TandemBear said:

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I have never paid too much attention to the recruiting process in college, so please excuse my ignorance. But it seems readily apparent to me that college football (and probably other sports) need to implement a draft system similar to what the pros use. (And how many use it? NFL, MLB and the NBA, right?)

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The one thing I wonder about this is that while requiring someone who wants to play a pro sport to go to a certain franchise that drafts them seems widely accepted, I'm not sure if people will feel the same way about requiring someone who wants to play college football to do the same.

What a bunch of losers! Sad sacks, one and all. You just can't stand success. I think the recruits, h.s., jv and transfer are a terrific collection of great football players. Our defense is going to be like an iron shield. So long as we aren't victims of injury and our depth is quality, defensive coordinators are going to experience nightmares like they've never had before. Meanwhile, Wilcox and staff have upped the offense. Modster might just steal the QB position from Garbers. Modster made us look silly a few years ago when we played the Bruins. Or, Garbers can step up and demonstrate how much he's improved over 2018. Either way, we now have two quality QBs. The front line looks strong with plenty of support from backups. Greatwood knows how to recruit. Finally, we still have Noa and Duncan and have added Clark, Crawford, Polk, and Johnson. Running backs, Brooks and Collins supplement Chris Brown, rushing behind guys who average over 300 lbs. and on average are 6'3" is very Oregon-like. If you can find them, you might be able to tackle them.

My only real concern about 2019's season is our schedule. It's tough. All the big guns, except SC, are on the road and that presents a massive challenge to any program.

edg64 said:

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The new recruits will surely be upbeat, positive after reading this thread

Yeah, what a dumb way to welcome young men who are eager to put on the Gold and Blue.

I am also struck by the disparity in viewpoints between the posters here, on the free board, and those on the paid board. FWIW there are a number of posters on the paid board who have an very good reputation for analysis.

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It seems furd is recruiting both within California, not just locally. Any of these guys on our radar?

https://www.sfchronicle.com/collegesports/article/Quartet-from-Bay-Area-boosts-Stanford-s-top-25-13476117.php

TandemBear said:

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I have never paid too much attention to the recruiting process in college, so please excuse my ignorance. But it seems readily apparent to me that college football (and probably other sports) need to implement a draft system similar to what the pros use. (And how many use it? NFL, MLB and the NBA, right?)

In other words, schools should be ranked and draft in reverse order; #1 pick goes to the worst team, on up. Now I realize it would be a challenge because of all the different league levels, but perhaps institute it for those teams in the top league.

Is it not totally obvious that with they way it works now, the top schools continuously get the pick of the litter which just ensures their dominance for years to come? Those perennial winners simply become football factories while the also-rans toil in perpetual obscurity.

If the pros utilize this, why not NCAA? Why isn't parity promoted so conferences have competitive games and the outcome isn't just a foregone conclusion - or at least for the most part? Why should programs like Cal, a big program with over a hundred years of history and half a billion dollar facilities and a huge fanbase wishing and hoping for success some day (that seems to never come) settle for not being competitive? Why agree to participate in this rigged system?

Again, if the pros use it, there must be reason why. I think it's to allow all teams to be competitive so that the league stays interesting. Otherwise, perennial powerhouses would just win and win and the other teams would be perennial losers. The rest of the country's fans would lose interest and thus the NFL would lose status, and more importantly, money!

So until this happens, I don't expect Cal to EVER land enough 4 or 5 star athletes to be competitive. Sure, we land the occasional DeSean Jackson and discover the diamond-in-the-rough Aaron Rodgers, but I don't think we'll ever challenge for the conference championship and definitely not a national championship with the system the way it is. Same old same old if you ask me.

But if anyone can provide a brief history of the issue, please educate me! Thanks!

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How wonderful. You are a good player and a good student and you wind up in Appalachia State or some such. The pro game already has too much influence in the college game. I'd rather talk about piped in music, or the lack thereof.

Just to devil's advocate here, I can see an argument in favor of drafting college players: they're receiving scholarships to play a high-profile game and are therefore closer to pro athletes (who nobody objects to getting drafted) rather than regular college students (who we all probably agree should never be drafted to schools).

But still, I think it's a stretch.

Uhh... perhaps because NFL athletes are professionals and college athletes are amateurs.

Another Bear said:

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Got a RB, WR, QB and OLB...all ready to play.

