My fandom starts in 1980, cemented by the uberheroics of John Tuggle, J Torchio, and a stout Cal defense in that year’s Big Game win against John Elway and the Furd.
It’s survived Joe Kapp’s self-immolation, various terrible losses throughout the later 1980s and mid-1990s, the Snyder years replaced by Gilby, the Holmoecaust, endgame-era Jeff Tedford, and even Andy Buh. And despite the frustrations towards the various coaches, player derps, missed FGs, and the 2020 Big Game, among other things, nothing those Cal squads did ever robbed me of the joy of just watching my alma mater play football in the fall months, win or lose. Until this team, and this coaching staff.
I don’t understand what the team is trying to do each Saturday almost as much as the team itself likely doesn’t understand it. And even with the constant whining that “we’re gonna lose JKS”, I can’t see where his game play seemingly elevates the team into something better than itself.
It’s almost embarrassing that Ron Rivera, who has coached football teams before, can’t even see fit to impart upon Lupoi enough coaching advice and sage wisdom to at least make this team mediocre, instead of the helpless and furtive groping around every Saturday for some semblance of a game plan to compete.
In wanting Justin Wilcox gone in the worst way possible, that’s exactly what we have now…
RR cannot impart wisdom on meathead. The problem was hiring him. We own that problem now and we need to just get rid of that problem even if that means just elevating someone from within and not being able to lateral someone from the outside. Tosh is poison. He and only him is the problem. We get of him, and we get rid of the issue (although then we’ll have other problems to deal with. ). But unless you get rid of the tumor, something like plantar ficitis is secondary.
Thank you also for the public service of listening to him. I have been and will continue to avoid listening to him. I don’t want my IQ lowered by listening to things that doesn’t make any sense. It’s like listening to some politicians blabber on except far worse because they do that on purpose. This guy really says what he thinks and everything he says should tell you about what he is like in his mind/brain - which is meathead
Congratulations to Tosh Lupoi! He managed to destroy Cal football twice, first when he took all the recruits with him to Washington under Jeff Tedford and again when he put this abomination on the football field.
I’ve been a fan for over 50 years so I will always vote for Cal but this is so frustrating. The one thing Lupoi has shown is why he was not promoted to the defensive coordinator position under Tedford. He doesn’t know crap from Crisco
I’m not even upset anymore. I am just completely disinterested. Did not watch a play.
Drove up to the cabin by the Lair this morning to get some stuff done before winter, purposely going during the Cal game. Blew out an almost brand-new tire on 580E just outside of Livermore on the first hill up towards Altamont - with a trunk full of stuff and 2 dogs in the car had to wait an hour for AAA, and then head to an America’s Tire in Tracy for a replacement…showed up at the cabin to a total hail storm….
Just a miserable day so far, yet somehow it was far more enjoyable than watching this disaster of a program.
It’s a shame you’re disinterested this year, considering you were the conductor of the “Fire Wilcox” train all last season on this site. It was impossible to read through a single game thread last season without 10+ comments from you echoing that same refrain. You got your wish, and now you can’t be bothered to watch the team?
All last season? Try the last 4 years…ever since the loss at Colorado in ‘22. And I was not alone. And have zero regrets. Only knuckleheads are pining for Wilcox, but hey, you do you. Plus one has nothing to do with the other.
I’ve been to 4 games this year, including at Syracuse, and watched 2 in the middle of the night from Italy, so spare me with the “can’t be bothered to watch the team.” Plus you added the “this year” so get your facts straight. And have at it watching incompetent football.
You sir a definitely a "knucklehead" by your preaching to the stupid fans who would listen to you, that Lupoi would be a better head coach than Wilcox. With Wilcox Cal would have 6 or 7 wins this year, maybe more and a money making Bowl game.
Please. See you don’t even know what you are talking about. It’s kind of funny.
I never once preached to anyone Lupoi would be a ‘better’ HC than Wilcox. You are just making crap up now and should stop. I did not even like the Tosh hire, though I loved the donor/administrative buy-in that it clearly brought, as that is necessary if Cal is to survive in this new NIL/portal landscape. And that was NEVER coming with 10 years of 6-6 Wilcox, BTW. But I’m no huge fan of Tosh Lupoi, so again, get your facts straight and stop inventing things that never happened to support your narrative.
