The Bears cannot come from behind and win, they struggle to defend leads when they are given, and they cannot kick game winning field goals when they need to hit them. Otherwise, everything is good!
That 1991 game was a great game. But look at the talent on that team. Most of the players mentioned there went on to play in the NFL. We don't have any Steussies on this team. Fernando is good but he is not Pawlawski. Same for the other players mentioned there. Ott has the potential to rival Russell White, but without the supporting players he will never achieve his potential. We are not able to recruit talent like that for whatever reason. And that was over 30 years ago. 30 years of mostly frustration. I have been a bear fan since 1979. I don't know if I can do it much longer.
Let me sum up your accurate assessment: As much as we might love Cal football, the program has been mediocre for decades. Aside from The Play, can you name a game when the Bears won dramatically (read: a come-from-behind win late in the 4th quarter)? I can't, and I've been going to games since the '70s. But no more. It's taken me years to get it -- hey, despite a Ph.D. from Cal, I'm a slow learner, or, more aptly, an eternal optimist -- but Berkeley cannot field consistently a winning football team, or at least a team that wins more than 6 games each year. What we've seen over the last four games is more of the same. Lost leads, an inability to make stops, poor Special Teams play, a suddenly inept offense. What makes this all the more horrid, is that the team shows promise. Promise doesn't produce wins, of course, but it does make these losses that much more painful.
I think the big difference between now and those other periods of mediocrity is that in the past Cal football just wouldn’t even come close to the better teams. We’d get blown out. The frustration with Wilcox is being so agonizingly close but never getting over the hump. We’re not so obviously lacking in talent like those earlier years.
True. But Cal has had very talented QBs (Aaron, Jared), brilliant runners, terrific skill position players and even good kickers over the years. This team has them, too. What it lacks is depth. They’re great through 3 quarters. Too bad they have to play 4.
With Aaron we actually won a lot! With Jared, not so much because the defense was never good enough. (We got wins, but when up against the best teams usually not close.)
IMO this year's team is talented enough to get 8 wins against this ACC schedule. That we probably won't speaks to some bad luck but also coaching failures.
To say we haven't come from behind since 1982 is an extreme exaggeration. Just off the top of my had there was the ASU game in2015 season, 1993 vs. Oregon, the 2019 Big Game, the 2022 Big Game...
Garbers and his wheels vs. Stanford to break the streak comes to mind inside of two minutes. While I like Nando he needs to learn the two minute drill.
1991, Cal vs. UCLA, both teams were ranked at the time. Game was played at the Rose Bowl. I road tripped it down there for one of the most exciting showdowns I’ve witnessed as a Cal fan. This is the one where Russell White had to stay in the locker room past halftime for IV fluids. Pawlawski, Steussie, Auzenne, Treggs, Chapman, Caldwell, Dawkins, etc. fueled the offense along with White in a late comeback win (from ten back), culminating in Doug Brien’s game winning 46-yarder with thirty seconds remaining.
Yes, you’re right. A great game. There was also the game at Berkeley against USC that went, what, 4 overtime periods that the Bears won. Okay, that’s two in the last 33 years. There may have been other great wins over the last 50 years, but they are far overshadowed by many disappointing losses. It’s just the Bears’ way.
....and, lest we forget, in 1993 Cal trailed Oregon by 30 points in the first half at Memorial Stadium and was down, as I recall, by 23 at the half. The Bears came back in the 4th quarter to go ahead on a touchdown and two point conversion 42-41 with a minute to go and then sealed the win with an interception. The fans stormed the field, mobbed the team and tore down the goal posts. At the time it was the largest comeback in Pac 12 history, a record that stood for the next 26 years.
As a kid growing up in Berkeley, this was perhaps the best Cal game I ever saw. So many unbelievable Cal moments.... A goal line stand where Oregon had 1st and goal at the 1, Caldwell catching the fade in the endzone for the two-point conversion for the win (no overtime era). Notably, that Cal team was also down big against a ranked Zona team at home later in the season (maybe by 20 or so?) and came back to win. Ike Booth interception being pivotal. Those moments were so pure -- you could feel the team playing for it all, and that Keith Gilbert, while not the best coach ever, would lay it on the line for his guys. Wilcox seems to make the wrong lay it on the line decisions at every turn... Inexplicably going for two at Pitt and then NOT going for 2 to get a 14 point lead last weekend.
