Cal football general manager Ron Rivera did his regular weekly appearance on KNBR, the local Bay Area sports radio station, and issued some very tough quotes on the first year of head coach Tosh Lupoi.
It is very unusual for a college football leader to go on record making critiques this frank about a head coach. Critiques about hiring (particularly around the hiring of two inexperienced coordinators), decision-making, responding to adversity, and particularly accepting feedback from Rivera and others all came up.
Rivera opened with an honest assessment of where things stand, pushing back on comparisons to UCLA’s faster start under a new staff.
“UCLA brought in a current head coach that came and brought probably half of the team that he had that went to the playoffs to begin with. Tosh came in as a first-time head coach. He did bring a couple of inexperienced coordinators with him. Things didn’t work out the way we needed them to work out on offense. He has bumped his head a lot. I mean, we’ve talked a lot, tried to give him a lot of advice, point him in the right direction. Some of it he’s been very receptive to and other portions he hasn’t. And it’s those things that sometimes you’ve got to learn for yourself.”
Rivera drew on his own NFL coaching history to frame what he wants to see from the final stretch of the season.
“If you go back and look at my first two years in the NFL, I had some crazy record being 3-13 in games lost by less than a score. During that period there were some people that were frustrated because we were so close. What we’ve got to do is put ourselves in a position with these last three games to show that this team is headed in the right direction. That’s the most important part, you want to show a trend that you can build off of and recruit off of.”
On how Lupoi has handled the adversity of his first extended losing streak, Rivera was empathetic but firm that there is work to be done.
“It’s been tough for him because his expectations were so high. When I came in, the expectations rose so quickly because of the success he’s been around. I think we almost took for granted that we’ve got to lay a foundation down and we really haven’t had that chance. We’ve got to get this foundation put down, show that we have solid roots in the ground, that we’re ready to go forward.”
Chancellor Rich Lyons has been an active presence in monitoring the struggles of the football team.
“He’s always had an eye on what we’ve been doing. This is a guy that ran leadership at the Haas Business School. To sit down and listen to him and get nuggets about what it takes to build a proper team, a proper culture, that was about as informative a meeting as I’ve been in. He understands and recognizes that Tosh is a first-time head coach.”
In terms of where to get better, Rivera identified discipline as the most urgent area of improvement.
“We’ve got to be a little bit more disciplined. We’re one of the most penalized teams in the ACC and that’s been disappointing because it’s been those little things that have set us back. You get yourself into a third and short and all of a sudden you get an illegal procedure and now you’re in third and long. Getting guys to bend their knees, bend at the waist and drive through, wrap the midsection, not try to take people high. These are things we’ve got to get better at.”
As Cal enters its final stretch, Rivera also defined what success looks like from here.
“The trajectory has to be going north. We have to show that we are growing, that the culture is getting stronger. Those are all things you have to have going forward.”
It’s safe to say that this will be a very critical month ahead for Lupoi to prove he’s moving things in the right direction. Lupoi is in the first year of a five year contract, but it does seem like he’s already feeling a lot of heat from many places in Berkeley.
Meathead in all facets: No intelligence. No wisdom. No humility. We bear all the cost. He still gets paid.
Ron was 3-13 in close games.
But Tosh's losses are lopsided and not even close