As with ALL those who are ACTUALLY paying attention to what is going on, I just knew that a decade of Justin Wilcox’s 6-6 was not the answer if this program, and basically the entire athletic department, have any hope to survive. I make no bones that though a good dude, the program needed a new direction than Wilcox. If they whiffed on the hire, so be it, but it still needed to be done. If you can’t see that, then you should educate yourself on what is at stake.
The question is where do we go from here? Seems a foregone conclusion that Tosh will remain the head coach for the rest of the season. I don’t see us winning another game.
I don’t want to be alarmist, but if Tosh truly can’t coach, then the path forward is clear. Can Chancellor Lyons make the tough decision to clean house and start over? Time is running out.
Chancellor Lyons surely understands the danger of sunk cost fallacy, unlike our whale donors who have shown nothing but poor business sense and lighting money on fire by rewarding incompetence - dating back to the Knowlton regime if not further. Rivera also needs to own this disaster and fix it, but hasn't shown anything that inspires confidence either.
Time may be of the essence for Lyons to act, especially with relegation & irrelevance looming on the near horizon at this rate.
>"there was a conference call with some significant donors/boosters this afternoon discussing the possibility of putting up the money to buy out Tosh's contract if the school admin is willing to pull the plug."
IMHO, legal mechanisms exist that could potentially mitigate or eliminate the university’s buyout obligations, but capitalizing on them will depend entirely on having the right legal experts/brains driving the strategy/allowed at the table.
I get that it’s an expensive buyout, that we can’t afford a great replacement, and that it will hurt us in terms of NIL, but this Tosh hire is an unmitigated disaster and we need to cut our losses immediately.
It was frustrating that shortly after the fumble recovery late in the 2nd quarter, that JKS was so intent upon a money shot to Strong in the end zone that he would have been better served simply dumping the ball off to Mini seated squarely in the middle of field for a decent short gain. Instead he had to take a sack, and Mr. Magoo rendered the issue moot by missing the FG a couple of plays later.
I don't know why Mini gets targeted so few times; I'm sorry, but making him run a Wildcat play every so often isn't really the best use of the kid's talent...
Only one positive for me this game: The analyst working with Roxy is one of the best I've ever heard, college or pro. Maybe we should hire him to run the offense.
He resigned as Wake's HC due to frustration with the NIL era (his record was bad the last few years). Had a couple good years during covid but was otherwise Wilcoxian. Played DB but moved up coaching ranks as OC.
Would certainly be interesting if he would be willing to be OC if he didn't have to recruit (could even explicitly not make him a designated recruiter). Not that a broadcast is a coaching search, but you could see that he knows the game.
What a horrible, sickening mess this season has been so far....AND IT'S ABOUT TO GET WORSE!!!!! This season is a write-off so I guess that we go with the usual Cal mantra, "Wait until next year". The sad part is that THINGS WILL NOT GET BETTER NEXT YEAR until there is a complete overhaul of the coaching staff. Holy cow, that was some of THE WORST play calling on offense that I've ever seen! Do they really think they are fooling any one by having JKS line up at wide receiver? JKS and our best players are certainly gone after this season (who can blame them) and the rebuild known as Cal Football will begin, AGAIN! I guess that I had better get ready for more 9am and 7:30pm start times because there aren't many people (outside of die-hard alums) that are willing to watch such a shit-show. Actually, even the die-hard alums such as myself are going to find other things to do on Satruday's instead of watching the mess that is currently Cal Football. Sigh....
At this point, I'm over JKS. Even if he goes elsewhere and turns into something special, the program can't be successful pinning all of its hope on the kid any more. When Roxy mentioned on the broadcast that McCann is running plays by JKS and asking him for "his favorites" to run, we've reached the point where the team is now just playing playground ball and careening from offensive series to offensive series. At this point, it seems we're just humoring him, like a parent handing a child an iPad so the adults can enjoy a nice dinner.
The program can't grow if team decisions are predicated upon the whims of a single player. This isn't the Twilight Zone where we gotta keep Anthony happy so he doesn't "wish us into the cornfield" by leaving. These circumstances as they are now are untenable.
(I can only imagine how my 3rd grade classroom was run where I simply asked my students what their favorite things to do were, and we just did that. Incredibly, there's a 4th grade class at my school site that's run that way, but I digress...)
If he leaves, wouldn't his money be better spent on several stud O-line players and even a new O-line coach at this point? A serviceable QB behind an outstanding offensive line has to be an improvement over our present predicament.
