For me, the Dykes inflection point was the complete meltdown of the offense against Utah on the national stage. Something about seeing Goff go 5 INTs was dispiriting. Add in the refusal to groom a long-term QB replacement by giving him snaps behind Goff/Webb also struck a nerve.
I think ASU in 2019 was an inflection point, there was genuine momentum in the program and the fandom that was hampered by Chase's injury, 2021 Nevada is much the same but without the injury. The weakness of the Pac-12 North means that if we can't be #2 then Wilcox stops being the future of the program and will be the present that won't last.
There were some brutal stretches in the Dykes era that made it hard to believe we'd ever hit an upward inflection point. Losing 6 of 7 after the 4-1 start in 2014, that brutal midseason slide in 2015 (right after feeling like that win at UW felt like an upward inflection point). And then 2016 was a series of inflection points that showed us that the plane was falling into a steeper and steeper nosedive (SDSU loss, that absolutely inexcusable loss to OSU, getting outscored by 109 over a four-game stretch late in the year).
While I doubt the Wilcox era would end in that kind of spectacular disaster, it's getting hard to see how we hit an upward inflection point for the offense. It feels like the plodding, stumbling offense has so much inertia that it's hard to move it off course into an upward trajectory.
Dykes at least had some damn exciting, cardiac-inducing games. Also, I started doing what every fan resorts to when following a losing team: Cheering the stats of the star player on an abysmal team. Goff kept things interesting this way.
I remember sitting in the stands and thinking "How did our offense get so good?" Then the defense proceeded to crumble resulting in cardiac wins and losses (WSU a win, Arizona a horrible loss).
Also for an off the field inflection point -- a big one -- his first flirting with interviewing for a job. Forget when that was.
RE: QB's I agree with the sentiment but think it's less important in an Air Raid, in which it's possible to bring in a hired gun in a given year or get a young QB up to speed quickly because it's such a simple offense, and transfers are becoming more and more commonplace. You basically just screw over the next coach who doesn't run an Air Raid, even with the type of QBs you recruit (Goff was a legacy he inherited and didnt need to recruit).
I am not ready to write the post-mortem on Wilcox yet. He is a sharp coach who has shown the ability to attract other coaching talent (even if it hasn't all been aces in the hole) and who possess integrity and character that really fits the culture of UC Berkeley.
While I hope we really haven't reached an inflection point one could say that the writing is on the wall. Unless we can score 28 or more points per game we are going to lose most of the contests facing us. Have to figure out a way to score 28-35 points per game. The decision to make Chase a pocket passer looks like the 49ers attempt to make Kaepernick a pocket passer.
I feel like the inflection point for Wilcox was the Nevada game and said so before the game. I keep thinking that Musgrave could not help himself in trying to fundamentally change the way that Garbers plays the game. My guess that he has been pounding into his head to stay in the pocket to complete his check-downs. But Garbers does not seem to be a check-down guy. It looks to me like he locks on a primary receiver and his check-down amounts to looking for a back to dump the ball off to.
It seems like every extra second that Garbers stays in pocket leads to a hurried throwing decision - i.e. the ill-advised and lucky completion in the flat to Remigio - as opposed to looking for a running lane that served him so well in the 2019 season. And that fourth quarter intereception that Garbers threw told me a lot. He just heaved the ball up for grabs without really looking to see if the receiver was going to be open. No check downs on that play.
I still think the Remigio is the most talented receiver for Cal. That fact that he only had three receptions in the first three games last year started to tell me that Musgrave and his development of Garbers was not working. I am not optimistic this can be turned around, but I was not feeling too good about Cal's offense before the 2019 Mississippi game, either.
I don't think the NFL is in his future. This is interesting, though. In 2019, Garbers averaged 8.2 yards per completion and had a passer rating of 148.6. Last year, his first under Musgrave, he averaged 5.7 yards per completion with a passer rating of 120.7. In the Nevada game, he averaged 4.7 yards per completion with a player rating of 108.3. Not going in the right direction, and certainly not what we are accustomed to seeing with Cal quarterbacks in the tradition of Gilbert, Taylor, Pawlawski, Barr, Barnes, Boller, Rodgers and Goff. (You noticed I left Maynard off the list).
