Dykes was Sandy's hire. Sounds to me like when she got offed, he saw the handwriting on the wall and began looking for escape routes. As I've said, I understand the hire, because if she had hired someone at the Wilcox level, after all the money spent on the stadium upgrade, lots of people would have been pissed at getting someone without HC experience. Also, in the wake of the size of Tedford's buyout, I don't think recall all that much enthusiasm for paying the next coach a boatload, unless it was someone like Petersen, who supposedly said he wasn't interested.

So Sandy got creamed for hiring a football coach with experience that didn't work out, and now Williams is getting creamed for hiring a basketball coach without experience that so far is not working out. Go figure.

I wish they would get the AD hire resolved, so we can have something new to complain about.

Jeff82 said:

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Dykes was Sandy's hire. Sounds to me like when she got offed, he saw the handwriting on the wall and began looking for escape routes. As I've said, I understand the hire, because if she had hired someone at the Wilcox level, after all the money spent on the stadium upgrade, lots of people would have been pissed at getting someone without HC experience. Also, in the wake of the size of Tedford's buyout, I don't think recall all that much enthusiasm for paying the next coach a boatload, unless it was someone like Petersen, who supposedly said he wasn't interested.

So Sandy got creamed for hiring a football coach with experience that didn't work out, and now Williams is getting creamed for hiring a basketball coach without experience that so far is not working out. Go figure.

I wish they would get the AD hire resolved, so we can have something new to complain about.

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1. Hiring a coach with experience and meh results is not the way to go. Forrest Greg syndrome
2. Jones is not analogous to Wilcox. Coordinators in football effectively manage half of the team (unless they carry the clipboard for a head coach who runs that phase). Assistants in basketball do not. They do not have the same management experience. Wilcox is a middle ground between Dykes and Jones
3. The cheers or criticism of a coaching hire lasts until about one week into the first season. An AD that hires based on how the fans will receive the hire at the press conference is a moron and won't be long for this world. The AD is expected to be the expert. If absolutely everyone loves a hire and it fails miserably, no one will absolve the AD. The AD will sink or swim on the actual success or failure of the coach. You might as well do what you think is right. I'll point out that USC fans were ticked off at settling for Pete Carol and much of the college football world mocked the hire. Contrast that with Colorado hiring Dan Hawkins. Bottom line is that the AD has to have a thick skin. If Sandy hired Dykes because she thought hiring Wilcox at that time (which frankly I would have thought was a much better hire even then) or someone like him would be poorly received, she is not qualified. Honestly, I think she had a search firm bring his name to her and she liked his interview and thought he'd be great and didn't do a deep dive analysis on his record. Had she done so, I don't see that she hires him.

Uthaithani said:

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ColoradoBear said:

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I don't have any problem with what he said. OK, he deflects away some blame for looking elsewhere, but that was not the major reason he was canned. Dykes was a below average P5 head coach.

Obviously he's not going to comment on how season ticket numbers were getting hammered and that the defense was sorry.

I don't wish anything bad on Sonny, but feel like he had a ceiling at the P5 level and we're all better off now.

If he were back in 2017, I just don't think I would have paid $$ to watch the team getting boat raced again and again.

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I only wish that "being a below average P5 coach" was the primary criteria for firing coaches at Cal. Then I wouldn't have to worry about whether Cal is going to hold onto a lousy MBB coach or retain a FB coach after two straight losing seasons (if that were to come to pass).

As it is, Cal has no problem holding onto mediocre or worse coaches and giving them second, third and fourth chances to run the program into the ground. I have no doubt what Dykes said about personality differences being the reason is 100% accurate - that seems to be the only criteria MW uses to decide whether to hire, retain or fire coaches. Wins and losses are obviously irrelevant to him.

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I've said on this board before that in my experience Cal doesn't fire coaches. The players do by effectively quitting so hard in a season that keeping the coach is not an option. Cal hadn't reached that point yet with Dykes. (it was coming in 2017). I'd like to think that was a change in direction, but I DO think they would have kept him another year if Dyke's agent had played Williams with the "I need an extension for recruiting card" and then proceeded to damage recruiting one year later by shopping him around and getting his buddies to write "Cal Sucks and Dykes wants to Get the hell out so his awesomeness can shine through" articles. Sure, his results had to be bad too, but I doubt they were enough by themselves. I see this claim now that Cal interviewed players and he got bad reviews (I know nothing about this) and that sounds plausible. Maybe Cal got ahead of the quitting wave that was about to break. If so, I'll applaud the baby steps I guess. Still don't think Cal opens up the question if Dykes and his agent didn't so totally misplay the situation.

