Keep in mind that our center Bastian Swinney was injured, and in the Virginia Tech game he was the main architect of the O-line play being good. Like in the UCLA game, Swinney not being there means bad O-line play, which leads to 3-and-outs, which means the defense is gassed.
Tosh's shopping list for the offseason has to include a good O-line and depth at center (and also depth in the RB room).
But I don't think Tosh needs to be fired or should be fired anymore: whatever beef he had with the players, McCann, Rolo, and Hutchings during the Wake Forest game was clearly squashed as evidenced by the first half of this game.
Ok, so why did our OL play so well in the first half and not in the second half? If anyone wants to make excuses for our mediocrity, I won't be one of them. We won't get to where we want to go or need to go as a program to be viable with the current coaching staff.
As a fomrer player I can tell you adrenaline is not what wins and loses games. Adrenaline does not last long and when it wears off you crash. The mindset going into a game is simple: its about being brutally tough, tougher than your opponent and owning him to the point he has to respect you. It’s kind of like what Conan the Barbarian said when he was asked what is best in life and he said, ”To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.” Football is basic: the toughest guy wins, especially if he is a bigger and better athlete than his opponent and is coached better. ;-)
Respectfully disagree 1000%. All you have to do is listen to an interview or look at the guy on the sidelines. The game is something happening TO him. Better yet just look at the on field performance in comparison to any reasonably coach team - good or bad. If there is a silver lining to all this it’s that there is zero question a mistake has been made - and so getting rid of him shouldn’t be wrought with any doubt. This is not like Wilcox middling and underachieving for too long. This is full blown incompetence laid bare. I understand why you feel the way you do; I didn't want to believe it either at first. But we are in real trouble with this mis-step. Blink twice if you need help.
The bottleneck with everything is the O-line; this is Wilcox's O-line, both with players and the O-line coach. We fired Wilcox, but didn't fully clean house.
Also we've had an injury bug on offense: again that goes back to the O-line and the strength and conditioning (and the S&C coach was also a Wilcox hire).
And if poor O-line play and a depleted offense lead to quick 3-and-outs with short fields, our defense is at a structural disadvantage.
I don't think Tosh is doing much, if any, of the actual coaching anyway, so firing him won't change much.
It was evident after UCLA'a first drive we had been defrauded.
Our "wins" are two exceedingly lucky wins against teams that imploded and one of the worst FCS schools around (and even then we did do great). There is talent - the first half against SMU helps proves that and we actually been ahead in the first quarter almost every game. But that talent is being squandered by the worst "coaching" (it isn't coaching at all; it something far less than "coaching"). It is why every game we fall apart in truly inexcusable ways.
If you cannot understand this, maybe the fact that the students left at half time of the Wake game and gameday crowds are nowhere close to full - with a new coach and tens of millions of dollars in NIL invested - will wake you up.
Wanna bet attendance for the Pitt game will be under 25,000?
Cal Fans: I have seen the future of Cal Football and it is.........the CW Network and the new Pac-12!!!! Let's just face facts. We aren't getting an invite to the Big 10 and as soon as the Big Ten and SEC get finished poaching the ACC for its most valuable brands (North Carolina and Miami, maybe Clemson and FSU) the entire conference is going to collapse just like the Pac-12 did two years ago. The one silver lining in realignment is that Cal will be able to go back to some semblance of reasonable travel. We can still have football that is fun to watch but it's not going to be on Fox or CBS. We will probably still be featured on some ESPN games, either at 9am or 7:30pm because, seriously, who wants to watch what we are offereing? 42 UNANSWERED POINTS!?!?!?!? Tosh can't get fired soon enough.
Blondie: I feel your pain. I don't want it to be true either but I just don't see us becoming a "brand" in football that any tv executive wants to pay big money for people to watch. When it comes to athletics (especially football), Cal has always been a day late and a dollar short. It's probably too obvious or painful to point out but we could have had Curt Cignetti or Bob Chesney as coaches but administration just didn't think that a coach from James Madison could turn things around so we stayed with Wilcox, and now we have Tosh. Sigh.....
I am hopeful that we can still turn things around. But we need to start by acknowledging that we made a n enormous mistake. I hope we have the guts to make that call.
I know Rich Lyons is a gentleman, but I would ask him to go into a hard battle with Lupoi legal team regarding the buyout payment and reallocate the money in the meantime to a qualified coach.
its one thing to eventually wear down, lose on some schemes and situations, and eventually lose this game to a better team - but to get completely BOAT-RACED like that immediately after halftime. It's not just disappointing, it's bizarre.
