246 Comments
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royrules22's avatar

I always liked Wilcox and he was a great ambassador for the program. And I always wanted to give him more time right up until this season. Last night was absolutely the last straw. This is the right decision

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dcblue's avatar

Definitely the right decision. Only a little surprised they didn’t let him finish out the season. Maybe want to get a jump on the new hire.

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sup_doe_library's avatar

I think that’s Ron being accountable to the donors and establishing himself as the boss.

“8 wins is the baseline, or else”

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Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

Portal opens Jan 2 and nothing moves fast at Cal.

They need all the time they can muster, and THAT pathetic showing was simply too much.

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TezCalipoca's avatar

I believe when you fire the coach, students have 30 days to transfer right away. So, we have opened a transfer portal ahead of the official transfer portal by this timing. But I still think it was the right thing to do.

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Justbear's avatar

The students can transfer now but they won't be able to play this season. There's really no need for them to transfer immediately. They can transfer after the season, and the season will be over very soon.

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Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

That’s correct, but that’s for losing players, and we were already gonna lose a ton, with or without Wilcox…we always do because that’s the portal era.

I meant for building Cal’s 2026 roster, which is vital.

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Justbear's avatar

And we don't have a ton of talent anyway. If we see deflections, this would be a good year for it.

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mrjpark's avatar

This is one of those years where all your transfers can't really find P4 places to play and end up at G5 schools. I hope we keep Mason Mini, though.

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GoldenSD81's avatar

I still remember on the old boards when you posted the curtains call image of Tedford. I feel once a coach has lost RR22, it is time for a change

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TKE Prytanis 79's avatar

This

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Gobears2's avatar

Wilcox was a "great ambassador" for the program.

IMO, there's very little evidence to back up that claim.

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Bear78's avatar

He ran a clean program, which in these days makes for a good ambassador. Winning 8+ games each year would be a better ambassadorship.

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HaasBear's avatar

Similar to my thoughts on other posts here, I’m glad we’re turning the page but sad it didn’t work out. Wilcox is by all accounts a really good man and leader. He did a ton for the program and I’m grateful for everything he put into cal.

Favorite memories - ending the usc streak and the 2019 big game.

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Ethan Kassel's avatar

Honorable mention to the Ole Miss home win and BYU win. "We demand to be taken seriously" moments.

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Justbear's avatar

Washington 2019, USC 2018, Auburn 2024

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JBear's avatar

Louisville 2025

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sycasey's avatar

The WSU upset in the smoke.

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Justbear's avatar

I don't remember...

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SteveLevyLegend's avatar

With the Ross Bowers flip

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AndDriveDriveDrive's avatar

Even though I think this probably had to happen, I find myself deeply sad. Wilcox is a good dude.

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Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

Agreed.

Loves Cal. Wish it had worked out.

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Bear78's avatar

I second your comment. I'm also saddened Wilcox could not win more. But since RR believes a change needed to be made, I support that decision too. If anyone would know, it would be RR. Hopefully RR already knows who the next HC should be and is navigating thru Cal's admin to get that done.

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Archon79's avatar

I was sad for a second then I realized his buyout is 10 million dollars.

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Bear78's avatar

He won't be hurting for money, no. But make no mistake, I'm sure he's devastated by how things turned out.

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AndDriveDriveDrive's avatar

Yeah I don’t think he was in this just for the money. He deserves to be remembered fondly and be treated with respect. If we weren’t in such a dire time for the future of our program I might be thinking that firing him midseason was an extremely uncool thing to do, but I think things are just too fluid to wait.

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Archon79's avatar

I got no ill will towards Wilcox and I’m sure he is devastated but Its surreal that a coach with his overall record is gonna get an EIGHT figure buyout.

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Bear78's avatar

The buyout is SOP for D1 football contracts. Expect the same for the next HC/contact.

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royrules22's avatar

I really dislike this as if someone who worked at a job for 9 years and for all accounts put all of it out there won't feel sad just because he made a bunch of money. He isn't a Bezos or Musk level billionaire.

I absolutely feel bad for Wilcox and the same as I did for Tedford and Dykes (at least at first).

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Cici's avatar

He will be just fine

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WilderThanGene's avatar

Best of luck coach. Take a break.

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Ethan Kassel's avatar

Sadly it had to be done.

He leaves the program in a better place than he found it, especially with local recruiting, and established a stable floor. But the ceiling was just too low. He had every chance to get to 8-4 and simply couldn't do it.

I hope that this long, drawn-out ending doesn't undermine the overall positive trajectory between his hiring and firing. It just wasn't enough of an upward trend.

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sycasey's avatar

I don't think he really improved recruiting at all.

That said, I did hope he would make it work and in the early seasons I was hopeful. It's just been too long with no movement.

