In terms of when Dykes should have been let go after the 2016 season, I think that you, wiaf, and I are all on the same page, it should have happened earlier, Williams shouldn't have waited in hopes that Dykes would leave on his own or created good cause for termination. But Williams wouldn't have cared about waiting if he hadn't given the extension. The mistake of the extension was a significant cause of the mistake of firing Dykes at least a month too late, but still, it was a screw up not to fire at least in early December 2016.Fyght4Cal said:That's when it became clearer to me that he needed to go. However, my friend 8285 may have an earlier time in mind. I've valued his thoughts for about 40 years now, so I'm eager to read his views on the contract extension. Especially considering that w/o the extension Dykes may have appeared to be a dead man walking, to my mind. I'm confident that 8285 can show me the error of my ways.wifeisafurd said:if its 2017, sometime well before the recruiting class deadlines are occurring so the new coach (Wilcox) would have time to recruit. I know what finally caused Williams to act, and Williams could have gone through that process far sooner. In any event, it is just dust in the wind. Only thing that now matters is finding an offense and beatign BYU.Fyght4Cal said:Looking back, at what point should Williams have fired Dykes?Cal8285 said:Certain posters pick on Mike Williams way too much, but I have trouble looking at the Sonny dismissal as something that MW did right. Screwing up less than he could have is not the same as doing something right.59bear said:Meh! The man is no longer our problem, proof that Mike Williams did at least one thing right. Go Bears!25To20 said:
I'm glad you asked. SMU lost to that college football juggernaut, North Texas in Sonny's debut, 46 - 23. The Mustangs were shutout through 3 quarters. Looks like Sonny's got that same defensive mindset he had at Cal, and is perhaps a little less excited about offense than he was here.
MW signed Sonny to an extension that MW never should have agreed to, and then a year later, hoped Sonny would leave on his own or provide good cause for termination instead of just firing him right away, in the (futile) hope that Cal wouldn't be stuck with the payout that was a result of the stupid extension. As a result, the termination happened at least a month later than it should have, making life more difficult for JW in terms of both hiring staff and salvaging what he could of the recruiting year.
Sonny is no longer our problem, and Mike Williams is no longer our problem. Outside of our general propensity to think about both the good and the bad of the past, we don't need to think about either one (good grief, in thinking about the past I still think about Bob Bockrath, who makes Mike Williams look like a dream by comparison). But while I'm glad Sonny is gone, MW screwed up getting rid of Sonny almost as badly as he could have, so I have a little trouble saying that Sonny being gone is proof Williams did one thing right. Sure, it would have been even worse if Sonny had been HC in 2017, but just because MW could have screwed it up even worse doesn't mean he didn't screw it up.
Go Bears! Beat the Cougars!
I disagree that Dykes needed an extension because he would have appeared to be a dead man walking without one. If he only had one year left on the contract, then it is a bad look not to give one, but I don't think having "only" two years left on the contract would have been a big problem. If no extension had been given, the problem for recruiting wouldn't have been that Dykes only had two years left, but that that Dykes had a wandering eye. That potential recruiting problem remained after the extension, because in this day and age, signing an extension isn't exactly a sign that the coach won't leave -- how many coaches have signed an extension and then taken another job within a month? If a coach has a wandering eye and signs an extension, other coaches will still use that against him in recruiting, and it is easy to prove that signing an extension doesn't stop a coach from leaving. The extension is more a sign that the school is committed to the coach than that the coach is committed to the school (even if the school can still fire the coach a year later, as Cal did with Dykes). Dykes raised the questions on his own about how committed he was to Cal.
I think somebody looking closely at the program would have wondered whether it made sense to fire Dykes after the 2015 regular season, even if Dykes had "improved" things, going from 1-11 to 5-7 to 7-5 with a bowl bid (albeit a lousy bowl). I think most fans and the media would have thought Williams crazy if he fired Dykes then --some BI posters would have been happy, but most fans would have been scratching their heads. But if Williams had talked to the right people in the program, I think he would have at least been really worried about whether Dykes was the guy long term. It would have been a bold, gutsy decision to fire at that point, looking beyond wins and losses, and I can't say Williams should have fired Dykes then, but Williams should have been worried about keeping Dykes long term.
But I will say an extension was wrong. If you're at least seriously worried about whether it makes sense to keep someone long term, granting an extension is usually going to be wrong. In December 2015, there were four possibilties, in order that I thought were most likely -- 1) Dykes stays without an extension, 2) Dykes quits for another job, 3) Dykes stays with an extension, and 4) Dykes gets fired. I was rooting for 2), would have been shocked but OK with 4, and could tolerate 1). The only one that was a mistake was doing number 3, it showed some combination of giving into leverage that Dykes didn't really have and a lack of understanding about some of the underlying problems with the Dykes program.
I can't say how things would have played out if Dykes didn't get the extension, so I can't say what Williams should have done, other than not give the extension. There is no saying that Williams should have fired Dykes earlier than early December 2016, but he shouldn't have given an extension in December 2015.
GO BEARS!!
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