Cal Football Fall Notebook #5

8.20 Ron Rivera on the banner

After hearing your team’s general manager speak about their concerns once, you cannot fathom how long it took the sport to get here. The existential and amorphous issues that pull at any college football program, and this program in particular, are the sort of things that need to be tended to in a full time manner that a football coach does not possess. Asking a head coach to deal with the array of tasks presented by the present condition of the sport with equal care while coaching a team to the best of their ability is like asking a football coach to go off in their spare time (that definitely exists) and solve global warming.

What is particularly nice to hear from Rivera, is the affirmation that you are not crazy if you think Cal Football could and should be in a different place. I wasn’t really counting on how much it would matter to hear from someone at the helm that has been through different phases of Cal, and seen Memorial full for long stretches, not only voice concern, but forcefully suggest a higher standard.

That being said, we started out the scrum talking quarterback.

Rivera wasn’t surprised to see Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutle named starter. “Based on what he did, the way he did things, the way he earned it? No…our discussions back and forth, you could see it.” He took a moment to speak to Jaron-Keawe’s playing ability; “I think there’s some unique things that he does, I think he has the ability to make any pass he needs to make, the reason I say that is because of his arm strength, his athleticism, he throws on platform really well, he throws on the move very well, I think a lot of it has to do with the style of football he plays. You watch him from his high school days, you see those things. You see him move the pocket, you see him outside of the pocket, you see him climbing the pocket to make the throw downfield. Those are the things guys like him coming into where he is, helps you make the decision that this is the guy you can give the opportunity to.”

How much was Rivera involved in the decision? “Part of the discussion…One thing we talked about was the timing of the decision. I agreed with him, doing it the week before the week-of was very important, because he did it now, we get to answer all those questions that way next week getting ready for Oregon State, the focus is only on Oregon State.” It wasn’t just for the sake of the media or one individual player. “(It was also to) give the team an opportunity to digest (the news) as well. This isn’t just about one or two players, this is about the team, that was something that Justin and I felt very strongly about.”

Switching topics to overall program matters, Rivera spoke next on what constitutes a successful season from Cal this year. This season will be measured by three metrics; butts in seats, eyeballs on the TV, and of course, racking up some wins. What would success look like for that first part? “By the time the season is over it’s filled. That’s the goal.”

On this season’s expectations specifically; “I think anything that puts us in a solid bowl game. Eight, nine wins, I think that’s what you’re looking for. That shows growth…last year we didn’t win the close games, we gotta win the close games. You want to win eight or nine, we gotta win those close games for sure. Last year that’s how close it was. You lose three by one point, one by six at the end of the game, that’s disappointing, but we all understand that. We know the clock’s ticking, there’s a lot of pressure to be successful, especially in today’s climate, so for us it’s about putting ourselves in a position where we can win those games.”

Rivera mentioned not just the aspiration, but the need to capture the East Bay, and the Bay Area at large. To that point, pragmatism has taken the wheel, in ways that might sound odd, but are stark and important to bear in mind;

“Us and Stanford have to capture the Bay. We really do. This is one of the largest TV markets in the NFL, everybody understands it, that’s why Cal and Stanford go together, because we capture this together, we own this together, we’ve become very desirable. We support the ACC, and everybody recognizes the ACC has the Bay Area. That’s what we’ve got to create, and that’s the truth. People ask me ‘What can we do?’ Show up. Bring your friends. Watch us on television. Obviously, if you feel generously (sic) enough, make an investment…That’s the bottom line…we have the ability, but we also need the support.”

Returning to the topic a few minutes later, he touched on the two universities and how their Olympic sporting achievements interplay with the football program’s mission statement; “Between Stanford and Cal we have 30 intercollegiate sports, 27 Olympic sports. You look at that and say ‘Wow that’s a lot.’ Well it is a lot, we understand the responsibility, because if you look at- we could have been our own countries, in the top ten of medals being won, from the student athletes we have at Cal and Stanford, so that’s the thing we have to look at, that that’s our responsibility as a football team is to help support and be part of funding our own athletic departments, and that gives us our reason why we have to be relevant and beyond relevant.”

Rivera was also direct on the program’s current relationship to East Bay sports at large; “Not good enough. Very bluntly, not good enough. There was a time where you could easily see 55-60 thousand, even in the lean years. My first two years were very lean. Joe Kapp shows up, we win a couple of big games, all of a sudden we do five laterals and a trombone and next thing you know we’re packed. That’s what our ability is. If we didn’t learn anything from Gameday last year we wasted an opportunity. That’s what the Chancellor is trying to build on.”

Next, Rivera spoke to the current state of the Cal’s NIL, his enjoyment of the job so far, and some wrinkles of the position, and the general state of the sport at large. He seems to be truly enjoying his role, and, like everyone everywhere in the sport, is still piecing together how to deal with the “new normal”;

“I love it, I enjoy the heck out of it, I get frustrated with it. Some of the hardest things is dealing with some of the young men who feel that they should move on, and you try to get them to understand there’s a legacy here that you’ve created, that you have an opportunity to create, and it’d be great to see you complete that legacy here, but I get it, when the money’s being waved at guys.” He audibly sighs and continues on; “It’s not as much about money now as money later, you can build it up, eventually, if you do things the right way. One thing everybody understands is you’re not going to play football forever, so you’ve got to have something to fall back on.”

To that point, retention will always be a concern; “It’s always a struggle, we know, I know, we come out, we start fast, and we have a couple of guys playing really well, you don’t think I’m concerned, man we gotta start working on retention now. That’s the truth.”

To Rivera’s knowledge nobody on the roster has NIL deals outside of revenue sharing, currently. “Right now we’re working ourselves towards our number, and we’re in a really good place.”

“We have a 20.5 (million dollar) cap for a reason. We want to see it stay level, and we want to see everybody compete on the same level. Maybe that’s a little altruistic, but that’s OK, that’s how I feel.”

Some of these quotes about doing the right thing might sounds almost whimsical after the last two or three years of bloodletting across the sport, but it’s important to note that his disappointment with shifting aspects of the landscape hasn’t resulted in the putting on of blinders, or a false sense of security. One gets the feeling his sense of propriety is not blocking out the reality of the situation. His support of the NCAA regaining a bit of its teeth comes with another interesting suggestion;

“Whether it’s some sort of congressional edict or presidential edict, that says ‘Hey look, we’re going to grant antitrust’, you guys form a trade association to represent the student body, and come to an agreement and go from there. In the NFL, when we went on strike in 1987, we were a union, we decertified as a union and became a trade association, which allowed that body to negotiate on our behalf, and what happened was eventually we came to the salary cap…you see the salaries continue to grow exponentially, and that’s what’s happening right now, we could do the same thing, but we could control it with rules. Right now there’s not a lot of rules. You open up two portals, why are there two portals? There should be one free agency period.” He concluded this particular statement, reminding the scrum that these opinions were his own.

There’s a lot to take from today’s scrum, some short term, some ideological, but the main takeaway is how crucial this role is and will be, for the program, for the players, and for the coaching staff as well.

“My pure focus isn’t on the football field 100%, what I've done is I’ve come in, I’ve taken all this stuff I’ve just talked about, and I’ve taken it. So that’s what my focus is. I’m here to support football, I’m here to put revenue sources, resources, in coaches' back pockets, so if there’s something he needs we can get it goin’ for everybody. That’s what I’m doing so for him, he can have his sole focus being what goes down on the football field, and what’s going on in the classrooms.”