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Ethan Kassel's avatar

Dykes did ZERO local recruiting. Most notably never visiting Monte Vista in four years when they had guys like Nate Landman and Jake Haener. Wilcox got there in his first week.

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johngalenhoward's avatar

Dykes was awful and yes Wilcox did help turn things around initially. The problem was he was essentially late Tedford without having ever been early Tedford. Ben Braun but in football. In other words: thoroughly average.

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Juice's avatar

I think having a losing record overall, a losing record in bowl games, and a losing conference record in every year of your career is firmly below-average.

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sacman701's avatar

By our standard he was average. We've had 14 head coaches since 1947, and his winning percentage is 7th among them.

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HelloBowlesHall's avatar

The standard should be against his peers not history. We should stop allowing our history to define our future, we’ve outgrown it.

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sycasey's avatar

He wishes he could have had any teams as good as Braun's that made the Tournament.

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johngalenhoward's avatar

Braun made Sweet 16 in his first year, and never made it past the round of 32 after that. Forever meh

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sycasey's avatar

Even being 32nd best in the country would have been an accomplishment for Wilcox!

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Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

That’s ridiculous.

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Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

Nope. Ben Braun was far better than thoroughly average. Made the Dance nearly half his time in Berkeley.

JW is more like Mark Madsen or even Mark Fox, pre-3-29 season.

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BTown85's avatar

Ouch….Fox….

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sycasey's avatar

Perhaps, but Dykes' overall recruiting was still better.

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Ethan Kassel's avatar

I don't care what the ratings said. The 3-stars from Texas did nothing.

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sycasey's avatar

Ehh, Wilcox's best teams were built on Dykes' recruits. Once he had to roll with his own guys we saw bad declines until the collective started pumping him back up with transfers (and even that only got us back to .500).

That's not to say we should have kept Dykes. He wasn't good enough either. I just don't think Wilcox's recruiting was ever good.

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HaasBear's avatar

Dykes best team was built on Tedfords best recruit - aka Goff.

Dykes was gifted a 1st overall pick at QB and topped out at 7-5. What a bum.

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Bear78's avatar

Dykes was at Cal only as a step to get to Texas as a HC. He never intended to stay long term. His wife hated living in NorCal, I'm sure she badgered Dykes to get back to Texas ASAP As soon as Dyke's got his HC offer, he left Cal like it was infested with the plague.

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Bear78's avatar

At this point recruiting for top notch players is all about NIL. Not the school, but the dollar$. Maybe that's not so bad for Cal -- $$ has always been issue #1 for the best players. With NIL things are evened out a bit more for us

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Alan Lightfeldt's avatar

This is both thrilling and frightening. A new era for Cal.

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Alan Lightfeldt's avatar

More important, what will this do for JKS’ calculus?

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sycasey's avatar

No clue. It depends on if he truly loves the school and the place (as he says he does) or just his relationship with the coaches. We'll see.

But ultimately, Cal had to make this decision based on more than the feelings of one player.

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Archon79's avatar

Money will do the talking.

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Bear78's avatar

Much better succinctly said than my comment. 🤪

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Bear78's avatar

Don't forget the tears that Mendoza shed as he cried about how much Cal meant to him -- just before leaving Cal for a better NIL deal at Indiana. Like Mendoza, JKS will decide on the best NIL deal he can get at whatever school. These days, NIL money trumps all other considerations.

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sycasey's avatar

Yes, though if you have roughly matching NIL offers then other factors may come into play. (Apparently Mendoza did have a matching offer from Cal backers but chose to leave anyway.)

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WilderThanGene's avatar

Ron's been working on JKS for a long while. He (JKS) also appears to have a good relationship with Rolo who (perhaps uncoincidentally) is stepping in as interim.

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Justbear's avatar

Rolo probably isn't staying next year

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WilderThanGene's avatar

Why do you think, he'd get a better offer elsewhere?

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Justbear's avatar

New HC wants his own guys

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WilderThanGene's avatar

I meant as HC, small low risk contract, and contingent on JKS staying..

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Justbear's avatar

At this point, I don't really care. If he stays that's great, if not, then start of new era.

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royrules22's avatar

He's probably gone

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Alan Lightfeldt's avatar

But do you think that would have been true anyway? Or does this firing lose the locker room?

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royrules22's avatar

It may but after last night I don't think many particularly care.

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sup_doe_library's avatar

It was always going to be 50:50 at best, I don’t think this helps our chances.

He’s got a NFL future he can’t waste time as we figure ourselves out.

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mrjpark's avatar

Not sure there's much of a locker room to protect. They haven't been able to remain motivated and focused even at the start of the season. We've now given up three different 30+ point runs throughout this season.

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freespeechlover's avatar

This is my sole concern-the current players. And that they still have to play SMU. I don't know how they feel about it, but I think of that scene of them chanting his name at Louisville and feel for what at least appeared to be their strong feelings for him. I hope Rolovich can get them up for next Saturday and that they perform better than last night. Even if they lose, I want them to end the season performing well.