Personally, I don't care if Dykes sought other jobs except to the point that if it became clear he would take ANY job, (and I think it was at that point) Cal was in a no win situation - he fails we pay him. He succeeds we lose him. Braun and Tedford were openly pursued in their tenure's and they both handled it by going radio silent while extensions were negotiated - that is fine. The problem was the "Cal sucks and he can't wait to leave" press we were getting. I don't buy for a second that Dykes' agent wasn't behind that and even if he wasn't, it easily could have been knocked down while still keeping the door open for opportunities. I'm thinking for one of Tedford being openly infuriated by Washington fans when they were trying to hire him away. You cannot let that stuff lie.

My "Cal intuition" (developed through observing/analyzing similar situations for four decades) tells me that another factor in Dykes' demise was his failure to be able to attract a decent Defensive Coordinator in the weeks before his firing. I believe it was only about 7-10 days prior that we were in communication with Tosh, then that fell through. Candidates for the position felt they would not be in a position where they could succeed. I doubt DeRuyter would've taken the job, working for Dykes. We were loosening the purse strings and still couldn't get anybody.

I believe Dykes was still interviewing DC candidates only days before he was canned. The timing there tells me something.

That's probably a decent reason right there, in my book: Wins-and-losses were problematic and the defense was in ICU, but nobody wanted to come here to help heal it. The handwriting was on the wall.

Big C said:

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My "Cal intuition" (developed through observing/analyzing similar situations for four decades) tells me that another factor in Dykes' demise was his failure to be able to attract a decent Defensive Coordinator in the weeks before his firing. I believe it was only about 7-10 days prior that we were in communication with Tosh, then that fell through. Candidates for the position felt they would not be in a position where they could succeed. I doubt DeRuyter would've taken the job, working for Dykes. We were loosening the purse strings and still couldn't get anybody.

I believe Dykes was still interviewing DC candidates only days before he was canned. The timing there tells me something.

That's probably a decent reason right there, in my book: Wins-and-losses were problematic and the defense was in ICU, but nobody wanted to come here to help heal it. The handwriting was on the wall.

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You are close. There was some issue with getting a DC to come, but the bigger issue was that Sonny wasn't spending the time on this hire that Cal thought he should have. I've heard from the top of the house that the actual final straw was Sonny putting out feelers to be an OC at another P5 school. It was bad enough that he was brazenly looking for other head coaching jobs, but when he started indicating he would take a demotion to get out of Dodge, Cal decided it had had enough. Now, I should note that I think I've read posts from others that this "OC" thing wasn't true, but it was definitely what I was told at the time.

Sebastabear said:

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Big C said:

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My "Cal intuition" (developed through observing/analyzing similar situations for four decades) tells me that another factor in Dykes' demise was his failure to be able to attract a decent Defensive Coordinator in the weeks before his firing. I believe it was only about 7-10 days prior that we were in communication with Tosh, then that fell through. Candidates for the position felt they would not be in a position where they could succeed. I doubt DeRuyter would've taken the job, working for Dykes. We were loosening the purse strings and still couldn't get anybody.

I believe Dykes was still interviewing DC candidates only days before he was canned. The timing there tells me something.

That's probably a decent reason right there, in my book: Wins-and-losses were problematic and the defense was in ICU, but nobody wanted to come here to help heal it. The handwriting was on the wall.

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You are close. There was some issue with getting a DC to come, but the bigger issue was that Sonny wasn't spending the time on this hire that Cal thought he should have. I've heard from the top of the house that the actual final straw was Sonny putting out feelers to be an OC at another P5 school. It was bad enough that he was brazenly looking for other head coaching jobs, but when he started indicating he would take a demotion to get out of Dodge, Cal decided it had had enough. Now, I should note that I think I've read posts from others that this "OC" thing wasn't true, but it was definitely what I was told at the time.

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My problem was with Williams' dithering and dithering around. It would have been even worse if Williams was waiting to see if SD could hire a quality D.C. A quality D.C. Was not going to save Cal if Sonny refused to pay any attention to the Defense in his recruiting.
And if the rest of the defensive staff couldn't teach the players the fundamentals of defense.

I was a big fan of SD when he first got here but it became painfully obvious that he was not going to ever field a decent defense if he kept recruiting only offensive players and if the D players were not trained in the basics.

By midway through the 2016 season we could all see that we were again without a defense for the 4th straight year. Williams should have put SD on the spot--who are your top realistic candidates for D.C. and your plan to turn things around.

