I think it's time to start the board on a new Head Coach. How about Gary Patterson? We need some Texas recruits. Would Sean Payton turn up his nose at a college job at a lowbee school (prob so) but a guy can dream. Or maybe we go big time college football and get some older scumbag of a person but ignore that for coaching...I'm thinking old beady eyes from Ohio state/Florida/Utah or Chuckie from Las Vegas raiders. Ethics on or off?
Speaking of hiring scenarios, I had this very scary thought while unable to sleep early this morning. Cal goes out and lays a can of whoop ass on a demoralized Stanford team in the Big Game and then tanks in the UCLA game and loses by 30 to finish 4-8 and with a 2-7 conference record. I don't think that would surprise too many people, especially if UCLA beats USC this week and is playing for a conference championship game and a possible Rose Bowl. Stanford slinks back home and lays another egg against BYU to finish 3-9 on the season and with a consecutive string of bad losses. Stanford and David Shaw reach an amicable parting of the ways after the season. Stanford quickly hires Troy Taylor as their next head coach after Sac State wins the FCS national championship.
Might be a pipe dream, but how about Kliff Kingsbury and Sean Kugler from the Arizona Cardinals next year. He is probably getting fired, but has previous college football success as a coordinator. Kugler coached OL when Wilcox was at Boise State and has lots of NFL experience(plus spent a few years as HC for UTEP although not great results). I doubt we would keep him more than a year or two as he rebuilds his resume. But he did coach Mahomes and a few other notable stars. Would at least peak some interest from recruits.
The urgency of this hire needs to resonate, with Wilcox AND the donors/fanbase. His job is literally on the line…he doesn’t have 3 seasons for this to develop…they need to hit the ground running, and that’s a big ask. The more I think about it, retaining the skill position players is essential.
He needs to find an Eric Morris, the Incarnate Word HC that took the OC job in Pullman and brought players with him…instant offense.
This is the only way Wilcox keeps his job, IMHO…say he brings in a guy from that list, and the O is completely rebuilt in the offseason, quite possibly with a number of losses to the portal. Then 2023 figures to be a slog, with a complete zero for recruits. Now, 2024 is the make it or break it year, and then it might as well be season one…
He needs instant O…that involves bringing players, starting with quarterback.
Who is the record breaking super talented QB in the FCS this year? and the HC/OC that can bring that QB to Cal? Perhaps our FCS expert Bob can give us ideas.
I think we need to start looking at names who haven't coached at any level for more than five years to get a good guess on what Wilcox will actually do. Given what he did last time with Musgrave I expect an even more extreme time off from football and probably someone who runs an even more old school offense system, probably triple option. Next couple years will be brutal, hopefully a new AD will be in place when its time to hire Wilcox's replacement
Just thinking aloud here... and, yes, some of you already know who I'm going to name. But, if the look is outside JW's friend circle and networks: Why not try for Garrett Riley? The guy has a Midas touch. He's probably not nearly as wed to Sonny Dykes, as SD does much of the game-planning. But, he's up and coming. Go big or go home, Knowlton: Find the money and get this guy over here.
Yes, this would be an unbelievable hire. But why in the world would he leave tcu, a team currently in the running for the CFP, for a lateral gig at a Pac 12 bottom feeder where he’d likely make less money (even if knowlton can scrounge up a hefty slice of cheese for this hire) when factoring in cost of living, taxes, etc? His next job will likely be a head coaching job.
What I'm getting at is that Wilcox/Knowlton/Christ/Deep-Pockets/Alumni et al need to stop thinking the glass is half-empty in Berkeley. Seriously.
You and I can name all of the reasons why G Riley/any-other great OC would not come to Berkeley. Here's one great reason to consider that comes from the history books, and I'm sure we can come up with more: https://www.insider.com/super-bowl-quarterbacks-colleges-2019-1
Great point. And Wilcox has been successful in convincing so many guys to come to Cal in what would have been lateral moves from Oregon, USC, UCLA, etc., so let's hope he still has that. I know things are a lot different from his first year to now, but there's no point listing all the reasons they won't come to Cal.