Agree. Also, having designed run (or anything like it) for JKS is malpratice. It’s like asking me to have a longer arm radius. I just can’t, just like he can’t run. So why do we ask him to?
Just because he is an elite QB (which he is), doesn’t mean that he is mobile. Just because he is an elite QB, doesn’t mean he is eloquent (he isn’t). Just because he is an elite QB, doesn’t mean he is a vocal and charismatic leader (he isn’t). He is shouldering too much burden and being asked to be someone he is not. I feel bad for him. He needs to get the heck out of here and look for a real HC.
It’s meathead. He and only him is the source of the problem. Just look at what we did under underpaid Wilcox and his staff last year. Point your anger right at him.
I even saw Holmoe beat uclol 17-0 in the Rose Bowl once. At least our "Jesus in Cleats" back then didn't have a t-shirt line that we were expected to support...
My fandom starts in 1980, cemented by the uberheroics of John Tuggle, J Torchio, and a stout Cal defense in that year’s Big Game win against John Elway and the Furd.
It’s survived Joe Kapp’s self-immolation, various terrible losses throughout the later 1980s and mid-1990s, the Snyder years replaced by Gilby, the Holmoecaust, endgame-era Jeff Tedford, and even Andy Buh. And despite the frustrations towards the various coaches, player derps, missed FGs, and the 2020 Big Game, among other things, nothing those Cal squads did ever robbed me of the joy of just watching my alma mater play football in the fall months, win or lose. Until this team, and this coaching staff.
I don’t understand what the team is trying to do each Saturday almost as much as the team itself likely doesn’t understand it. And even with the constant whining that “we’re gonna lose JKS”, I can’t see where his game play seemingly elevates the team into something better than itself.
It’s almost embarrassing that Ron Rivera, who has coached football teams before, can’t even see fit to impart upon Lupoi enough coaching advice and sage wisdom to at least make this team mediocre, instead of the helpless and furtive groping around every Saturday for some semblance of a game plan to compete.
In wanting Justin Wilcox gone in the worst way possible, that’s exactly what we have now…
RR cannot impart wisdom on meathead. The problem was hiring him. We own that problem now and we need to just get rid of that problem even if that means just elevating someone from within and not being able to lateral someone from the outside. Tosh is poison. He and only him is the problem. We get of him, and we get rid of the issue (although then we’ll have other problems to deal with. ). But unless you get rid of the tumor, something like plantar ficitis is secondary.
"When you're winning or tied going into halftime, you don't end up making a lot of adjustments..."
Coach...this is why you're losing the 2nd half every game. Everyone is adjusting to what they're seeing except you.
dear lord, did he really say that?
Yep…
Oh actually I know. Tosh gives them a word salad the whole time.
I figured we were doomed with that gibberish he spewed on ESPN in the 1H interview v Clemson. Complete nonsense.
I wonder what they actually do during halftime. Take a power nap?
🤷♀️
You are expressing sound reason. Except it’s like throwing pearls to pigs.
I think this is the difference between someone who is ready to be HC and someone who’s learning on the job.
Thank you also for the public service of listening to him. I have been and will continue to avoid listening to him. I don’t want my IQ lowered by listening to things that doesn’t make any sense. It’s like listening to some politicians blabber on except far worse because they do that on purpose. This guy really says what he thinks and everything he says should tell you about what he is like in his mind/brain - which is meathead
Congratulations to Tosh Lupoi! He managed to destroy Cal football twice, first when he took all the recruits with him to Washington under Jeff Tedford and again when he put this abomination on the football field.
I’ve been a fan for over 50 years so I will always vote for Cal but this is so frustrating. The one thing Lupoi has shown is why he was not promoted to the defensive coordinator position under Tedford. He doesn’t know crap from Crisco
Amen x 1000. That’s why some of us were so against the hiring of meathead. Now we all see the decision this has wrought.
No. 3 Cal defeated No. 1 fUCLA in water polo today. Just in case you’re looking a sport where we win.
every time I think we hit rock bottom it just goes deeper
I’m not even upset anymore. I am just completely disinterested. Did not watch a play.