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With JC players, you never know for sure until you get them in your program as to whether they're ready to play immediately. A lot of them don't do much their first year.

RhetoriCal Bear said:

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edg64 said:

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I am also struck by the disparity in viewpoints between the posters here, on the free board, and those on the paid board. FWIW there are a number of posters on the paid board who have an very good reputation for analysis.

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Oh do tell.

510 Bear said:

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71Bear said:

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Quite frankly, this class is disappointing. It isn't a "sky is falling" disappointment but it should have been better. Wilcox is a great coach in most aspects of the job. The #1 unknown is whether he can recruit. To date, that is still an unanswered question.

One of the primary reasons why Cal has been so crappy over the last decade - lousy recruiting. Having said that, I guess the sky was falling all those years.

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It's early to say this year's class is a disaster, but it's looking like Wilcox will have to pull off another winning year or two with so-so talent before we can start landing bigger fish. That's never easy but I like our chances - he's already shown this year that he can do more with less.

THE SKY IS NOT FALLING

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Feel bad about his class? Go look at Utah, UCLA and Colorado.

Yogi Bear said:

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Another Bear said:

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Got a RB, WR, QB and OLB...all ready to play.

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With JC players, you never know for sure until you get them in your program as to whether they're ready to play immediately. A lot of them don't do much their first year.

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Sure that's always the case, with all players, 4 year or Juco. Not everyone makes it. There's ALWAYS risk. OTOH, two words: Aaron Rodgers.

My take, if Cal can get two solid rotation players from those 4, I'd consider it very good. If Cal gets two starters, I'd say job well done, target met...batting .500 on those 4. Anything more, topping.

So again, everyone is a risk (some more than others) but that shouldn't hold up recruiting. It's a percentage/numbers game as much as anything.

Another Bear said:

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Yogi Bear said:

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Another Bear said:

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Got a RB, WR, QB and OLB...all ready to play.

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With JC players, you never know for sure until you get them in your program as to whether they're ready to play immediately. A lot of them don't do much their first year.

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Sure that's always the case, with all players, 4 year or Juco. Not everyone makes it. There's ALWAYS risk. OTOH, two words: Aaron Rodgers.

My take, if Cal can get two solid rotation players from those 4, I'd consider it very good. If Cal gets two starters, I'd say job well done, target met...batting .500 on those 4. Anything more, topping.

So again, everyone is a risk (some more than others) but that shouldn't hold up recruiting. It's a percentage/numbers game as much as anything.

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That all said, I like most of those guys to contribute early. Not so sure about Johnson making an immediate impact. Clark I haven't watched yet.

Deluded victims of domestic violence also have great (upbeat) analysis about how their abusive beaus are just a lucky break away from becoming the sweet, gentle, caring men they were always meant to be.

As an aside, what's the deal with UCLA? I thought they'd crush recruiting

SurvivorOf1and10fkaLEA said:

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Deluded victims of domestic violence also have great (upbeat) analysis about how their abusive beaus are just a lucky break away from becoming the sweet, gentle, caring men they were always meant to be.

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Yeah, I'm not sure it makes sense to compare Cal fans to battered spouses at this point in our new regime. Feel free to trot that one out if it's 2022 and we're back to losing with Wilcox and Beau still doing the exact same thing every year.

This is a solid class with some really good players.

bluehenbear said:

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It seems furd is recruiting both within California, not just locally. Any of these guys on our radar?

https://www.sfchronicle.com/collegesports/article/Quartet-from-Bay-Area-boosts-Stanford-s-top-25-13476117.php

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As much as we would like to think, we don't really compete with Stanfurd for many recruits. Someone can fact check me. But as a private, privileged skool, they have their pick of the very few talented recruits who are also highly academic. We get ours too, but the 4-5 star kids go to Furd. We are on a very different recruiting field and parents favor Stanford over Cal for lots of perhaps good, yet snobby reasons. As a high school coach, I saw this happen two times with our football recruits, and also twice in water polo. Furd over Cal. A better, even more terrible question for me might have been if my daughter had been accepted to Cal and Stanfurd (she went to UCSB), and where would I point her?? Privileged, high status, elite private universities have advantages.

TandemBear said:

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I have never paid too much attention to the recruiting process in college, so please excuse my ignorance. But it seems readily apparent to me that college football (and probably other sports) need to implement a draft system similar to what the pros use. (And how many use it? NFL, MLB and the NBA, right?)