Pundits keep point out the progress that many Cal fans know, but to get so close to water, after crossing a desert, only to be denied that needed drop, brings out the madness in most of us.
It's kind of a tea-leaves theory in saying that the team just reflects the personality of its head coach (uptight and predictable in crunch time), but I'm not sure what else it could be at this point. As has been noted, it's not just one position group. Everyone seems to get worse and make more mistakes late in the game.
Interesting hypothesis on the psychology of late-game collapses. Sometimes a kind of swashbuckling whoop-assness is lacking in terms of attitude-an unbridled confidence emanating from the coaching staff late in games, is what you’re implying. This could be conveyed in body language, word-choice/voice inflection, etc., not just play calling. Food for thought. But, I do think these are things that a coach can develop. I don’t doubt Wilcox is doing considerable soul searching of his own after this stretch, in terms of how he can improve/do some things differently, including how the team draws motivation from the coaches/sustains confidence. I hope the results in these fourth quarters is not as static as personality, as it is traditionally understood. Incidentally, for fun, here’s an article citing recent work suggesting that personality can change: https://neuroscienceschool.com/2023/05/17/we-need-to-rethink-the-concept-of-personality-as-static/
These unclutch 4th quarter collapses really changes the prevailing narrative by Wilcox and his supporting sunshine pumpers that we are a coin flip away from 7-0 and are just unlucky
Defense has been gassed in the 4th quarter of each game. The pass rush especially . I wonder if it's simply a lack of depth to enable more of a rotation, or if the coaches should be rotating more than they are. The Miami game, for example, their o-line took over that game in the 4th.
That 1991 game was a great game. But look at the talent on that team. Most of the players mentioned there went on to play in the NFL. We don't have any Steussies on this team. Fernando is good but he is not Pawlawski. Same for the other players mentioned there. Ott has the potential to rival Russell White, but without the supporting players he will never achieve his potential. We are not able to recruit talent like that for whatever reason. And that was over 30 years ago. 30 years of mostly frustration. I have been a bear fan since 1979. I don't know if I can do it much longer.
Let me sum up your accurate assessment: As much as we might love Cal football, the program has been mediocre for decades. Aside from The Play, can you name a game when the Bears won dramatically (read: a come-from-behind win late in the 4th quarter)? I can't, and I've been going to games since the '70s. But no more. It's taken me years to get it -- hey, despite a Ph.D. from Cal, I'm a slow learner, or, more aptly, an eternal optimist -- but Berkeley cannot field consistently a winning football team, or at least a team that wins more than 6 games each year. What we've seen over the last four games is more of the same. Lost leads, an inability to make stops, poor Special Teams play, a suddenly inept offense. What makes this all the more horrid, is that the team shows promise. Promise doesn't produce wins, of course, but it does make these losses that much more painful.
I think the big difference between now and those other periods of mediocrity is that in the past Cal football just wouldn’t even come close to the better teams. We’d get blown out. The frustration with Wilcox is being so agonizingly close but never getting over the hump. We’re not so obviously lacking in talent like those earlier years.
True. But Cal has had very talented QBs (Aaron, Jared), brilliant runners, terrific skill position players and even good kickers over the years. This team has them, too. What it lacks is depth. They’re great through 3 quarters. Too bad they have to play 4.
With Aaron we actually won a lot! With Jared, not so much because the defense was never good enough. (We got wins, but when up against the best teams usually not close.)
IMO this year's team is talented enough to get 8 wins against this ACC schedule. That we probably won't speaks to some bad luck but also coaching failures.
It takes talent to lose 4 consecutive games by 9 points. Just not enough talent to win those 4 games.
To say we haven't come from behind since 1982 is an extreme exaggeration. Just off the top of my had there was the ASU game in2015 season, 1993 vs. Oregon, the 2019 Big Game, the 2022 Big Game...
Fair. But the reality is we can count those games on less than 2 hands — over the last. 30+ years.