Thanks Avi. For those of us with grey hairs this sort of reflective history is useful. It really does make me sober as I'm such a sunshine pumper. Boy I miss that gif.
Sep 8, 2021Liked by Avinash Kunnath, Rob Hwang, Piotr Le, Berkelium97
For the first time in my life, I just paid to subscribe to a Cal site. Having Nam and Avi writing here, as well as other amazing folks like Berkelium and too many others to name. I subscribed not only to read their material, but honestly, to thank them for the many years of free content I've read from them. Thank you folks.
Ditto CalBear91's remarks. I love the Bears and I'm glad that after 55 years of fandom, I can still stay up till 2:00 A.M. to watch them to the (all too often) bitter end. I cheerfully tendered my 90 bucks as soon as Premium became a thing.
I am not surprised that so many would see last Saturday as "the end is nigh." It is a logical place to couch our frustration and also, makes us look wise if indeed such gloom comes to pass. It is a way to divest emotionally and watch with a bit less interest, especially when the team currently seems to lack a single player that embodies the identity of the program the way Weaver did. Call me naive, I am optimistic that our team will respond to this loss and it will be evident next Saturday. Not that they will necessarily win, but that they will fight like hell, as they often do for Wilcox. Longer term, I am hopeful for the returns from the current and incoming talent and the chance for these new kids to develop. I've read the arguments regarding year five, senior class, and where we should be and I can't argue that. These folks are likely right. Maybe I want to ignore the obvious , stick my head in the and, and just pump more sunshine until its too late and I end up with a sunburn!
For me, the Dykes inflection point was the complete meltdown of the offense against Utah on the national stage. Something about seeing Goff go 5 INTs was dispiriting. Add in the refusal to groom a long-term QB replacement by giving him snaps behind Goff/Webb also struck a nerve.
I think ASU in 2019 was an inflection point, there was genuine momentum in the program and the fandom that was hampered by Chase's injury, 2021 Nevada is much the same but without the injury. The weakness of the Pac-12 North means that if we can't be #2 then Wilcox stops being the future of the program and will be the present that won't last.
There were some brutal stretches in the Dykes era that made it hard to believe we'd ever hit an upward inflection point. Losing 6 of 7 after the 4-1 start in 2014, that brutal midseason slide in 2015 (right after feeling like that win at UW felt like an upward inflection point). And then 2016 was a series of inflection points that showed us that the plane was falling into a steeper and steeper nosedive (SDSU loss, that absolutely inexcusable loss to OSU, getting outscored by 109 over a four-game stretch late in the year).
While I doubt the Wilcox era would end in that kind of spectacular disaster, it's getting hard to see how we hit an upward inflection point for the offense. It feels like the plodding, stumbling offense has so much inertia that it's hard to move it off course into an upward trajectory.
Dykes at least had some damn exciting, cardiac-inducing games. Also, I started doing what every fan resorts to when following a losing team: Cheering the stats of the star player on an abysmal team. Goff kept things interesting this way.
I remember sitting in the stands and thinking "How did our offense get so good?" Then the defense proceeded to crumble resulting in cardiac wins and losses (WSU a win, Arizona a horrible loss).
Also for an off the field inflection point -- a big one -- his first flirting with interviewing for a job. Forget when that was.
RE: QB's I agree with the sentiment but think it's less important in an Air Raid, in which it's possible to bring in a hired gun in a given year or get a young QB up to speed quickly because it's such a simple offense, and transfers are becoming more and more commonplace. You basically just screw over the next coach who doesn't run an Air Raid, even with the type of QBs you recruit (Goff was a legacy he inherited and didnt need to recruit).
The chicken spaghetti guy's wandering eye...
That was the best thing for our program. It really forced the administration into the right decision.