In other words, schools should be ranked and draft in reverse order; #1 pick goes to the worst team, on up. Now I realize it would be a challenge because of all the different league levels, but perhaps institute it for those teams in the top league.

Is it not totally obvious that with they way it works now, the top schools continuously get the pick of the litter which just ensures their dominance for years to come? Those perennial winners simply become football factories while the also-rans toil in perpetual obscurity.

If the pros utilize this, why not NCAA? Why isn't parity promoted so conferences have competitive games and the outcome isn't just a foregone conclusion - or at least for the most part? Why should programs like Cal, a big program with over a hundred years of history and half a billion dollar facilities and a huge fanbase wishing and hoping for success some day (that seems to never come) settle for not being competitive? Why agree to participate in this rigged system?

Again, if the pros use it, there must be reason why. I think it's to allow all teams to be competitive so that the league stays interesting. Otherwise, perennial powerhouses would just win and win and the other teams would be perennial losers. The rest of the country's fans would lose interest and thus the NFL would lose status, and more importantly, money!

So until this happens, I don't expect Cal to EVER land enough 4 or 5 star athletes to be competitive. Sure, we land the occasional DeSean Jackson and discover the diamond-in-the-rough Aaron Rodgers, but I don't think we'll ever challenge for the conference championship and definitely not a national championship with the system the way it is. Same old same old if you ask me.

But if anyone can provide a brief history of the issue, please educate me! Thanks!

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The answer is simple...

The professional leagues have labor contracts that permit the drafting of players. The NCAA does not have a similar labor contract. If the pro's did not have labor contracts allowing the drafting of players, they could not disperse in that manner because it would violate laws pertaining to restraint of trade.

KenBurnski said:

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As an aside, what's the deal with UCLA? I thought they'd crush recruiting

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Kelly marches to his own beat....

Another Bear said:

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Stanfurd has worked around this by going national and offering up stuff that only uber funded private schools can offer, like access to programs that don't require special admission like Haas.

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More like, they worked around it by massively inflating student grades so that even football players who never study or go to class have a 3.3 GPA.

Really good class. Straight out of the Tedford playbook tapping JC talent at positions of need on O (skill pos) and D ( LB depth). This is going to be a really really interesting spring and fall. I think we might not hardly recognize this team. Definitely making 2020 look phenomenal if we can keep our LB and DB performance level where its at now.
Go Bears!!

Should be interesting to see Bmac switch positions

71Bear said:

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I guess if your goal is to be middle of the pack (behind the five schools you mentioned), then there should be zero disappointment.

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Yah, I have it on very good authority that Wilcox definitely is very happy to field mediocre teams that lose all the time. Definitely.

KenBurnski said:

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Should be interesting to see Bmac switch positions

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He'll be back at QB next year IMO

Is the sky failing? Well if defined by our relative inability to land 4-5 star recruits, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the sky had already fallen and didn't get back up? Did people here really expect to get a recruiting class on par with teams at the top of the conference?

What some people here do not recognize is that it is entirely possible to build a reasonable P5 program using 3 star recruit dominated classes. That's not to say that every team with that profile is successful. But if you look at teams like Iowa and Oklahoma State, these are programs that effectively have 90+% of their recruits at 3 star, and they win 8+ games a season and once in awhile catch fire and compete for a conference title. Would it be easier to accomplish the same results with a 4 star dominated recruiting class? Sure. But that isn't happening at Cal. Yet.

Baby steps. At least they are in the right direction. And that won't always be the case either.

510 Bear said:

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Just to devil's advocate here, I can see an argument in favor of drafting college players: they're receiving scholarships to play a high-profile game and are therefore closer to pro athletes (who nobody objects to getting drafted) rather than regular college students (who we all probably agree should never be drafted to schools).

But still, I think it's a stretch.

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And we can add trades, a waiver wire and practice squads! Oh yeah, there are incidentals like a paycheck and a retirement plan. Admittedly I'm a dinosaur but, to me, college sports ought to be less professionalized, not more.

Another thought...to restore (or reshape) competitive balance: redistribute scholarships based on won-loss records. Teams with losing records get more; winners get fewer. Or, we could use soccer style relegation. Lose and go down a tier; win and move up.