You are probably right. But then hear this: Will we wait another season, two seasons or longer through this kind of play before we admit we made a mistake? The biggest issue is not knowing the hire was a huge mistake, its getting those who made it to admit it. No one at the top wants to look bad about the hire so they will continue to deflect and make excuses. Meanwhile, CAL sucks, fans hate life and we get closer to relegation. Someone needs the sack to pull off the bandaide.
I'm thinking the issue will come down to money, and the willingness of the big donors to shell it out after one year, mistake or not. It is easy to spend buy out dollars when it's not your wallet.
Is there any coach on staff with defensive coordinator experience? Besides recruiting, the most valuable skill for a head coach is the ability to hire good coordinators and position coaches. These rookie coordinators are not working out.
Agreed! Inexperienced coaches are not working very well. They earn a lot of money despite lousy results so far, and I bet most returning players, including Sagapoulete, will play elsewhere in 2027.
The offense, despite the absence of multiple key players, showed signs of progress. But what's up with the defense? To me they've been the biggest disappointement this season.
Well, what can anyone say? This is the second game in a row where Cal's opponent scored 40+ unanswered points -- where Cal's offense didn't show up and the defense decided to take a powder and let everyone through to the endzone. SMU had 6 drives in a row for TD's in the second half and we had absolutely no response on either side of the ball. Excuse me, but is that the result of lousy or nonexistent coaching or just coincidence? And it doesn't matter whether JKS is the QB or not; he had better games and better stats last year under JW. I am in the fire Lopoi camp and let Rolo get us through what is left of this dismal season. Start now trying to figure out who we can poach as HC and what it will cost to get him. Cal made a mistake in hiring Lopoi. How and why that happened is beyond me. Whatever the case, if we keep going down the road we are on -- and I am not at all sure that anything we do now will actually lead to a salvaged season -- we will lose to Stanford on Nov 21 at home in CMS. And won't that be the frosting on the cake for this season?
My dad took me to my first Bears game in 2004 against UCLA when I was a wee lad. I fell in love instantly and we went to a couple more that season. We got season tickets in 2005 and have had them ever since. Personally, I've been to every single home game we've had tickets for. That's 134 consecutive home games at this point including 2011 in San Francisco. I have never wanted to go to California Memorial Stadium less than I do this season. Maybe it's the state of the program, maybe it's the constant mediocrity since 2009, maybe it's that I have a wife, three young children, a house, and a demanding career now. But man, am I having a hard time finding motivation to even go to the Big Game.
Andy: No guarantees that we win the Big Game anyway. November is usually a good month for surfing in San Diego so I have a good idea of what I will be doing unless the game is at night or unless Cal demonstrates some kind of incredible turnaround in the next couple of weeks.
I accept that we’re stuck with Tosh given the buyout. Bad mistake.
I hope Ron and Chancellor Lyons force him to replace the entire coaching staff (Rolo can stay) with experienced coaching who can actually coach football
Haas: How much is his buyout? It can't be as much as Norvell at FSU or anywhere close. Time for our fundraising arm to hit up some big donors for buyout money. Hell, Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and a Cal alum, spent $110 million for a frickin house in L.A. last year! Don't tell me that there isn't any buyout money for bad coaches at Cal.
There might be but the donors that probably forced that we hire him won’t be coughing up the money for the buyout so someone else needs to step up and that’s a big if.
Certainly it would impact any team. But would it change the outcome? Perhaps a little on the scoreboard, but we were playing a great game in the first half and were winning with the players we had. So what happened in the second half. As a former CAL player and a Juco coach, I can tell you the difference between the first half and second half was adjustments to the play calling made by coaches. Once again, we were outcoached. I have watched a lot of football with a critical eye. Our season, with the exception of the first half of this game, has been a coaching disaster. Having Mohammed back and a few other players wouldn't have changed a lot.
Given that you played at Cal and your coaching experience, I certainly defer to your take on all this. What years did you play? Perhaps I saw you (I came to Cal in Fall 1970). I had hoped Pat McCann would be a difference maker. I think he is helping, but it isn't enough against ranked teams. So it looks like we're going to have to improve somehow to get to a bowl game. Playing mediocre teams going forward should help.
I did notice that as well. My question is, does Cal have an inordinately higher amount of injuries compared to other equivalent programs (as if any other team could be as cursed as Cal, but I digress), and if so, it is bad luck, bad technique, bad strength and conditioning, some or all of the above, none of the above, or just E) and F)? Or something else entirely?