If SD did not give a good reply, he should have been gone the morning after the UCLA game.

Williams dithering for whatever reason was inexcusable

Hmm personal perspective

OaktownBear said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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To the poster above this, it is not true that everyone liked the hire from the get go. I'll leave it at that.

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I don't disagree. Some folks worried (rightfully) that he didn't have the chops on defense. But the vast majority of posters liked the hire. The only major hire I recall that most Cal fans didn't really didn't get behind in recent times (I'm not really qualified to talk about say the Gilby era) is Jones. While I recall some posters taking a wait and see attitude on Wilcox, most posters, including me, liked the hire. We will see who was right. In fact despite the revisionist history, currently going on, most posters loved the Conzo hire.

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Vast majority is a serious overstatement or a misread in my opinion. I didn't know any Cal fans off the board that were excited by the hire. It wasn't obviously bad like Holmoe so people gave it a chance and those that weren't thrilled held their tongues. Especially when Buh and Stewart were hired, a LOT of people were very dubious.

I felt a little better when a certain writer claimed Dykes had called Cal his dream job long before the job was even open, but I was still dubious, and would have ignored it if I realized then what a tool and mouthpiece for agents that writer is.

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You are too kind. Instead of "Vast majority is a serious overstatement or a misread in my opinion," you could have said, "Vast majority is dead wrong." Maybe dead wrong as a result of a misread, but still, dead wrong. The vast majority liked the Dykes hire? Talk about your revisionist history.

On the board or off, there were few I saw excited by the Sonny hire. Hopeful? Wait and see? Sure. Excited by the hire? No. I believe it is accurate that the majority (I won't go so far as to say vast, but the majority) were disappointed by the hire (and certainly there were some who hated it). We're Cal fans, however, so an awful lot of us (I won't get into whether that is a majority or not) when we get hit by disappointment, we buckle up and hope for the best, maybe even get delusional for awhile about how things might be able to turn out.

I do think that the claim that Cal was Dykes' (and Franklin's) dream job helped some of us feel more hopeful, but when the hire was announced, I think the overwhelming feeling was, "That's the best we can do? Gawd, I hope this works out," which is a whole lot different from "liked the hire." While the vast majority didn't HATE the hire (unlike the Holmoe hire, hated even by those of us who buckled up and then hoped for the best), it is dead bang wrong to say the vast majority liked it.

I also think it is a misread for wiaf to say that "despite the revisionist history, currently going on, most posters loved the Conzo (sic) hire." I don't think there is any revisionist history going on, those of us who loved the Cuonzo hire seem to acknowledge that they we loved the Cuonzo hire, even though in hindsight, maybe not so great. In that case, it is TRUE that the vast majority liked the hire, and I'm not sure anyone denies that. The vast majority liked it better than Travis or any of the other names thrown around. For many, it was a surprise home run, at least a triple. A small number of voices saying, "I didn't like the Cuonzo hire at the time" doesn't mean there is revisionist history going on, it is a misread to say there is revisionist history going on there.

I'm also not sure that with respect to Wilcox, "most posters. . . liked the hire." Part of the problem there was that most posters had the bitter taste of the timing in their mouths, and felt like Williams screwed us out of any shot at a better hire with the timing. I think for a lot of us, "Best we could do under the circumstances once Williams decided to wait to see if Sonny would hang himself rather than firing him in November, maybe he has the acumen and character to be OK, we'll see." But aside from Aaron Rodgers and others who had connections to Wilcox from his time at Cal, I didn't see much excitement about the hire. Relieved we didn't end up with some of the other names thrown out there, but I think it took Wilcox putting his staff together before people started to like it (and way too many are in the "jury is still out" to be saying that most posters liked the hire).

"We got Sonny Dykes!!! WooHoo!!" Naw, that didn't happen.

"My problem was with Williams' " giving an unproven coach a 5-year no-cut contract.

wifeisafurd said:

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But as the article points out, even Sonny now acknowledges that he probably should have seen the termination coming.

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Dykes was busy on his "Please please please take me" tour of the SEC & Texas to pay much attention to what was happening at Cal.

Lol

Sonny is from Texas. He said he always wanted to be at Cal and live in the Bay Area. We have learned from the two Presidents raised in Texas that all Texans tell the truth all the time.

CAL6371 said:

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Sonny is from Texas. He said he always wanted to be at Cal and live in the Bay Area. We have learned from the two Presidents raised in Texas that all Texans tell the truth all the time.

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Fun fact: The last president to have never lived in California was Jimmy Carter.