KenBurnski said:

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As an aside, what's the deal with UCLA? I thought they'd crush recruiting

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My random guess kelly w/o Nike and uncle Phil = meh

59bear said:

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Another thought...to restore (or reshape) competitive balance: redistribute scholarships based on won-loss records. Teams with losing records get more; winners get fewer. Or, we could use soccer style relegation. Lose and go down a tier; win and move up.

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Two pretty good ideas, I would say.

OdontoBear66 said:

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59bear said:

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Another thought...to restore (or reshape) competitive balance: redistribute scholarships based on won-loss records. Teams with losing records get more; winners get fewer. Or, we could use soccer style relegation. Lose and go down a tier; win and move up.

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Two pretty good ideas, I would say.

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Instead of beating around the bush, just say it - you want college football to become more professional. No problem, just be honest about it....

As long as college sports remain (as the NCAA likes think) the bastion of amateurs, there should be no discrimination against the successful. Instead of whining about programs that function effectively and consistently vie for championships, why not raise your standard to meet theirs rather than drag them down to your inferior level.

I understand your suggestion reflects the overall national malaise that "dumbing down" is better than "reaching up" but hey, I would like to think Cal alums are a bit smarter. I guess I was wrong. Lollipops for everyone!

71Bear said:

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Wilcox is a great coach in most aspects of the job. The #1 unknown is whether he can recruit. To date, that is still an unanswered question.

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There are actually two unanswered questions. The second one is whether he can coach an offense. Our progress on defense is very promising, but our offense sucks.

edg64 said:

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StarsDoMatter said:

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The sky is not falling. It's not pretty either..

We whiffed on tons of elite Nor-Cal recruits (well, all of them). We whiffed on every 4-star in the state of California. Has that ever happened before? Now, we're back door covering our butts with transfers and JCs. 5 TX, 5 AZ commits. So much for locking down CA.

This caught my attention: William Jones flipped from us to K-State (to a coach who's been on the job for 3 days)

The sky is not falling, but this staff isn't scaring anyone in the pac-12 with their recruiting acumen.

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The new recruits will surely be upbeat, positive after reading this thread

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Why would they care? Of course they will. Cal rescued them from UT San Antonio, BYU, No offers, OSU, Arizona, Colorado, Wazzu, Memphis, Utah St, Boise St, Fresno St, Purdue, and Cincinnati and paying for their college education.

Golden One said:

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71Bear said:

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Wilcox is a great coach in most aspects of the job. The #1 unknown is whether he can recruit. To date, that is still an unanswered question.

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There are actually two unanswered questions. The second one is whether he can coach an offense. Our progress on defense is very promising, but our offense sucks.

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I'm not concerned about the O at all. I suggested before season started that Cal would struggle on O because Bowers was a lost cause and Garbers was inexperienced. Now that Garbers has gotten his feet wet, Cal will see substantial improvement from him next year.

Given the fact that Cal woefully thin at RB and WR due to transfers and injuries and significantly inexperienced at QB, Baldwin was forced to go very conservative. He is a proven offensive coach. He demonstrated his skills at EWU. All things said, Cal survived the year with a winning record.

Look for a big step forward on O next season.....

rafterfan180 said:

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edg64 said:

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StarsDoMatter said:

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The sky is not falling. It's not pretty either..

We whiffed on tons of elite Nor-Cal recruits (well, all of them). We whiffed on every 4-star in the state of California. Has that ever happened before? Now, we're back door covering our butts with transfers and JCs. 5 TX, 5 AZ commits. So much for locking down CA.

This caught my attention: William Jones flipped from us to K-State (to a coach who's been on the job for 3 days)

The sky is not falling, but this staff isn't scaring anyone in the pac-12 with their recruiting acumen.

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The new recruits will surely be upbeat, positive after reading this thread

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Why would they care? Of course they will. Cal rescued them from UT San Antonio, BYU, No offers, OSU, Arizona, Colorado, Wazzu, Memphis, Utah St, Boise St, Fresno St, Purdue, and Cincinnati and is paying from their college education.

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Confident recruits don't give a damn about what the fan base thinks. They only care about how their families, coaches and teammates feel about them.

going4roses said:

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My random guess kelly w/o Nike and uncle Phil = meh

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Or to put it another way, if anyone's an "Always Sunny" fan:
Chip at Oregon: this clip before 2:23
Chip at UCLA: this clip after 2:23



Um....as you were.