Drove up to the cabin by the Lair this morning to get some stuff done before winter, purposely going during the Cal game. Blew out an almost brand-new tire on 580E just outside of Livermore on the first hill up towards Altamont - with a trunk full of stuff and 2 dogs in the car had to wait an hour for AAA, and then head to an America’s Tire in Tracy for a replacement…showed up at the cabin to a total hail storm….
Just a miserable day so far, yet somehow it was far more enjoyable than watching this disaster of a program.
It’s a shame you’re disinterested this year, considering you were the conductor of the “Fire Wilcox” train all last season on this site. It was impossible to read through a single game thread last season without 10+ comments from you echoing that same refrain. You got your wish, and now you can’t be bothered to watch the team?
All last season? Try the last 4 years…ever since the loss at Colorado in ‘22. And I was not alone. And have zero regrets. Only knuckleheads are pining for Wilcox, but hey, you do you. Plus one has nothing to do with the other.
I’ve been to 4 games this year, including at Syracuse, and watched 2 in the middle of the night from Italy, so spare me with the “can’t be bothered to watch the team.” Plus you added the “this year” so get your facts straight. And have at it watching incompetent football.
You sir a definitely a "knucklehead" by your preaching to the stupid fans who would listen to you, that Lupoi would be a better head coach than Wilcox. With Wilcox Cal would have 6 or 7 wins this year, maybe more and a money making Bowl game.
Oh wow 6 wins.
Please. See you don’t even know what you are talking about. It’s kind of funny.
I never once preached to anyone Lupoi would be a ‘better’ HC than Wilcox. You are just making crap up now and should stop. I did not even like the Tosh hire, though I loved the donor/administrative buy-in that it clearly brought, as that is necessary if Cal is to survive in this new NIL/portal landscape. And that was NEVER coming with 10 years of 6-6 Wilcox, BTW. But I’m no huge fan of Tosh Lupoi, so again, get your facts straight and stop inventing things that never happened to support your narrative.
As with ALL those who are ACTUALLY paying attention to what is going on, I just knew that a decade of Justin Wilcox’s 6-6 was not the answer if this program, and basically the entire athletic department, have any hope to survive. I make no bones that though a good dude, the program needed a new direction than Wilcox. If they whiffed on the hire, so be it, but it still needed to be done. If you can’t see that, then you should educate yourself on what is at stake.
I don't see the point of this kind of comment.
Love the Lair. Camp Blue week 7!
Nice work! We were Blue week 10 for years!
Gold Cheats!
Camp Gold, Week 9. Your place is in Pinecrest? Nice!
Long Barn.
Stop by the Berry for me
Tosh needs to go. The buyout is cheap compared to be the downside of being left behind in the next round of realignment.
The university has proven they are serious about fund raising for football, now they have to show that there is accountability as well.
Well said
The question is where do we go from here? Seems a foregone conclusion that Tosh will remain the head coach for the rest of the season. I don’t see us winning another game.
I don’t want to be alarmist, but if Tosh truly can’t coach, then the path forward is clear. Can Chancellor Lyons make the tough decision to clean house and start over? Time is running out.
I am also pinning my hope on Rich Lyons making a business decision at the end of the season
Chancellor Lyons surely understands the danger of sunk cost fallacy, unlike our whale donors who have shown nothing but poor business sense and lighting money on fire by rewarding incompetence - dating back to the Knowlton regime if not further. Rivera also needs to own this disaster and fix it, but hasn't shown anything that inspires confidence either.
Time may be of the essence for Lyons to act, especially with relegation & irrelevance looming on the near horizon at this rate.
Agree. We all need to be expressing this.
Not without a whole lot of money behind him.
https://www.reddit.com/r/calfootball/comments/1xkim29/comment/19ryfuy0i4j45/
>"there was a conference call with some significant donors/boosters this afternoon discussing the possibility of putting up the money to buy out Tosh's contract if the school admin is willing to pull the plug."
IMHO, legal mechanisms exist that could potentially mitigate or eliminate the university’s buyout obligations, but capitalizing on them will depend entirely on having the right legal experts/brains driving the strategy/allowed at the table.
We are somehow getting worse each week regardless of injuries and I do not know how that's possible.* We are so cooked.
*(Most likely due to our coaching and playcalling being trash.)
Haha you answered your own question. I agree. He just needs to be canned.
I get that it’s an expensive buyout, that we can’t afford a great replacement, and that it will hurt us in terms of NIL, but this Tosh hire is an unmitigated disaster and we need to cut our losses immediately.
