I don’t mind turtling against lesser talented teams and winning knife fights 20-14 against UNLV and other G5 teams IF it meant Wilcox is going 10-2 or 9-3 the rest of the season. That isn’t the case here. In fact, I don’t think we are “turtling” in season 6. Turtling is just an excuse to give Wilcox and his staff a pass for his poor offe…
I don’t mind turtling against lesser talented teams and winning knife fights 20-14 against UNLV and other G5 teams IF it meant Wilcox is going 10-2 or 9-3 the rest of the season. That isn’t the case here. In fact, I don’t think we are “turtling” in season 6. Turtling is just an excuse to give Wilcox and his staff a pass for his poor offense. We aren’t playing turtle, we are a turtle. We need to recognize that and stop deflecting for Wilcox. Was Dykes turtling his defense in year 4?
I agree that turtling sounds generous or like an excuse, but it might just be semantics. I think it's true in the sense that most quality P5 teams keep things vanilla for the B and C level OOC opponents. At least, on paper that's the right strategy.
The difference here, which is also an indictment on Wilcox's understanding of reality, is that Cal is not a quality P5 team.
We arent the 2016 Wisconsin Badgers (11-3) which from day 1 seemed to be the basis of Wilcox's not only philosophy but decision making.
It's great to aspire to that, and we would be happy to be there. But you have to build up to that first. And handling your business impressively against the teams you should beat is important to building momentum.
It's like nothing is actually building here. We're stuck in being a program modeled in the image of the 2016 Badgers but not having the coaching or recruiting to actually get there, or show any signs of at least moving in that direction. Just excuses and what-if's and "strategy" year in, year out, game in game out.
But whether Sonny Dykes beats UNLV 55-47 or Wilcox beats UNLV 20-14 is hardly relevant. The issue is that we would rather see something more along the lines of Cal beating UNLV 38-10, while still "turtling" and limiting the number of snaps and getting backups playing time because the game was never in doubt from start to finish, because they are a well coached team with a culture of winning who handles their business against middling Group of 5 teams.
And there will always be exception games here or there, but the problem is the rule not the exception in the last decade.
I don’t mind turtling against lesser talented teams and winning knife fights 20-14 against UNLV and other G5 teams IF it meant Wilcox is going 10-2 or 9-3 the rest of the season. That isn’t the case here. In fact, I don’t think we are “turtling” in season 6. Turtling is just an excuse to give Wilcox and his staff a pass for his poor offense. We aren’t playing turtle, we are a turtle. We need to recognize that and stop deflecting for Wilcox. Was Dykes turtling his defense in year 4?
I agree that turtling sounds generous or like an excuse, but it might just be semantics. I think it's true in the sense that most quality P5 teams keep things vanilla for the B and C level OOC opponents. At least, on paper that's the right strategy.
The difference here, which is also an indictment on Wilcox's understanding of reality, is that Cal is not a quality P5 team.
We arent the 2016 Wisconsin Badgers (11-3) which from day 1 seemed to be the basis of Wilcox's not only philosophy but decision making.
It's great to aspire to that, and we would be happy to be there. But you have to build up to that first. And handling your business impressively against the teams you should beat is important to building momentum.
It's like nothing is actually building here. We're stuck in being a program modeled in the image of the 2016 Badgers but not having the coaching or recruiting to actually get there, or show any signs of at least moving in that direction. Just excuses and what-if's and "strategy" year in, year out, game in game out.
But whether Sonny Dykes beats UNLV 55-47 or Wilcox beats UNLV 20-14 is hardly relevant. The issue is that we would rather see something more along the lines of Cal beating UNLV 38-10, while still "turtling" and limiting the number of snaps and getting backups playing time because the game was never in doubt from start to finish, because they are a well coached team with a culture of winning who handles their business against middling Group of 5 teams.
And there will always be exception games here or there, but the problem is the rule not the exception in the last decade.