HAHAHAHA! Yes! Except, it appears that Sonny never really wanted to depart the Great State of Texas, you know? Having said that, Sonny is also in a great position to describe the Cal Athletic Department and the Chancellor's Office... :(
Agreed. Given the breadth of coaching talent, both developing and mature, "a large swath" would almost be like shooting fish in a barrel in getting a good-to-great OC (and OL coach). It's disturbing that the same networks get called upon.
Please no more crusty old white guys or retreads with outdated schemes. Bill Musgrave looked like he didn’t have a pulse on the sideline.
The rumors/grumbling/leaks coming out of Nebraska about Scott Frost’s indiscretions should be enough to eliminate him. That is if we even have a shot at hiring him, which we don’t, because he’ll get another shot at a head coaching job. Same goes for Harsin who never really had a fair chance at Auburn, and was never a good fit there. Bottom line, I don’t see recently fired coaches from big time programs taking coordinator jobs at cal.
Troy Taylor is not leaving sac state to take a coordinator job. We could quadruple his current salary and I still don’t think he takes the job.
This hire needs to a be a young, creative coach who can inject some enthusiasm into this lifeless program. If Wilcox botches this hire again, you may as well stick a fork in Cal football.
All this time, I thought we must get Taylor asap or else he'll be FBS HC and we can't ever get him. But after reading all the comments about how much he loves Sac State job, maybe we can wait a few more years until it's time to replace Wilcox.
Ha this is sadly true. As far as TT, my wife is a sac state alum and we’ve tailgated a couple of their games this year. Had a chance to talk to some people who know the family, and TT’s mom even stopped by our tailgate a couple weeks ago (she saw the Cal canopy). He obviously loves Cal, but I think people might be missing how much he loves coaching at home in Sacramento and building that program. I would be shocked if he left to take a coordinator job, even at Cal.
I grew up in Sacramento, and I have believed for a long time that Sac State had the chance to turn into the next Boise State if everything came together. You have a potential fan base of more than one million people and a stadium with room to grow. The academics are not too difficult, just like Boise, and a media market that dwarfs the Montana schools that typically dominate the Big Sky conference. All it takes is several years of winning and a donor base that is willing to shell out for the next level. Maybe Troy Taylor has that in his dreams.
The guy that got Boise rolling was actually Dirk Koetter in the 90's. He parlayed that into a head coaching job at Arizona State. Then came Dan Hawkins, who turned his Boise gig into a head coaching job at Colorado. I believe that was followed up by Petersen who came from the UC Davis coaching tree. Ironically, Dan Hawkins is now the head coach at UC Davis.
Oh I see. I didn't realize Boise State had that long of a success, but yeah I should have realized about Dan Hawkins. Didn't know about Koetter. So now he's back at Boise State as OC?
LOL....I am not willing to throw out 2020. Cal's lack of preparedness in that 34-10 opening game drubbing against UCLA was shocking to me. Every team was dealing with COVID issues, Cal no doubt more than everyone else, but it was still a shock. And then the turtling in the loss to Oregon State and the inability to line up correctly for extra points and field goals in the Stanford Game. That's when my red light went off that something might be wrong with the coaching staff.
Is that the game where the entire OL position group was held out of the game? Not just the starters, but EVERY single player who had trained at OL at all... we had tight ends and backup D-line guys who didn’t even know the schemes playing OL. I think that was UCLA but I’m not sure.
Cal had a harder time with Covid than just about every other football team in the country because of the City of Berkeley. You can’t blame Wilcox for that.
I just went back and read the Daily Cal story about that game. It was the DL group that got hit by COVID, and Cal had two D line starters who did not play. And a bunch of new guys like Ben Coleman getting some snaps. My memory of the shortened 2020 season was just how suddenly good UCLA, Washington State and Oregon State had become and how Cal seemed to have regressed. That story line obviously carried over into the next two seasons.
No doubt. He’s failed in many respects. I was only commenting on the Covid season. We could have had Nick Saban installed as substitute coach that year and it wouldn’t have made any difference because the Mayor of the City of Berkeley would still outrank him.
That was ALL bad…but again, the program was still fresh from the success of 2019, and the newness of the COVID pandemic was processed by folks in different ways…disappointing, hell yes.
Keep coming back to this, tho….