That said, I know this was the right decision.

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Bear78's avatar

JKS will be looking for NIL money I'm sure. If RR thinks JKS will stay at least 2 more seasons, he'll get JKS the NIL needed to keep him. If JKS walks out now, it will mean RR was not sold on him as the QB worth NIL money, and better to face that now with a new coach recruiting his own players.

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sup_doe_library's avatar

I hate to even conjecture but he came back to Cal for this staff, I don’t think he stays if it falls apart. I can only hope that Berkeley has won his heart but I’ve learned not to be optimistic.

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HelloBowlesHall's avatar

He came back for playing time. We have no idea how critical the current coaching staff was and we have no idea how excited he’ll be about a new coaching staff.

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BTown85's avatar

In this era of the transfer portal a coach leaving is less devastating than it used to be. There’s so much turnover in a regular year nowadays that tho will be more but not a totally new concept. Everyone will need to learn the new system of the new staff so being here before is less of an advantage.

Cade Uluave is more of a concern for me than JKS….

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Oski Disciple's avatar

I have never understood the power Wilcox had over so many fans that kept believing in him despite all the losses. Even during this season he still had people backing him. Entering this campaign he hadn't had a winning season since 2019 and never a winning record in conference play yet people still thought he could do it. Total mystery to me. I was done with him two years ago.

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AndDriveDriveDrive's avatar

It was more that we WANTED him to be successful, and there kept being glimmers of hope. Heck, 2 weeks ago I still had hope after watching the locker room.

He was a great ambassador for Cal and an all around good person. My guess is he will be hired as DC at a top school as soon as he is ready. The biggest problem was the offense just could never click, and he couldn’t seem to retain that talent.

The unfortunate thing for him was that last night was a point-by-point showcase of all the issues that have plagued our teams over the years. I have a feeling some big donors agreed to pony up for a top new coach after seeing that, and Ron knew what he had to do.

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johngalenhoward's avatar

Agree. I was done several years ago. Whatever upward trajectory we saw in the first few years quickly flat-lined, and the low ceiling became painfully apparent a good 3 seasons ago. Still, he provided some great wins over the years and I respect him for doing things the right way.

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FiatSlug's avatar

The only thing he had was his understated charisma and the narrative of ethical performance in his job. And Jim Knowlton wasn't going to fire Wilcox. Remember that we were told Oregon wanted him to take over their program when they lost Cristobal after the '21 season. That got him an extension in January '22.

In truth, circumstances created the inertia necessary to keep Wilcox in Berkeley for 9 long years. And part of that inertia is a slavish devotion to ethics and a continuing restriction of institutional resources to advance the program. I keep coming back to 1952, but I also think that history bears out that analysis as a watershed moment in Cal football history and its effect on institutional and alumni support.

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Tosh2.0's avatar

It’s wild we allowed this to drag out for 9 seasons. We allowed a coach to amass pretty crazy generational wealth on the university/donors’ behalf while going well below .500 over 9 seasons, 26-47 in conference, never having an offensive player drafted, etc etc. Yeah we all agree he’s a good dude and someone we all personally like, but nobody in major college football gets a rope this long. We’re not running a f$&@ing Boy Scout summer camp; there should be some semblance of a standard. This is so embarrassingly overdue. Thank goodness we now have RR at the helm working on behalf of Rich Lyons! It was looking bleak for a while, but yesterday was the last straw and they finally made a decisive move. Hope springs eternal; in Rich and Ron we trust!

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Oski Disciple's avatar

Well said.

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

You're incorrect on some items, but it's irrelevant. He's gone.

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Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

Hes not tho.

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Tosh2.0's avatar

Which ones? Do tell…

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

If anyone dares to suggest SCUMBAG TRAITOR TOSH LUPOI, I will hunt them down and have a lovely spot of tea with them...and then kick their ass.

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Tosh2.0's avatar

Meh hard disagree here. What was that, 15 years ago? Young dude chasing the bag and career advancement. He’s still an alum, been through the saban rehab program, coached in the nfl, and can still recruit. I’d have no issues welcoming him back. The last nine years was a shitshow; the program needs a winner.

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GreenvilleSCBear's avatar

There’s a right and wrong way to do things in life. Strongly pass

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Tosh2.0's avatar

I agree with you, but I’m open to people changing over the course of 15 years. I’m also open to the possibility of things happening behind the scenes that we don’t know about. Ultimately, Tosh is still an alum from the east bay. If Ron thought he was the guy, I’d have no issue supporting.

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sup_doe_library's avatar

Look he’s a dirtbag but look around at college football: the dirtbags won and turned the whole joint into a casino.

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TKE Prytanis 79's avatar

Bear Insider has him as a top choice.....

