Omg. A real live special teams coach, with proven success as such? Remember that Lupoi coached under Saban, and Saban has preached the importance of special teams. Cal ignored this for 9 years, and lost many games for this reason.
There was no greater indicator of Justin Wilcox’s complete and total failure as a Head Coach then to watch special teams cost him multiple wins every year and him do NOTHING to address it.
Now this is feeling very Oregon. Lanning had a co-DC when he was DC at Georgia. Kirby Smart always had an extra coordinator at Georgia (initially co-OCs but switched to co-DCs).
Not sure how widespread this is in football these days or if we've now hired into the Kirby Smart coaching tree.
Was it a fiasco? Felt like we just whiffed on Masses and Wilcox couldn't take the risk of benching him for a younger player. Which is dumb because we saw how good our youth was actually against Hawaii. I thought Shemwell did great all things considered, and would have been fantastic with more reps / experience.
Don't know if a corner that refuses to tackle really deserves that. He also has a bit of an effort problem, giving up on plays. What he's good at is selling out for INTs.
The defensive backs looked slow as molasses against Hawaii. I really hope that Lupoi can address defensive issues along with the offensive line in the transfer portal.
I forget which article, but according to WFC apparently this is common in the Smart / Lanning tree. It's not like Wilcox where you have two co-DCs and it's not really clear who makes decisions, but we have a main DC and then a co-DC that likely reports up to him. I'm guessing it's doing whatever you can to fit as many coaches into your staff as possible.
Lots of youthful energy and relatively recent game-day experience in our leadership.
We got a special teams coordinator!
https://calbears.com/news/2025/12/27/football-tinker-named-cal-special-teams-coordinator.aspx
He's old!
Omg. A real live special teams coach, with proven success as such? Remember that Lupoi coached under Saban, and Saban has preached the importance of special teams. Cal ignored this for 9 years, and lost many games for this reason.
There was no greater indicator of Justin Wilcox’s complete and total failure as a Head Coach then to watch special teams cost him multiple wins every year and him do NOTHING to address it.
Good HC’s identify a problem and fix it.
Wilcox could do no such thing.
Wilcox was great at identifying problems. I unfortunately just never saw solutions.
Now this is feeling very Oregon. Lanning had a co-DC when he was DC at Georgia. Kirby Smart always had an extra coordinator at Georgia (initially co-OCs but switched to co-DCs).
Not sure how widespread this is in football these days or if we've now hired into the Kirby Smart coaching tree.
Is Terrence Brown gone? He seemed to do a good job and got players into the League.
My thoughts exactly. Hope they keep him in some capacity but maybe that Hawaii bowl secondary fiasco was his last straw.
Was it a fiasco? Felt like we just whiffed on Masses and Wilcox couldn't take the risk of benching him for a younger player. Which is dumb because we saw how good our youth was actually against Hawaii. I thought Shemwell did great all things considered, and would have been fantastic with more reps / experience.
Whiffed on a perennial all American? Come on now
Don't know if a corner that refuses to tackle really deserves that. He also has a bit of an effort problem, giving up on plays. What he's good at is selling out for INTs.
I thought he definitely could have done better on that last touchdown pass - oh well
The defensive backs looked slow as molasses against Hawaii. I really hope that Lupoi can address defensive issues along with the offensive line in the transfer portal.
It would sure be nice to stop teams like Hawaii and SanDiego State. Good lick , Coach.
Can someone explain to why Cal has defensive "co-coordinators?" Don't teams typically have one?
I forget which article, but according to WFC apparently this is common in the Smart / Lanning tree. It's not like Wilcox where you have two co-DCs and it's not really clear who makes decisions, but we have a main DC and then a co-DC that likely reports up to him. I'm guessing it's doing whatever you can to fit as many coaches into your staff as possible.
Thanks very much for this.