The f-ing nail in the coffin for Wilcox and the entire coaching staff should have been the disaster in Tucson last year…to be THAT unprepared on SO many levels for an occurrence that, given the COB, was pretty predictable, is unacceptable. The fact that so many fans gave the staff a pass speaks to that overly forgiving fanbase Avi wrote of. It was this effort that foreshadowed the quite logical egg they laid in Boulder…14.5 point favorites???
To have Wilcox be handed a massive extension 14 weeks later has the potential to cripple the program for the next decade.
While Avi’s article is a fantastic list and much appreciated, as always (thank you Avi), the logical question remains whether a middling HC in his 7th season can be expected to hit on OC hire #3 after whiffing on #’s 1 and 2.
Sort of a "group" approach for the Stanford game...
“The game plan will be set up in a way that is friendly,” he [Wilcox] said, “and we’ll all know the sequence of kind of what’s coming next based on this week’s preparation and our practice reps and what we feel like gives us the best opportunity in the game in a given situation.”
I liked him. And he seemed to really get a kick out of Berkeley. He used to chill on the benches near Wurster like a student and read. Was surprised he left.
I think it's time to start the board on a new Head Coach. How about Gary Patterson? We need some Texas recruits. Would Sean Payton turn up his nose at a college job at a lowbee school (prob so) but a guy can dream. Or maybe we go big time college football and get some older scumbag of a person but ignore that for coaching...I'm thinking old beady eyes from Ohio state/Florida/Utah or Chuckie from Las Vegas raiders. Ethics on or off?
WILCOX NEEDS ME AS O.C.! GERBEAR
Speaking of hiring scenarios, I had this very scary thought while unable to sleep early this morning. Cal goes out and lays a can of whoop ass on a demoralized Stanford team in the Big Game and then tanks in the UCLA game and loses by 30 to finish 4-8 and with a 2-7 conference record. I don't think that would surprise too many people, especially if UCLA beats USC this week and is playing for a conference championship game and a possible Rose Bowl. Stanford slinks back home and lays another egg against BYU to finish 3-9 on the season and with a consecutive string of bad losses. Stanford and David Shaw reach an amicable parting of the ways after the season. Stanford quickly hires Troy Taylor as their next head coach after Sac State wins the FCS national championship.
Might be a pipe dream, but how about Kliff Kingsbury and Sean Kugler from the Arizona Cardinals next year. He is probably getting fired, but has previous college football success as a coordinator. Kugler coached OL when Wilcox was at Boise State and has lots of NFL experience(plus spent a few years as HC for UTEP although not great results). I doubt we would keep him more than a year or two as he rebuilds his resume. But he did coach Mahomes and a few other notable stars. Would at least peak some interest from recruits.
It would truly be a sicko timeline if we land the guy who spurned SC after accepting their HC job, as our OC....
Yeah it's not happening lol.
Spurned them after accepting the OC position not HC, but yes probably not happening.
Apologies, you are correct.
None of these candidates are interested in OC job. Stop with your fantasies and get real.
Good list Avi…thank you!
The urgency of this hire needs to resonate, with Wilcox AND the donors/fanbase. His job is literally on the line…he doesn’t have 3 seasons for this to develop…they need to hit the ground running, and that’s a big ask. The more I think about it, retaining the skill position players is essential.
He needs to find an Eric Morris, the Incarnate Word HC that took the OC job in Pullman and brought players with him…instant offense.
This is the only way Wilcox keeps his job, IMHO…say he brings in a guy from that list, and the O is completely rebuilt in the offseason, quite possibly with a number of losses to the portal. Then 2023 figures to be a slog, with a complete zero for recruits. Now, 2024 is the make it or break it year, and then it might as well be season one…
He needs instant O…that involves bringing players, starting with quarterback.
Who is the record breaking super talented QB in the FCS this year? and the HC/OC that can bring that QB to Cal? Perhaps our FCS expert Bob can give us ideas.