Garbers and his wheels vs. Stanford to break the streak comes to mind inside of two minutes. While I like Nando he needs to learn the two minute drill.
1991, Cal vs. UCLA, both teams were ranked at the time. Game was played at the Rose Bowl. I road tripped it down there for one of the most exciting showdowns I’ve witnessed as a Cal fan. This is the one where Russell White had to stay in the locker room past halftime for IV fluids. Pawlawski, Steussie, Auzenne, Treggs, Chapman, Caldwell, Dawkins, etc. fueled the offense along with White in a late comeback win (from ten back), culminating in Doug Brien’s game winning 46-yarder with thirty seconds remaining.
Yes, you’re right. A great game. There was also the game at Berkeley against USC that went, what, 4 overtime periods that the Bears won. Okay, that’s two in the last 33 years. There may have been other great wins over the last 50 years, but they are far overshadowed by many disappointing losses. It’s just the Bears’ way.
....and, lest we forget, in 1993 Cal trailed Oregon by 30 points in the first half at Memorial Stadium and was down, as I recall, by 23 at the half. The Bears came back in the 4th quarter to go ahead on a touchdown and two point conversion 42-41 with a minute to go and then sealed the win with an interception. The fans stormed the field, mobbed the team and tore down the goal posts. At the time it was the largest comeback in Pac 12 history, a record that stood for the next 26 years.
As a kid growing up in Berkeley, this was perhaps the best Cal game I ever saw. So many unbelievable Cal moments.... A goal line stand where Oregon had 1st and goal at the 1, Caldwell catching the fade in the endzone for the two-point conversion for the win (no overtime era). Notably, that Cal team was also down big against a ranked Zona team at home later in the season (maybe by 20 or so?) and came back to win. Ike Booth interception being pivotal. Those moments were so pure -- you could feel the team playing for it all, and that Keith Gilbert, while not the best coach ever, would lay it on the line for his guys. Wilcox seems to make the wrong lay it on the line decisions at every turn... Inexplicably going for two at Pitt and then NOT going for 2 to get a 14 point lead last weekend.
A scientific analysis has determined that the 4th quarter is *definitely not* ours.
Maybe Mooch can help us bring it back?
Well said, Avi. Love the photo.
Perhaps we're too good at rationalizing rage.
Pundits keep point out the progress that many Cal fans know, but to get so close to water, after crossing a desert, only to be denied that needed drop, brings out the madness in most of us.
It's kind of a tea-leaves theory in saying that the team just reflects the personality of its head coach (uptight and predictable in crunch time), but I'm not sure what else it could be at this point. As has been noted, it's not just one position group. Everyone seems to get worse and make more mistakes late in the game.
Interesting hypothesis on the psychology of late-game collapses. Sometimes a kind of swashbuckling whoop-assness is lacking in terms of attitude-an unbridled confidence emanating from the coaching staff late in games, is what you’re implying. This could be conveyed in body language, word-choice/voice inflection, etc., not just play calling. Food for thought. But, I do think these are things that a coach can develop. I don’t doubt Wilcox is doing considerable soul searching of his own after this stretch, in terms of how he can improve/do some things differently, including how the team draws motivation from the coaches/sustains confidence. I hope the results in these fourth quarters is not as static as personality, as it is traditionally understood. Incidentally, for fun, here’s an article citing recent work suggesting that personality can change: https://neuroscienceschool.com/2023/05/17/we-need-to-rethink-the-concept-of-personality-as-static/
These unclutch 4th quarter collapses really changes the prevailing narrative by Wilcox and his supporting sunshine pumpers that we are a coin flip away from 7-0 and are just unlucky
Defense has been gassed in the 4th quarter of each game. The pass rush especially . I wonder if it's simply a lack of depth to enable more of a rotation, or if the coaches should be rotating more than they are. The Miami game, for example, their o-line took over that game in the 4th.
Anxiously awaiting a post from the couple remaining Wilcox defenders on how this is not actually his fault!
Yet, despite all this failure. Wilcox will be back to fail some more and people will still defend him.
that is one sad bear.
You’ve hit it on the nose