Right decision but it put us behind the hiring cycle and we had to rush the hire and ended up with Wilcox.
I am not ready to write the post-mortem on Wilcox yet. He is a sharp coach who has shown the ability to attract other coaching talent (even if it hasn't all been aces in the hole) and who possess integrity and character that really fits the culture of UC Berkeley.
While I hope we really haven't reached an inflection point one could say that the writing is on the wall. Unless we can score 28 or more points per game we are going to lose most of the contests facing us. Have to figure out a way to score 28-35 points per game. The decision to make Chase a pocket passer looks like the 49ers attempt to make Kaepernick a pocket passer.
Great content over the last week guys...I just subscribed as well
I feel like the inflection point for Wilcox was the Nevada game and said so before the game. I keep thinking that Musgrave could not help himself in trying to fundamentally change the way that Garbers plays the game. My guess that he has been pounding into his head to stay in the pocket to complete his check-downs. But Garbers does not seem to be a check-down guy. It looks to me like he locks on a primary receiver and his check-down amounts to looking for a back to dump the ball off to.
It seems like every extra second that Garbers stays in pocket leads to a hurried throwing decision - i.e. the ill-advised and lucky completion in the flat to Remigio - as opposed to looking for a running lane that served him so well in the 2019 season. And that fourth quarter intereception that Garbers threw told me a lot. He just heaved the ball up for grabs without really looking to see if the receiver was going to be open. No check downs on that play.
I still think the Remigio is the most talented receiver for Cal. That fact that he only had three receptions in the first three games last year started to tell me that Musgrave and his development of Garbers was not working. I am not optimistic this can be turned around, but I was not feeling too good about Cal's offense before the 2019 Mississippi game, either.
I don't think the NFL is in his future. This is interesting, though. In 2019, Garbers averaged 8.2 yards per completion and had a passer rating of 148.6. Last year, his first under Musgrave, he averaged 5.7 yards per completion with a passer rating of 120.7. In the Nevada game, he averaged 4.7 yards per completion with a player rating of 108.3. Not going in the right direction, and certainly not what we are accustomed to seeing with Cal quarterbacks in the tradition of Gilbert, Taylor, Pawlawski, Barr, Barnes, Boller, Rodgers and Goff. (You noticed I left Maynard off the list).
The good news is I think we have turned a corner on offense.
The bad news is I think we are stuck in a dead end cul-de-sac.
Yep the offense made a 360 degree turnaround
Thanks Avi. For those of us with grey hairs this sort of reflective history is useful. It really does make me sober as I'm such a sunshine pumper. Boy I miss that gif.
lol I started getting grey hairs in college. Cal fandom probably had something to do with that...
For the first time in my life, I just paid to subscribe to a Cal site. Having Nam and Avi writing here, as well as other amazing folks like Berkelium and too many others to name. I subscribed not only to read their material, but honestly, to thank them for the many years of free content I've read from them. Thank you folks.
Ditto CalBear91's remarks. I love the Bears and I'm glad that after 55 years of fandom, I can still stay up till 2:00 A.M. to watch them to the (all too often) bitter end. I cheerfully tendered my 90 bucks as soon as Premium became a thing.
I am not surprised that so many would see last Saturday as "the end is nigh." It is a logical place to couch our frustration and also, makes us look wise if indeed such gloom comes to pass. It is a way to divest emotionally and watch with a bit less interest, especially when the team currently seems to lack a single player that embodies the identity of the program the way Weaver did. Call me naive, I am optimistic that our team will respond to this loss and it will be evident next Saturday. Not that they will necessarily win, but that they will fight like hell, as they often do for Wilcox. Longer term, I am hopeful for the returns from the current and incoming talent and the chance for these new kids to develop. I've read the arguments regarding year five, senior class, and where we should be and I can't argue that. These folks are likely right. Maybe I want to ignore the obvious , stick my head in the and, and just pump more sunshine until its too late and I end up with a sunburn!
If the new hits do drop, we won't notice if coverage is going to become irrelevant, cloaked from public view.