I think we need to start looking at names who haven't coached at any level for more than five years to get a good guess on what Wilcox will actually do. Given what he did last time with Musgrave I expect an even more extreme time off from football and probably someone who runs an even more old school offense system, probably triple option. Next couple years will be brutal, hopefully a new AD will be in place when its time to hire Wilcox's replacement
Zac Robinson, former Oklahoma State QB, current QB coach with the Rams.
https://www.therams.com/team/coaches-roster/zac-robinson
Just thinking aloud here... and, yes, some of you already know who I'm going to name. But, if the look is outside JW's friend circle and networks: Why not try for Garrett Riley? The guy has a Midas touch. He's probably not nearly as wed to Sonny Dykes, as SD does much of the game-planning. But, he's up and coming. Go big or go home, Knowlton: Find the money and get this guy over here.
Yes, this would be an unbelievable hire. But why in the world would he leave tcu, a team currently in the running for the CFP, for a lateral gig at a Pac 12 bottom feeder where he’d likely make less money (even if knowlton can scrounge up a hefty slice of cheese for this hire) when factoring in cost of living, taxes, etc? His next job will likely be a head coaching job.
Right: And, I totally agree.
What I'm getting at is that Wilcox/Knowlton/Christ/Deep-Pockets/Alumni et al need to stop thinking the glass is half-empty in Berkeley. Seriously.
You and I can name all of the reasons why G Riley/any-other great OC would not come to Berkeley. Here's one great reason to consider that comes from the history books, and I'm sure we can come up with more: https://www.insider.com/super-bowl-quarterbacks-colleges-2019-1
Great point. And Wilcox has been successful in convincing so many guys to come to Cal in what would have been lateral moves from Oregon, USC, UCLA, etc., so let's hope he still has that. I know things are a lot different from his first year to now, but there's no point listing all the reasons they won't come to Cal.
Also Sonny will tell him all the reasons not to go to Cal
HAHAHAHA! Yes! Except, it appears that Sonny never really wanted to depart the Great State of Texas, you know? Having said that, Sonny is also in a great position to describe the Cal Athletic Department and the Chancellor's Office... :(
Agreed. Given the breadth of coaching talent, both developing and mature, "a large swath" would almost be like shooting fish in a barrel in getting a good-to-great OC (and OL coach). It's disturbing that the same networks get called upon.
Please no more crusty old white guys or retreads with outdated schemes. Bill Musgrave looked like he didn’t have a pulse on the sideline.
The rumors/grumbling/leaks coming out of Nebraska about Scott Frost’s indiscretions should be enough to eliminate him. That is if we even have a shot at hiring him, which we don’t, because he’ll get another shot at a head coaching job. Same goes for Harsin who never really had a fair chance at Auburn, and was never a good fit there. Bottom line, I don’t see recently fired coaches from big time programs taking coordinator jobs at cal.
Troy Taylor is not leaving sac state to take a coordinator job. We could quadruple his current salary and I still don’t think he takes the job.
This hire needs to a be a young, creative coach who can inject some enthusiasm into this lifeless program. If Wilcox botches this hire again, you may as well stick a fork in Cal football.
I think Taylor would take it if he thought there was a path to the HC gig. We may have to stick a fork in Cal football even if Wilcox nails this hire.
I think Taylor’s best path to Cal head coach is not to help Wilcox, but rather to wait for him to fail.
All this time, I thought we must get Taylor asap or else he'll be FBS HC and we can't ever get him. But after reading all the comments about how much he loves Sac State job, maybe we can wait a few more years until it's time to replace Wilcox.
Ha this is sadly true. As far as TT, my wife is a sac state alum and we’ve tailgated a couple of their games this year. Had a chance to talk to some people who know the family, and TT’s mom even stopped by our tailgate a couple weeks ago (she saw the Cal canopy). He obviously loves Cal, but I think people might be missing how much he loves coaching at home in Sacramento and building that program. I would be shocked if he left to take a coordinator job, even at Cal.
I grew up in Sacramento, and I have believed for a long time that Sac State had the chance to turn into the next Boise State if everything came together. You have a potential fan base of more than one million people and a stadium with room to grow. The academics are not too difficult, just like Boise, and a media market that dwarfs the Montana schools that typically dominate the Big Sky conference. All it takes is several years of winning and a donor base that is willing to shell out for the next level. Maybe Troy Taylor has that in his dreams.
he could be the next Chris Petersen?