The other what if question is if all of our running backs HAD stayed healthy, would they have meaningfully gelled with the office and turned some of our defeats into close games?
I'd say we definitely have the injury bug and it certainly is impacting us. But does it change my opinion of how we are being coached? No. Why were we so much worse in the second half compared to the first half? Not because of injuries. Because the SMU coaches made adjustments and we didn't.
I can see your point. I was not trying to give the coaching staff an out. But I was referring to last season when Oregon was a juggernaut and then all their running backs entered the portal and the entire Oregon machine fell apart in their final playoff game. And our head coach is a direct by product of the Oregon system. So I was suggesting that there is past precident for our performance. Again, not a statement meant to defend our coaches; just pointing out they have multiple Achilles heels.
Keep in mind that our center Bastian Swinney was injured, and in the Virginia Tech game he was the main architect of the O-line play being good. Like in the UCLA game, Swinney not being there means bad O-line play, which leads to 3-and-outs, which means the defense is gassed.
Tosh's shopping list for the offseason has to include a good O-line and depth at center (and also depth in the RB room).
But I don't think Tosh needs to be fired or should be fired anymore: whatever beef he had with the players, McCann, Rolo, and Hutchings during the Wake Forest game was clearly squashed as evidenced by the first half of this game.
Ok, so why did our OL play so well in the first half and not in the second half? If anyone wants to make excuses for our mediocrity, I won't be one of them. We won't get to where we want to go or need to go as a program to be viable with the current coaching staff.
One word answer: adrenaline
Also SMU's defensive halftime adjustments were able to figure them out. Keep in mind that our O-line is still Wilcox's O-line.
As a fomrer player I can tell you adrenaline is not what wins and loses games. Adrenaline does not last long and when it wears off you crash. The mindset going into a game is simple: its about being brutally tough, tougher than your opponent and owning him to the point he has to respect you. It’s kind of like what Conan the Barbarian said when he was asked what is best in life and he said, ”To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.” Football is basic: the toughest guy wins, especially if he is a bigger and better athlete than his opponent and is coached better. ;-)
…lehmentations of ze vihmen.
Respectfully disagree 1000%. All you have to do is listen to an interview or look at the guy on the sidelines. The game is something happening TO him. Better yet just look at the on field performance in comparison to any reasonably coach team - good or bad. If there is a silver lining to all this it’s that there is zero question a mistake has been made - and so getting rid of him shouldn’t be wrought with any doubt. This is not like Wilcox middling and underachieving for too long. This is full blown incompetence laid bare. I understand why you feel the way you do; I didn't want to believe it either at first. But we are in real trouble with this mis-step. Blink twice if you need help.
The bottleneck with everything is the O-line; this is Wilcox's O-line, both with players and the O-line coach. We fired Wilcox, but didn't fully clean house.
Also we've had an injury bug on offense: again that goes back to the O-line and the strength and conditioning (and the S&C coach was also a Wilcox hire).
And if poor O-line play and a depleted offense lead to quick 3-and-outs with short fields, our defense is at a structural disadvantage.
I don't think Tosh is doing much, if any, of the actual coaching anyway, so firing him won't change much.
Six seven :hand gesture associated with six seven simultaneously:
100 pct disagree on everything you wrote
Please stop making excuses.
It was evident after UCLA'a first drive we had been defrauded.
Our "wins" are two exceedingly lucky wins against teams that imploded and one of the worst FCS schools around (and even then we did do great). There is talent - the first half against SMU helps proves that and we actually been ahead in the first quarter almost every game. But that talent is being squandered by the worst "coaching" (it isn't coaching at all; it something far less than "coaching"). It is why every game we fall apart in truly inexcusable ways.
If you cannot understand this, maybe the fact that the students left at half time of the Wake game and gameday crowds are nowhere close to full - with a new coach and tens of millions of dollars in NIL invested - will wake you up.
Wanna bet attendance for the Pitt game will be under 25,000?
Sonny Dykes defense, Justin Wilcox offense
Tosh Lupoi - marbles
Yup. Worst of all worlds. Awesome.
Fire meathead
Cal Fans: I have seen the future of Cal Football and it is.........the CW Network and the new Pac-12!!!! Let's just face facts. We aren't getting an invite to the Big 10 and as soon as the Big Ten and SEC get finished poaching the ACC for its most valuable brands (North Carolina and Miami, maybe Clemson and FSU) the entire conference is going to collapse just like the Pac-12 did two years ago. The one silver lining in realignment is that Cal will be able to go back to some semblance of reasonable travel. We can still have football that is fun to watch but it's not going to be on Fox or CBS. We will probably still be featured on some ESPN games, either at 9am or 7:30pm because, seriously, who wants to watch what we are offereing? 42 UNANSWERED POINTS!?!?!?!? Tosh can't get fired soon enough.
