantine (UW) in 2012, 4-star OT Clayton Johnston (USC) in 2014 & 3-star OC Cole Smith (USC) also in 2014. That's it. Only one defensive player. For comparison sake, Tosh has 30 players attributed to him including seven 5-star recruits and thirteen 4-star recruits. I hope Wilcox can close on high end talent at Cal, but not sure we see a track record. It doesn't make me feel any better to read headlines on ESPN that read "Cal recruits' reaction to Wilcox hiring: 'Who?'"

- The Baldwin hire seems solid, but not necessarily an upgrade over what we previously had with Spav. More alarming is that for a defensive minded coach, we have made no progress on the defensive coaching staff. We had two very solid names that seemed exciting (I really didn't want Tosh to return, but at least he would have been a splashy hire). Now who are we left with at this late stage of the game? The talent pool of available coaches is razor thin. Even true Cal insiders don't seem to know where we go from here.

I don't want to be a downer...I really don't. I prefer to see the positive side of things in general and I really hope I am wrong with my concerns, but this entire process from the timing of firing Dykes to scrambling to patch a coaching staff together (with some BIG swings and misses) isn't giving me any comfort. It really doesn't matter what I think though. Only time will tell if these hires were good ones or not. If they are, I will happily eat crow (and you can hold me to it).

---

This is weird post to respond to. We all know that there are no guarantees, and essentially every coach comes in with something that is not a perfect fit (the one guy who probably was I mention below and he failed miserably. I just don't think the post reflects how coaches are hired and needs a reality check.

Your admission that you don't know any assistants is noted, which makes your opining coaches are third tier amazingly uniformed. Your stated view that 99% of the posters have not heard of these assistants also is just as uniformed, especially guys with major west coast experience, and you clearly don't seem to get that despite all the posters calling you out. Don't attribute your ignorance to 99% of the people here. OTOH, you can insult my self-correcting program that continues to turn Greatwood into Greenwood all you want.

Wilcox was a well-known commodity to people at Cal, he was taken to new jobs by his head coaches, and there have been the usual number of tweets and commentary from past coaches, players and associates that give the Wilcox thumbs-up (that seems to happen with all hires these days), to respond to silly comment about calling-up established coaches across the nation for recommendations. If you can't see why any coach is not going provide names (other than guys looking for a job already), and would likely have no idea what Cal is looking for anyway, I can't help you. His last coach at Wisconsin has made a big effort to say what a great hire Cal made and that Wilcox is ready to be a head coach, but only after Wilcox was hired. That is the best your ever going to get.

Not to make this longer, but there are many articles on how prospective coaches are identified and contacted for interest. You can read them, but let me suggest to you the usual route is for a search committee to look at candidates and then contact the identified coach's agent (you can read why is not customary or perhaps not legal in some states to contact the coach directly). If the agent says he is not looking, the discussion end there. There may be many reasons a coach is not looking. That said, Wilcox has been mentioned for other jobs, including the Udub job that went to Petersen. As far as I know, he had expressed no interest in a HC job until this year, but candidly only Wilcox and his agent probably know.

There have been a number of changes already that people who follow Cal football like. The coaching staff will be way more experienced, heavy with Pac and west coast ties, a very motivated S&C coach, and those who deem to follow other teams, or in maybe one case Cal, will know. Wilcox is spending a great deal of time with players. One player, a starter, said he spent more time talking privately with Wilcox last week than he spent his entire career talking to Sonny. Wilcox has met with various high school coaches, including local coaches, that had never met with Sonny. This shows a desire to build the program the right way, from the ground. There is no guarantee any coach will be a successful hire, you have to look at what they do and evaluate. Resumes can be somewhat helpful, and Wilcox certainly had a good enough resume to be considered. But even that is no guaranty. Bill Walsh going into his second term at Furd, may have been the most qualified coach of all time, and he laid a turd. We all know there is no guaranty the Wilcox will succeed. At least I hope we all do.

But there is a general feeling, with Sonny having one foot out the door, and the defensive problems, there was need for a change. And so far, Wilcox as a defensive-oriented coach made sense, and most posters seem to like where he says the program is going, his actions so far, and the coaching staff he is recruiting. That Cal is having a tough time recruiting a DCs probably reflects on Sonny being undesirable as a head coach, and in Wilcox's case, to circumstances beyond Wilcox's control. Also, its probably a lot easier to sell coaches on inheriting the offense Sonny left, than the defense. All that said, Wilcox seems to know what he is doing on defense, so I'm less concerned about the "x's" and "o's" on defense and in the short run, and more concerned about recruiting better defensive talent.

As for eating crow, you may not know for a few years. Cal is a modified rebuild due to its defense, and Wilcox doesn't seem to be into taking short cuts.

wifeisafurd;842798043 said:

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Wilcox has met with various high school coaches, including local coaches, that had never met with Sonny.

