There’s an old cliché saying that two heads are better than one. When it comes to the secondary of California’s defense, the hope is that two coaches are better than one.
For the second consecutive season, Tre Watson and Terrence Brown are teaming up to coach the Golden Bears’ defensive backs, a job normally held by one individual in most programs. In Berkeley, however, spreading the workload among multiple coaches is working out pretty well.
“I'll say, honestly, I think it's the best thing,” said redshirt freshman nickel back Cam Sidney. “You get knowledge from both coaches. They both have crazy amounts of knowledge. They’ve been playing for a long time and just the standard that they have set in the room … it just makes the room as a collective come together closer.”
That both men have formed a tight bond as coaches is not surprising. They have a long history that dates back to their playing days in the Pac-12, Watson at Washington and Brown at Stanford. In 2012, the Huskies toppled the then-No. 8 ranked Cardinal 17-13, a memory Watson loves to bring up every now and then.
“We always talked about that,” Watson said. “I like to rub it in his face a little bit.”
Beyond the light-hearted jokes between the two, Watson and Brown are united in their philosophies and coaching techniques. Working together has allowed them to bounce ideas off one another, and they share similar styles and techniques.
Before coming to Berkeley, Watson had coaching stops at Oregon and UNLV while Brown was working with defensive backs during two stints at Washington and one each at Vanderbilt and Cal Poly.
“I'm from LA, he's from Seattle, and yet we have a lot more in common than most people would expect,” Brown said. “Both being men of God helps us out tremendously to be able to just pour our best into our players to help them grow.”
There is and always has been a lot of give and take from the two coaches. Both have credible resumes, both as players and coaches, but they met before working together and agreed the one thing that they both had to do was set their self-pride aside for the betterment of the Cal program.
Instead of one coach overseeing everything, the Bears have four eyes watching and two voices speaking up when needed.
“It started with us communicating,” Watson said. “We sat down, we talked about everything, we planned it out to like, ‘OK, what do we emphasize, what do we focus on?’ Even in meetings so we can bounce off each other. I think it's important for the group because they all hear one language so we speak the same terms. the same abbreviation, so it flows and we guys have taken tone has been pretty good.”
The Bears had mixed reviews a year ago. While there were several individual standout moments, the overall picture wasn’t very good. Cal was last in the Pac-12 in pass defense, allowing 279.5 yards a game. But the Bears nabbed 11 interceptions, good enough to tie for 51st nationally.
The early returns have been good so far in preseason practices. The Bears' defense has been flying around the field at Memorial Stadium making big plays, potentially a good omen for a squad that finished 4-8 in 2022-23.
The fact that the defensive backs coaches are pulling in the same direction and rooting for each other’s success is icing on the cake.
“We thank God for the positions that we’re in, we understand that he's blessed us with the ability to impact, mentor, coach, and develop young men,” Brown said. “When that's at the root of our purpose of what it is that we're doing, our pride has not come into the equation at all. We're able to put that aside. We're able to just give them our best. We work really well hand in hand together.
“We are helping each other improve individually and collectively. That's what allows for us to give our best foot forward towards our guys and have them come out here and believe that they truly can accomplish whatever it is that they have set out for themselves. And it's crazy, you know, the more and more we have conversations with each other, the more and more we have in common with one another.”
Not that the ride together hasn’t had its bumps. On the rare occasion when the two men disagree on something, they discuss it behind closed doors and make sure not to do it in front of their players.
“Because at the end of the day we want them to see us at our best version,” Brown said. “We worked really hard to make sure that we're on the same page and we're seeing things the same way, that we're communicating things the same way. So I would say it was a smooth transition. Not challenging at all.”
Having an extra person overseeing things in the defensive backfield has made a definite impact on the players, none of whom have to worry about one coach saying one thing and the second coach saying another.
“They're always on the same page,” Sidney said. “If one misses something for some reason, the other one’s going to notice it. The standard that’s set in the (meeting) room, it allows us to elevate more than others, and that's what I like about it.”