I’m not going to “like” this comment because I don’t want it to be true. But it sure looks like we are headed that way.
Blondie: I feel your pain. I don't want it to be true either but I just don't see us becoming a "brand" in football that any tv executive wants to pay big money for people to watch. When it comes to athletics (especially football), Cal has always been a day late and a dollar short. It's probably too obvious or painful to point out but we could have had Curt Cignetti or Bob Chesney as coaches but administration just didn't think that a coach from James Madison could turn things around so we stayed with Wilcox, and now we have Tosh. Sigh.....
I am hopeful that we can still turn things around. But we need to start by acknowledging that we made a n enormous mistake. I hope we have the guts to make that call.
I know Rich Lyons is a gentleman, but I would ask him to go into a hard battle with Lupoi legal team regarding the buyout payment and reallocate the money in the meantime to a qualified coach.
Well if Tosh really cares about the future of Cal football, then he should understand that sacrifices have to be made.
its one thing to eventually wear down, lose on some schemes and situations, and eventually lose this game to a better team - but to get completely BOAT-RACED like that immediately after halftime. It's not just disappointing, it's bizarre.
Somewhere, Justin Wilcox is laughing his ass off right now.
I'm sure he is not doing that. I believe Wilcox wants the players to succeed & do well. His class was never an issue.
Found him https://x.com/hairtest420/status/2114144816128782564/video
Idaho
Cal Fans: NC State just fired their coach after a disastrous showing against the 'Furd. Lyons and RR, are you paying attention?
The Wolfpack will experience a dead cat bounce and come out with their hair on fire when we arrive in Raleigh on Halloween.
There's always a chance furd will do the same favor for us.
I'm back on the fire Tosh bandwagon. Nice first half. Thoroughly out coached in the second half. So what else is new?
He needs to go. Having a JUCO coach will be better. I’m so convinced of that.
I hear you, I just genuinely don’t think it’s an option.
You are probably right. But then hear this: Will we wait another season, two seasons or longer through this kind of play before we admit we made a mistake? The biggest issue is not knowing the hire was a huge mistake, its getting those who made it to admit it. No one at the top wants to look bad about the hire so they will continue to deflect and make excuses. Meanwhile, CAL sucks, fans hate life and we get closer to relegation. Someone needs the sack to pull off the bandaide.
I'm thinking the issue will come down to money, and the willingness of the big donors to shell it out after one year, mistake or not. It is easy to spend buy out dollars when it's not your wallet.
Always the case.
Hard to watch the program go out with a whimper. Years of incompetent leadership unfortunately has consequences.
The fans deserve better.
Sonny Dykes- offensive. Justin Wilcox -defensive
Tosh Lupoi - marbles
Is there any coach on staff with defensive coordinator experience? Besides recruiting, the most valuable skill for a head coach is the ability to hire good coordinators and position coaches. These rookie coordinators are not working out.
Agreed! Inexperienced coaches are not working very well. They earn a lot of money despite lousy results so far, and I bet most returning players, including Sagapoulete, will play elsewhere in 2027.
Bob Gregory
Tons. Like Gregory.
But our meathead HC likes youth over experience because that what he sees himself as
He’s a disrupter!
The offense, despite the absence of multiple key players, showed signs of progress. But what's up with the defense? To me they've been the biggest disappointement this season.
When the offense falters and absorbs multiple 3 and outs, the defense loses their motivation.
The inexperienced DC needs to go. And Tosh doesn’t know defense. That’s why he was let go by Nick Saban.
Well, what can anyone say? This is the second game in a row where Cal's opponent scored 40+ unanswered points -- where Cal's offense didn't show up and the defense decided to take a powder and let everyone through to the endzone. SMU had 6 drives in a row for TD's in the second half and we had absolutely no response on either side of the ball. Excuse me, but is that the result of lousy or nonexistent coaching or just coincidence? And it doesn't matter whether JKS is the QB or not; he had better games and better stats last year under JW. I am in the fire Lopoi camp and let Rolo get us through what is left of this dismal season. Start now trying to figure out who we can poach as HC and what it will cost to get him. Cal made a mistake in hiring Lopoi. How and why that happened is beyond me. Whatever the case, if we keep going down the road we are on -- and I am not at all sure that anything we do now will actually lead to a salvaged season -- we will lose to Stanford on Nov 21 at home in CMS. And won't that be the frosting on the cake for this season?
