Cal Football Tuesday Weekly Presser - San Diego State Game Week

The Bears pulled off perhaps their biggest non-conference road victory since Ole Miss in 2018 or Texas in 2015 in their 21-14 victory over Auburn on Saturday but don’t expect the win and their 2-0 start to go to the heads of a program hungry to build on their success.

"I don't have that concern," Wilcox said. "All we've got to do is turn on the tape and look at the things that we can get better at and there's a lot of them. Very proud of how the team competed as a whole. I thought it took every phase - offense, defense and special teams.

“A lot of players contributed. And really the competitiveness and how the team played together was apparent last Saturday and that's a great thing, but there's a lot that we can improve upon. So really, all we have to do is turn on the tape, which we did coming back off that game and see the areas where we can improve so I'm not concerned about that. We have a lot of self-aware guys who are motivated to get better."

Wilcox was asked what he thought the team could’ve done better in their win.

"There's a lot of them," Wilcox said. "We've got to go by positions. But I think the first thing pre-snap, we've got to be better especially offensively. In that environment, we had too many pre snap issues, whether it was snap count, cadence, silent, the snaps themselves. We had a few too many busts there. So we can be much better pre-snap. Even on defense, we had a couple plays where we were not either lined up correctly or missed a motion, and that hurt us. So I think we can be much better pre-snap. 

"And then you go through each position group and find plenty of areas where we can improve. Obviously, the game this past weekend, the turnovers, the takeaways, were huge. We protected the ball on offense. Didn't give them one, and we took the ball away five times. And that and the field position were the two most important critical factors in the game, but there's plenty of room for everybody to get better." 

The Bears had a dominating 5-0 turnover margin in their victory but still only managed a 7-point win. Though the last two came as the team was trying to run out the clock while the others led to points scored, it still should’ve translated to more points overall if the offense played better in it’s other possessions.

"I think that's safe to say,” Wilcox said. “I think we did what we had to do to get the victory, which is great, but yeah, if you take the ball away five times, and I think our average starting field position was right around the minus 40 or minus 41, we've got to get more points. And we left six out there on field goals. We still feel confident in our field goal unit and our kicker, but we gotta score more touchdowns. And I think when you look at the tape, and we go back and kind of assess what we did well and things that we need to improve upon, there's still more points to be had."

Of particular note in the areas that need improvement, the snapping has not only been inconsistent. It’s almost been consistently off - something the Bears will need to remedy as they work through injuries, rotating players at center and more.

"We gotta have on-target snaps," Wilcox said. "It gets addressed with practice and repetition and continuing to work through that, pre-practice, during practice, post-practice, as much as we possibly can so we get on-target snaps also."

Wilcox also noted that receivers Tobias Merriweather‍ and Kyion Grayes‍, center Will McDonald‍, guard Sioape Vatikani will likely be inactive on Saturday, with other injured players still under evaluation.

“Sioape, Will McDonald, doubtful for this week,” Wilcox said. “We're hopeful that we can get them back next week. David Reese, probable for this week. But you know, these things change kind of day to day. It's treatment. It's how they're feeling, how their healing is going. It's it's between the players and the trainers and the doctors getting cleared, making sure that they're healthy and able to go and and so it kind of changes by the day. But the ones I gave you, that's the most current update on all those guys.”

The Bears will face off against 0-2 San Diego State at Memorial Stadium on Saturday. Stay tuned for preview podcasts and stories to come.