I don't trust people who hail from New York.

barabbas said:

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KoreAmBear said:

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I'm not good with Cuonzo and will always be cynical about his motives.

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The Chancellor and vice-chancellor that hired Cuonzo were no longer around. And Cuonzo didn't get any support re:the Yanni escapade. This, along with an ineffective and interim AD, made his situation less than what a head coach would want or need to grow a program. I wish Decuire was hired as Barbour and Monty recommended.

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At the time, I didn't think DeCuire was ready for a Pac-12 head coaching job.

He might be ready now. DeCuire's Montana team this season is 19-5 and 12-0 in conference.

ColoradoBear said:

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Obviously he's not going to comment on how season ticket numbers were getting hammered.....

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That's a cop out.
I know plenty of folks that have not renewed tickets over the last few years. It wasn't because of Dykes, it was because of scheduling, and non stop commercials. It came down to game day experience.
Currently, I know of 16 tickets that didn't renew for next year. These are all 20+ year ticket holders (6 2seaters and one 4 seater)... Obviously not because of Dykes.

And then there are the ones that just buy for the ego..........
On any given game day, one can buy a great seat (Field, Stadium Club for example) from the entrepreneurial gentlemen on the street for less than the cost of a typical ticket booth ticket.

I've been to Stadium Club 6 times.
Once through a group at $130.....5 times from street sales $50 or less......and each time we got more than one.

wifeisafurd said:

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iwantwinners said:

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Wilcox doesn't seem the suck-up, insincere type. It's probably what I like most about him. All coaches need to show face to program contributors from time to time, but the idea that big money donors need attention as a requisite to their contributions rather than, ya know, winning games, is telling.

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It may be telling, but it is part of the head football coach job description. And it is not a matter of sucking-up but selling the program and importantly to the administrators who have to sell sports internally to the other stakeholders on campus, representing and promoting the University. It also buys you goodwill when you have a down season to two.

I really don't know one Power 5 coach who this is not a priority. Crap I have to meet David Shaw more times a year than many relatives.

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I thought it is wins that sells a program.

What does it say about donors that in order to offer them goodwill, they have to "play to them"; like their importance needs to be affirmed personally by the coach to a certain degree. That's sad.

iwantwinners said:

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What does it say about donors that in order to offer them goodwill, they have to "play to them"; like their importance needs to be affirmed personally by the coach to a certain degree. That's sad.

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I disagree about it being sad - as long as "playing to them" is defined as expressing genuine appreciation for what the donor is doing to help Call football. If I was a big donor, I'd want to know that the big $$ was appreciated. That's normal human nature.

Nothing wrong imo with any of the coaches reaching out to say "thanks," having a lunch or dinner with the donor(s) once in a while, sending a thank you email now & then, etc.

I'm not saying the coach has to enslave himself to the donor, kowtow whenever the donor approaches, or any of that stuff.

Willcox's genuine, no nonsense persona absolutely can be a huge value in attracting donor money - I'm betting that people who've made a lot of money themselves (or manage it) want to know that their donation is being well managed & effectively spent.

In a way, big donors are part of the "team" since they provide the capital that funds the program.

Helping a big donor feel appreciated only leads to more donations, which leads to higher salaries, better facilities, better recruiting, and ultimately less stress on the coach himself since those things have a positive impact on winning.

I'm sure Saban, Meyer, Carroll (when he was at $C) etc. are masters at this. It's just part of living in the Big City and playing with the big boys in D1 football.

Cal Strong notice Dykes no hire any of his former Cal assistants at SMU.

Noticing Dykes no hire any of his former Cal assistants STRONG . . . like Cal.

Many posters defend Dykes offensive hires and Damon Harrington. But when push come to shove, Dykes no hire them again. This should give posters pause when we hear things like "Trust Dykes," "Trust Wilcox," "the players love Harrington," etc., etc..

Players always claim to love strength coaches. They often claim to love position coaches. That don't mean they are any good. Strong test is if a HC would hire them again.

Neither Sandy or Sonny planned on making Cal their home. They're both opportunists who were looking to make it a launch pad to bigger and better opportunities. Sandy succeeded and Sonny didn't.

Sonny was a huge waste of time in my opinion. It was clear from the first staff he put together that he was out of his league. Sandy made a big bet one that she never bothered to stick around to take responsibility for.

Mike Williams, for all his faults, went in the right direction with Wilcox. He made a big mistake in extending Sonny and course corrected by letting him go when it was clear Sonny wasn't committed to us. Sonny blames it as a change in admin and miscommunication but I think it was clear he was looking for an exit opportunity even after we reupped on him.