Wednesday Report: Wilcox, Sirmon, Musgrave, Garbers on the Mic

Head coach Justin Wilcox, coordinators Peter Sirmon and Bill Musgrave and quarterback Chase Garbers all met with the media via Zoom on Wednesday.

Wilcox after practice said that wide receiver Jeremiah Hunter is day-to-day, while outside linebacker Kuony Deng and wide receiver Justin Baker were doubtful.

Deng, played in the first two games of the season and every week Wilcox held out hope he might return. And he never did. 

Deng, who has been in the program four years, began his college career six years ago at VMI. Wilcox said that because the pandemic has changed eligibility rules, Deng could play one more year if he chose to.

“There are guys that have that option and there are guys that don’t, based on their number of years that they have been here. Kuony definitely would,” he said. “There will come a time in the postseason where we will visit with those guys who have those decisions to make and help them along the way by providing information.  We will either have a report or a Zoom that we will send out to you (the media) that identifies what everybody is doing.

“The seniors are all going to be involved in Senior Night Saturday. They are all going to walk and go through it. Is there a chance that a few of them will come back? Absolutely there is that chance. We just don’t want to ...right now they are focused on the game, they are focused on this week of practice. They will have some decisions to make in the coming weeks, but we don’t want them to have to decide before Saturday just because it’s Senior Night.”

Meanwhile the preparations for the USC game Saturday night continued. 

“It was a really good practice, we had everybody out there, very competitive. Lot of back and forth with the offense and the defense,” Wilcox said. “I just don’t know that these guys know any different. They go out there, work on their craft, and compete. It was the same today.”

Musgrave talked about what went wrong with the Cal offense in the loss to UCLA last Saturday.

“I think we all had a hand in us not getting the outcome we wanted.” Musgrave said. “The coaching, the playing, Everything. We just didn’t put our best foot forward. We had our moments, but they were too fleeting. Chase really battled. For any quarterback to be successful we need to be successful around him. 

“We want to have a clean pocket for any quarterback We want to make sure he’s clean back there. So he can get into a rhythm and be comfortable in delivering the ball. And be the distributor cap for the offense.”

Sirmon also discussed the problems his unit had against the Bruins.

“I think when you look at how you prepared and then you look at the result, ultimately you have to reflect on what we should have done differently, what we should have done differently during the game,” Sirmon said. “A big point of emphasis going in was managing DTR (quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson). He didn’t have the game we wanted him to have. He ran the ball effectively. We didn’t do a good enough job of containing him in the pocket...We needed to do a better job of executing it. ...And we didn’t do a good job of tackling. We didn’t get him on the ground. 

“He ended up with 10 carries for about 100 yards. And that’s too much for the quarterback position. And that’s the number one thing we were talking about was managing his pocket.

“There are some schematic things we can do. We played quite a bit of single high, ...the defensive ends have quarterback responsibilities. I could have called some things a little bit differently. I guess distribute some of the pressure on what he was doing. And there were times when we need to finish better in tackling. We had done very well the last five or six weeks and we didn’t do very well against UCLA  on Saturday night.”

Garbers talked about what it would mean to the outgoing seniors to beat USC Saturday in the season finale.

“It’s a special group of guys. There have got to be some emotions flying high. But we are fortunate enough to be playing this game in the first place and I think our sole goal is to go out there and beat USC,” he said. 

“It would be huge to send off those guys in a high note and beating such a talented team as USC. They are a rival to Cal, and being able to beat those guys at home one last time with those guys would mean a lot to everyone in the program.”

Garbers could be one of the Bears playing his last game. He has another year of eligibility if he wants it, but he repeated that he has not made the decision.

“I haven’t thought about it too much. We will see what happens at the end of the year,” he said. 

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