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This is inexcusable and makes me angry. Dykes is an incompetent jackass and pretty easily the worst hire in my 30 odd years of being a suffering Cal fan. Even if Wilcox fails miserably I'll still be happy they got rid of Dykes.

tequila4kapp;842798050 said:

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This is inexcusable and makes me angry. Dykes is an incompetent jackass and pretty easily the worst hire in my 30 odd years of being a suffering Cal fan. Even if Wilcox fails miserably I'll still be happy they got rid of Dykes.

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Nah, I think Gilby had to be the worst of your thirty years.

tequila4kapp;842798050 said:

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This is inexcusable and makes me angry. Dykes is an incompetent jackass and pretty easily the worst hire in my 30 odd years of being a suffering Cal fan. Even if Wilcox fails miserably I'll still be happy they got rid of Dykes.

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I don't see how they had a problem firing him for cause if he didn't even try to recruit local talent. I can't wait to clown stomp their pathetic defense at TCU in a few years. He'll probably be the head coach by then, with their alumni begging for someone to take him away.

OdontoBear66;842798056 said:

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Nah, I think Gilby had to be the worst of your thirty years.

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Or TH.

OdontoBear66;842798056 said:

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Nah, I think Gilby had to be the worst of your thirty years.

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It is admittedly a close call. But in my opinion Holmoe and Gilby tried to do right things the right way but were bad at it, whereas Dykes did virtually nothing the right way and did that stuff very poorly.

tequila4kapp;842798072 said:

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It is admittedly a close call. But in my opinion Holmoe and Gilby tried to do right things the right way but were bad at it, whereas Dykes did virtually nothing the right way and did that stuff very poorly.

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Holmoe had that crazy comeback against USC in 1998 at the the Mausoleum with Justin Vedder and Dameane Douglas. Gilby had that crazy comeback against the Ducks in 1993. Good memories.

tequila4kapp;842798050 said:

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This is inexcusable and makes me angry. Dykes is an incompetent jackass and pretty easily the worst hire in my 30 odd years of being a suffering Cal fan. Even if Wilcox fails miserably I'll still be happy they got rid of Dykes.

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"Incompetent jackass" is pushing it, but if the reason he didn't recruit local talent and focused on Texas wasn't so much to make Cal a better team, but to lay the groundwork for him to return to coaching in that state (as mentioned in another thread)......that's just as bad as Tony Franklin's first priority being his DVDs and clinics, and, well, bye Felicia.

burritos;842798100 said:

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Holmoe had that crazy comeback against USC in 1998 at the the Mausoleum with Justin Vedder and Dameane Douglas. Gilby had that crazy comeback against the Ducks in 1993. Good memories.

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I'm not sure one game counts for much, but I think one season does. Gilby had 1993 (Alamo Bowl victory and just a really good season, all told) and it followed a disappointing first year (his first, 1992, w/senior Russell White), so he must've DONE SOMETHING to stop the bleeding.

Gilby's other three seasons pretty much sucked, but 1993 vaults him ahead of Holmoe... and maybe ahead of Dykes and maybe even Kapp.

Vineyardview;842797673 said:

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Seattle radio sports personality reported that one of his sources told him Lake is not going to Cal

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Don't jump to conclusions. He has a tricky contract and a buyout they're working through. It's complicated. Patience.

Clown. College.

PutYourNameOnIt;842798227 said:

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Don't jump to conclusions. He has a tricky contract and a buyout they're working through. It's complicated. Patience.

Clown. College.

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There was no indication UW was going to break the bank to significantly increase assistants pay. There's nothing clownish about that.

tequila4kapp;842798072 said:

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It is admittedly a close call. But in my opinion Holmoe and Gilby tried to do right things the right way but were bad at it, whereas Dykes did virtually nothing the right way and did that stuff very poorly.

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Give me a break. SD walked in to horrific situation and cleaned up the mess. Created a potent offense among the leaders of Div. 1. Discounting his first year, he was 5-7; 8-5; 5-7. Unfortunately he was as bad at Defense as he was good at offense and he gave up way way too many points and lost too many close games.
I agree he had to go.
Gilby and TH both inherited good teams and drove them down. Especially TH. There is no comparison with SD.

tequila4kapp;842798072 said:

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It is admittedly a close call. But in my opinion Holmoe and Gilby tried to do right things the right way but were bad at it, whereas Dykes did virtually nothing the right way and did that stuff very poorly.

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Where is the sarcasm label

Blueandgold1;842798066 said:

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Or TH.

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Footballwise, Holmoe and Dykes were the same, they both were horrible. Gilby was better than both of them. Those two idiots were here like 9 years, Gilby 4 and Gilby won more Big Games than those losers combined. But Holmoe got us on probation so I rate him worse than Dykes overall.

But point taken, just glad to be rid of Dykes.