Cal Football Weekly Presser - UC Davis Week

As the Bears prepare for their 2024 season opener, Cal head coach Justin Wilcox, DC Peter Sirmon, OC Mike Bloesch, tight end Jack Endries and MLB Cade Uluave fielded questions for today’s weekly presser which came a day earlier than will normally occur during the season.

If fans were expecting a starting QB to be named, a depth chart to come out or a list of players likely to miss the opener or more, that was not to be, as the staff will hold their cards close to the vest heading into their opener against former TE coach and offensive consultant Tim Plough’s UC Davis squad on Saturday.

Heading into his eighth season as head coach at Cal, Wilcox was asked about his expectations for himself and his staff as they strive for their first winning season since 2019.

"Our job is to maximize every opportunity we get to be on the field," Wilcox said. "And you're right. It's about winning. And winning comes down to usually a couple small things and we've gotta do a better job there than we've done in the past. So that's recruiting, depth, development physically, it's schemes, it's the players performing at critical moments. It's all those things. Because if you look back in the past few years, the the number of one score games that we were on the wrong end of is unacceptable. So our job is to identify what needs to improve and give the players the absolute best opportunity to make those improvements, and how we train them, how we prepare them, and how we practice and then ultimately, it's it's shared responsibility between the coaches and the players that we go out and perform on Saturdays." 

Does he see optimistic signs that the team will take a solid step forward this season?

"Absolutely," Wilcox said. "It's been an incredibly competitive camp. There are some players that are going to step forward when it goes live, and it's game time that I'm really excited to watch and see. And I would say there's a number of positions where there isn't a real pecking order quite yet in the depth chart and how they perform. This week preparing, on Saturday and game day, that's where the depth chart will begin to settle more and more. It's the guys that show up and compete at a high level on game day, and so I'm excited to see who that's going to be, and a lot of guys are going to get those opportunities."

In today’s transfer portal-dominated era, one of the challenges the coaching staff has to deal with every season is not only adding the right pieces and holding onto the most important of their own but also using spring ball, fall camp, summer conditioning and every other opportunity they have to form a cohesive unit able to meld together a roster consisting of nearly 50% new players into a squad that can navigate their way through their inaugural ACC season and compete for a conference championship.

So far, Wilcox seems satisfied that they’re on the right track when asked if he’s dealt with as much roster turnover as they have this offseason in his 20-year coaching career.

"I have not. It's just part of the era that we're in, but I think they've done a really good job," Wilcox noted. "Starting way back in January when some of these newcomers joined us, and then again in June of working together on and off the field, I think guys recognize that team chemistry is critically important, just like blocking and tackling is, and spending time with each other outside of the building is key to that, and they did a really nice job of that."

With regard to what DC Peter Sirmon would like to see going from camp into the opener, the veteran DC puts a premium on his players playing with maximum effort and intensity and being able to execute their assignments fluidly rather than spending critical moments processing what they’re seeing.

"I guess big picture, it's the things that are what we consider prerequisites," Sirmon noted. "It's the toughness in the effort. I like to see a group of 11 guys playing with just tremendous effort, as physical as they physically can. And then on top of that, we need to see the execution, and I think that's where we needed to take a tremendous stride in the offseason. 

"We've talked about it on defense and with our guys. We're calling it an action gap and that's the space between knowing and doing, and we need to shrink that space, because I think the guys know what to do, but in in critical situations, or in times that we're not quite doing that, we've tried to identify what's preventing us from understanding what we do and then executing it in crucial moments."

OC Mike Bloesch will be coaching his first game in a Power-4 conference as an offensive coordinator after coming in as offensive line coach and run game coordinator last year. Though he’s been an OC at a lower level with North Texas, he’s excited about the opportunity to be more involved running the Bears’ offense this season.

"I'm really excited about it," Bloesch said. "I'm excited for the opportunity that Coach Wilcox has blessed me with. I'm excited to see our players go out and compete. My job as the offensive coordinator is to take information and to take scheme and to take techniques and fundamentals and teach our players and give them a tool belt to go out and execute on game day. So going into the first game, I think that's the thing I'm most excited about. 

"We've really put a huge emphasis in spring ball and fall camp about getting better at the little things, and that's what I want to see show up on Saturday."

Tight End Jack Endries

MLB Cade Uluave

Saturday’s game will kickoff at 2 pm in Memorial Stadium.