Isn't Rolo just as responsible for how the team is playing as Tosh? As are the rest of the coaches.
100 pct on the same page.
My dad took me to my first Bears game in 2004 against UCLA when I was a wee lad. I fell in love instantly and we went to a couple more that season. We got season tickets in 2005 and have had them ever since. Personally, I've been to every single home game we've had tickets for. That's 134 consecutive home games at this point including 2011 in San Francisco. I have never wanted to go to California Memorial Stadium less than I do this season. Maybe it's the state of the program, maybe it's the constant mediocrity since 2009, maybe it's that I have a wife, three young children, a house, and a demanding career now. But man, am I having a hard time finding motivation to even go to the Big Game.
No. It’s because of our HC. He is putting together a product that we cannot be proud of.
Otherwise you would be motivated.
Have only missed two big games since 2010 and this may need to be one we sit out
Andy: No guarantees that we win the Big Game anyway. November is usually a good month for surfing in San Diego so I have a good idea of what I will be doing unless the game is at night or unless Cal demonstrates some kind of incredible turnaround in the next couple of weeks.
We won the first half!
know you are trying to inject levity.
But not in the mood
I accept that we’re stuck with Tosh given the buyout. Bad mistake.
I hope Ron and Chancellor Lyons force him to replace the entire coaching staff (Rolo can stay) with experienced coaching who can actually coach football
I think we need to do everything in our power to fire him. Even if that means litigation over his contract (or lack thereof).
He is totally not qualified to be a head coach.
Haas: How much is his buyout? It can't be as much as Norvell at FSU or anywhere close. Time for our fundraising arm to hit up some big donors for buyout money. Hell, Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and a Cal alum, spent $110 million for a frickin house in L.A. last year! Don't tell me that there isn't any buyout money for bad coaches at Cal.
There might be but the donors that probably forced that we hire him won’t be coughing up the money for the buyout so someone else needs to step up and that’s a big if.
$16 MM. Blondies nailed the issue, the big donors picked Tosh. Odds are they ain’t spending huge money to fire him 8 months later.
We don't have any running backs.
Injuries are not why we are playing poorly.
Respectfully, I disagree. Even the CW game announcers pointed out that the high number of injuries would negatively affect any team.
Certainly it would impact any team. But would it change the outcome? Perhaps a little on the scoreboard, but we were playing a great game in the first half and were winning with the players we had. So what happened in the second half. As a former CAL player and a Juco coach, I can tell you the difference between the first half and second half was adjustments to the play calling made by coaches. Once again, we were outcoached. I have watched a lot of football with a critical eye. Our season, with the exception of the first half of this game, has been a coaching disaster. Having Mohammed back and a few other players wouldn't have changed a lot.
Given that you played at Cal and your coaching experience, I certainly defer to your take on all this. What years did you play? Perhaps I saw you (I came to Cal in Fall 1970). I had hoped Pat McCann would be a difference maker. I think he is helping, but it isn't enough against ranked teams. So it looks like we're going to have to improve somehow to get to a bowl game. Playing mediocre teams going forward should help.
I did notice that as well. My question is, does Cal have an inordinately higher amount of injuries compared to other equivalent programs (as if any other team could be as cursed as Cal, but I digress), and if so, it is bad luck, bad technique, bad strength and conditioning, some or all of the above, none of the above, or just E) and F)? Or something else entirely?
The other what if question is if all of our running backs HAD stayed healthy, would they have meaningfully gelled with the office and turned some of our defeats into close games?
I'd say we definitely have the injury bug and it certainly is impacting us. But does it change my opinion of how we are being coached? No. Why were we so much worse in the second half compared to the first half? Not because of injuries. Because the SMU coaches made adjustments and we didn't.
Both of our statements are true.
Very true. I just want to be clear that there are no excuses for the piss poor performance of our team other than disastrous coaching.
I can see your point. I was not trying to give the coaching staff an out. But I was referring to last season when Oregon was a juggernaut and then all their running backs entered the portal and the entire Oregon machine fell apart in their final playoff game. And our head coach is a direct by product of the Oregon system. So I was suggesting that there is past precident for our performance. Again, not a statement meant to defend our coaches; just pointing out they have multiple Achilles heels.
That doesnt explain being blown out like we've been lately. It's the organization.
As I said above, both what you said and what I said are true. Pretty sure we are both dissatisfied with the product on the field.
That true but meathead need to be fired