The guy that got Boise rolling was actually Dirk Koetter in the 90's. He parlayed that into a head coaching job at Arizona State. Then came Dan Hawkins, who turned his Boise gig into a head coaching job at Colorado. I believe that was followed up by Petersen who came from the UC Davis coaching tree. Ironically, Dan Hawkins is now the head coach at UC Davis.
Oh I see. I didn't realize Boise State had that long of a success, but yeah I should have realized about Dan Hawkins. Didn't know about Koetter. So now he's back at Boise State as OC?
Dumpster Muffin for OC.
LOL....I am not willing to throw out 2020. Cal's lack of preparedness in that 34-10 opening game drubbing against UCLA was shocking to me. Every team was dealing with COVID issues, Cal no doubt more than everyone else, but it was still a shock. And then the turtling in the loss to Oregon State and the inability to line up correctly for extra points and field goals in the Stanford Game. That's when my red light went off that something might be wrong with the coaching staff.
Is that the game where the entire OL position group was held out of the game? Not just the starters, but EVERY single player who had trained at OL at all... we had tight ends and backup D-line guys who didn’t even know the schemes playing OL. I think that was UCLA but I’m not sure.
Cal had a harder time with Covid than just about every other football team in the country because of the City of Berkeley. You can’t blame Wilcox for that.
I just went back and read the Daily Cal story about that game. It was the DL group that got hit by COVID, and Cal had two D line starters who did not play. And a bunch of new guys like Ben Coleman getting some snaps. My memory of the shortened 2020 season was just how suddenly good UCLA, Washington State and Oregon State had become and how Cal seemed to have regressed. That story line obviously carried over into the next two seasons.
Ben Coleman played D line in that game?
You can blame Wilcox for his complete lack of preparation the first week of November 2021, though.
No doubt. He’s failed in many respects. I was only commenting on the Covid season. We could have had Nick Saban installed as substitute coach that year and it wouldn’t have made any difference because the Mayor of the City of Berkeley would still outrank him.
That’s true, C. That 2020 was a f-ing mess, and entirely bc of Ohio State.
Screw Ohio State, FOREVER.
That was ALL bad…but again, the program was still fresh from the success of 2019, and the newness of the COVID pandemic was processed by folks in different ways…disappointing, hell yes.
Keep coming back to this, tho….
The f-ing nail in the coffin for Wilcox and the entire coaching staff should have been the disaster in Tucson last year…to be THAT unprepared on SO many levels for an occurrence that, given the COB, was pretty predictable, is unacceptable. The fact that so many fans gave the staff a pass speaks to that overly forgiving fanbase Avi wrote of. It was this effort that foreshadowed the quite logical egg they laid in Boulder…14.5 point favorites???
To have Wilcox be handed a massive extension 14 weeks later has the potential to cripple the program for the next decade.
While Avi’s article is a fantastic list and much appreciated, as always (thank you Avi), the logical question remains whether a middling HC in his 7th season can be expected to hit on OC hire #3 after whiffing on #’s 1 and 2.
Hoping for some news on who is doing what this season in the Tuesday press conferences today.
Sort of a "group" approach for the Stanford game...
“The game plan will be set up in a way that is friendly,” he [Wilcox] said, “and we’ll all know the sequence of kind of what’s coming next based on this week’s preparation and our practice reps and what we feel like gives us the best opportunity in the game in a given situation.”
Maybe Tony Franklin missed naked dudes on bicycles and wants to come out of retirement?
We should have lifetime access, no? https://www.coachtf.com/offers/zU93AeUQ/checkout
I liked him. And he seemed to really get a kick out of Berkeley. He used to chill on the benches near Wurster like a student and read. Was surprised he left.
I remember reading it was to be closer to family. Was that actually true or just a cop out answer?
Love that part of campus. I can’t blame him.
We really need an Anti-Wilcox as OC.
Someone who can light a fire under the offense to at least go down swinging.
We don’t need one of his past buddies to be a wet noodle when Wilcox goes all turtle.
Why is Spavital not on the list? Not until he's fired from TX State?
You mean the guy who didnt even wear Cal gear on the sidelines during games?
He’s another Sonny. Will look to jump ship to Texas at anytime
The clairvoyance displayed in this comment thread in unreal.