I’ve never seen a TE passing games that exclusively focus at the sidelines.
It is very difficult when we have no middle of the field threat.
It was frustrating that shortly after the fumble recovery late in the 2nd quarter, that JKS was so intent upon a money shot to Strong in the end zone that he would have been better served simply dumping the ball off to Mini seated squarely in the middle of field for a decent short gain. Instead he had to take a sack, and Mr. Magoo rendered the issue moot by missing the FG a couple of plays later.
I don't know why Mini gets targeted so few times; I'm sorry, but making him run a Wildcat play every so often isn't really the best use of the kid's talent...
Only one positive for me this game: The analyst working with Roxy is one of the best I've ever heard, college or pro. Maybe we should hire him to run the offense.
Dave Clawson is the former Wake Forest coach
He resigned as Wake's HC due to frustration with the NIL era (his record was bad the last few years). Had a couple good years during covid but was otherwise Wilcoxian. Played DB but moved up coaching ranks as OC.
Would certainly be interesting if he would be willing to be OC if he didn't have to recruit (could even explicitly not make him a designated recruiter). Not that a broadcast is a coaching search, but you could see that he knows the game.
Clawson kept confusing our OC (McCann) with the NC State OC, by using their names interchangeably. Too bad we couldn't have done that IRL.
Funny, I said the same thing.
Our coaching staff must be so extremely incompetent the way we've been completely destroyed in the second half.
What a horrible, sickening mess this season has been so far....AND IT'S ABOUT TO GET WORSE!!!!! This season is a write-off so I guess that we go with the usual Cal mantra, "Wait until next year". The sad part is that THINGS WILL NOT GET BETTER NEXT YEAR until there is a complete overhaul of the coaching staff. Holy cow, that was some of THE WORST play calling on offense that I've ever seen! Do they really think they are fooling any one by having JKS line up at wide receiver? JKS and our best players are certainly gone after this season (who can blame them) and the rebuild known as Cal Football will begin, AGAIN! I guess that I had better get ready for more 9am and 7:30pm start times because there aren't many people (outside of die-hard alums) that are willing to watch such a shit-show. Actually, even the die-hard alums such as myself are going to find other things to do on Satruday's instead of watching the mess that is currently Cal Football. Sigh....
At this point, I'm over JKS. Even if he goes elsewhere and turns into something special, the program can't be successful pinning all of its hope on the kid any more. When Roxy mentioned on the broadcast that McCann is running plays by JKS and asking him for "his favorites" to run, we've reached the point where the team is now just playing playground ball and careening from offensive series to offensive series. At this point, it seems we're just humoring him, like a parent handing a child an iPad so the adults can enjoy a nice dinner.
The program can't grow if team decisions are predicated upon the whims of a single player. This isn't the Twilight Zone where we gotta keep Anthony happy so he doesn't "wish us into the cornfield" by leaving. These circumstances as they are now are untenable.
(I can only imagine how my 3rd grade classroom was run where I simply asked my students what their favorite things to do were, and we just did that. Incredibly, there's a 4th grade class at my school site that's run that way, but I digress...)
If he leaves, wouldn't his money be better spent on several stud O-line players and even a new O-line coach at this point? A serviceable QB behind an outstanding offensive line has to be an improvement over our present predicament.
Agree. Also, having designed run (or anything like it) for JKS is malpratice. It’s like asking me to have a longer arm radius. I just can’t, just like he can’t run. So why do we ask him to?
Just because he is an elite QB (which he is), doesn’t mean that he is mobile. Just because he is an elite QB, doesn’t mean he is eloquent (he isn’t). Just because he is an elite QB, doesn’t mean he is a vocal and charismatic leader (he isn’t). He is shouldering too much burden and being asked to be someone he is not. I feel bad for him. He needs to get the heck out of here and look for a real HC.
It’s meathead. He and only him is the source of the problem. Just look at what we did under underpaid Wilcox and his staff last year. Point your anger right at him.
Helpless. Hopeless. Cal has now veered into Holmoe territory. The difference is that Cal paid a lot of money to get here this time.
I even saw Holmoe beat uclol 17-0 in the Rose Bowl once. At least our "Jesus in Cleats" back then didn't have a t-shirt line that we were expected to support...
Yup - meathead is being exposed in a big way
Since we’re falling back tonight, can we just rewind to last year and start the coaching search again?