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CalBear’19's avatar

Ehhhh. I wouldn’t mind Tosh. I think he is built for this modern era of college football and NIL. If we want dogs immediately, Tosh will know where to find them.

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Bhec's avatar

Never been a head coach. No time for training wheels.

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sup_doe_library's avatar

Maybe Ron will have to fill in the gaps and jobcraft with Lupoi, who is not an X’s & O’s hire.

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

No, he's not. Scumbags remain scumbags

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GEOBEAR's avatar

Hard to unburn bridges!

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

Absolutely correct

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Justbear's avatar

I don't mind tosh but he's never been a Head coach and he's not young anymore like he used to be.

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HelloBowlesHall's avatar

Tedford was 40 (vs Tosh 44) and had no head coaching when we hired him. By these standards we should have passed on him.

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Justbear's avatar

The strength of Tosh is his recruiting and not coaching. He hasn't proven to be a good defensive coordinator either. His ability to relate to the players were his strengths. The age gap between Tosh and the players are huge. That's why I said he's not young anymore. His lone strength is taken away. Tedford's strengths were his greatest offense, not his age.

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Michael Munson's avatar

Jeff Tedford threw him under the bus for the fake injury nonsense against Oregon. Made him take the blame when he was just a DL Coach trying to help his guys win. Even if Tedford didn't know about the injury faking, he should have fallen on his sword to protect Tosh. ONLY Cal could F itself over by the fake injury crap, something many teams have done, but... ONLY Cal went out of its way to punish a coach who instructed his players to do it. And ONLY Cal had a top recruiting class fall apart as a result of faking injuries.

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit

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Bhec's avatar

There was a reason why Saban fired him!

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

I agree completely. Saban would be honest with Ron, but wouldn't throw Lupoi under the bus publicly

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AndDriveDriveDrive's avatar

I’m not going to discount anyone over a 15 year old grudge (man, im old, I was in the band back then). I want the best coach. If that’s him, so be it.

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

He would get pissed or want more money and take EVERYONE with him.

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

Scumbags don't change.

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KetamineCal's avatar

Tosh will even bring his own coffee cup to the tea party. Nowadays it's just a weird way to deliver a legal payment.

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Big Dog's avatar

Hopefully, RR picks up the phone and calls Saban to ask how/why Lupoi was effectively demoted as DC. (Saban stripped him of play calling.)

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Bhec's avatar

No head coaching record. No time for training wheels in this era of college football.

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HelloBowlesHall's avatar

Tedford had no head coaching experience prior to Cal. A good coordinator position can be a recipe for success - or not, it’s a crap shoot but whatever we choose will be that, we will not be able to get a proven winner (and even those don’t always work out in new circumstances). Not saying I support Tosh, but I will not oppose based on no head coaching record.

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

I'm aware

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PCWT's avatar

Make sure you tell RR this directly...

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

I am

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Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

Good dude. It had to happen.

Sorry it did not work out.

LFG!!!!

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GoldenSD81's avatar

You win our friendly bet, let’s pick a date after the New Year for you to collect

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Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

Sounds good.

I’m back up in the East Bay now so we’ll set a time in ‘26 when I’m in town and we can do it.

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chuss's avatar

I’ve always looked up to Justin Wilcox as a role model. I love his values and personality. Thank you JW. Best of luck.

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GoldenHairs's avatar

9 years of service is 9 years of service. Thanks Justin. Best of luck

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KetamineCal's avatar

New interim coach Rolovich named. First shot Rolovich has had in a while! But I'm not sure he can take the jabs.

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Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

ISWYDT

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Juice's avatar

I gotta be honest, I’m not feeling the slightest bit bittersweet about this. I’m sure there are millions of seemingly decent people who have respect for Cal as an institution and football program that I would love to have a beer with but don’t want to see on the sidelines in a headset, and Wilcox just happens to be one.

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Tosh2.0's avatar

100% this. 9 freaking seasons. Everyone wiping tears acting like this guy wasn’t making like $5 mil this year! Are you kidding me? This wasn’t volunteer work!!

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

I wasn't aware. Thank you. And no one is wiping tears.

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johngalenhoward's avatar

Concur. When Tedford was fired I was legitimately sad. He took us to the highest heights we'd ever seen and did it with class all the way. A true legend. Wilcox is definitely a good guy and tried his best, but he was throughly mediocre as a HC (even his defenses weren't great). I was really excited in the beginning of his time here, first 3 seasons or so, however looking back that was probably colored by how much I hated Dykes.

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johngalenhoward's avatar

Sad, because I like Wilcox as a leader and person, but this needed to happen 3 years ago. I wish Rivera was stepping in to coach our last 2 games. Could help keep things together , and bridge the gap nicely between Wilcox and the next guy

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Esteban Yehudeem's avatar

It was the right decision

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