43 Comments

A lot of y'all talk big about wanting a revolution during the season...but when the coach replaces a quarter of a roster that went 4-8 and then brings in new talents, a new system, suddenly it's all...well, I wanted an EVOLUTION of the bad product, not a revolution.

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it's not a revolution until wilcox is gone

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Let's just say the grades she turned in was not same grades that was posted.

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I heard a rumor Jaden Rashada may be interested

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Just saying....My daughter just graduated from UCLA film school and was a TA for the undergrads. Some of the students were athletes. Can someone explain to me how UCLA can get certain athletes in school with GPA's below 3.0 and subpar SAT scores? I guess their administrators at UCLA play by a different set of rules when comes to admitting and keeping their athletes eligible to play sports.

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Fellow UCLA film school grad here, and I taught a class of undergrads, including athletes...

How in the world does she know these athletes had GPAs below 3.0? The athletes I had were fine.

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You mean to tell me you weren’t granted access to the full HS and college transcripts for all your students?? I’m shocked! /s

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Amazing, but I spent most of my time trying to get them to understand how to format a script...

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Plummer, Milner and Sturdevant all left. Cal just lost out on a TE to Nevada, LB’s and Ol’ are leaving as well. Yes, blame this 100 % on Wilcox!

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I am disappointed we didn’t get to see him play last season during the debacle in the desert and I’m surprised that Zach stayed after not getting any PT during the debacle in the desert.

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How much is the decision to leave Cal prompted by the weakness of the soon-to-be Pac-8? No media exposure or recognition for those players with enough talent to eventually the NFL Draft.

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I really doubt Johnson left because he's not thrilled by Pac8

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Please tell us how many quarterbacks each of the Power 5 teams have. Does everyone have more than two?

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Jan 21, 2023·edited Jan 21, 2023

This is unrelated to Zach transferring but I'd love to read that we've fired Knowlton.

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Oh I thought this was news. I googled and nothing came up. Disappointed

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Was always curious about Zach. A few years ago he was in the mix and people were saying good things; then he just sorta disappeared from the conversation. Does anybody have insight?

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Jan 21, 2023·edited Jan 21, 2023

No insight on Zach, other than to say in general, defensive minded coaches like Justin Wilcox really benefit from having competent minds running the offensive side of things, which through his own hiring mistakes he’s never had.

Tough to keep and develop QBs given how poor his offenses have faired, at least with guys not named Chase Garbers.

Nearly 3 seasons of Bill Musgrave though was a disaster, by all accounts.

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Johnson isn’t, but everyone else who left is. Lost top Qb, WR, OL…should I go on?

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Jan 21, 2023·edited Jan 21, 2023

Qb1 left because supposedly he wanted to be a guaranteed starter. Is that really on Wilcox?

Qb2 who only saw the the field once, left because of playing time. Is that really a big of a loss, to lose a guy that went to NAU?

WR left supposedly due to NIL. Is that on Wilcox? (Btw he was WR2 and least of the teams concern)

OL grad transfered. Is that on Wilcox?

One of them only played about 2-3 games before injury.

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All good points, Hood, though eventually you do have to admit that Wilcox shoulders plenty of responsibility for the overall health of the program.

Hoping the Spav foundation will pay dividends soon.

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Jan 21, 2023·edited Jan 21, 2023

Oh for sure, I wanted Wilcox out ages ago. But the transfers not on him.

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Jan 21, 2023·edited Jan 22, 2023

Exactly. Transfers are just the cost of doing business now in college sports, with the COVID year giving more peeps the chance to grad transfer.

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I'm fine with grad transfers.

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Yeah, but in many cases they lack experience only because they were in programs behind five-stars.

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I just can’t see Wilcox surviving. I don’t care if they have a new OC. He can’t hold on to his top guys, most have left the program. I guess the incompetent Knowlton will allow Wilcox to continue but the once promising head coach has lost most of his luster. If Taylor succeeds at Stanford, ouch that would be the final blow.

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The guys leaving are the guys that aren't getting as much playing time as they want. There is a reason for that. The quality of the players we have picked up in the portal far exceeds the quality of the players we are losing. Other schools are going through far worse other than a few of the top programs. And our team is in a far better situation than Stanfurd as of right now as far as quality of players is concerned. I think Troy Taylor will be an excellent Coach, but like Deion at CO, he has a major rebuild on his hands. I'm not too worried about our situation at CAL. The fact that we pulled in a young, known, OC who can recruit along with a couple of other young position coaches who can recruit (in lieu of Musgrave, McClure and Chryst, none of whom recruited well) makes our future a bit rosier.

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Bob, what I do is go look at each player on 247 and then look at their recruiting profile. You can use this link but sometimes it's missing a player and it's not always up to date.

https://247sports.com/Season/2023-Football/TransferPortal/?institutionkey=24089

Examples of great pickups are Sergio Allen who was a high 4* in HS but was dropped to a college 3* because of limited playing time. Same fro Byron Cardwell, Justin Williams Thomas, and Brian Hightower...they are all really solid 4* players. Sam Jackson, David Reese, and Nohl Williams are all coming in as college 4*'s. Kaylin Moore comes in as a legit college 3* and is versatile. Our two new TE's are both college 3* but unlike our previous TE's they really know how to block. And I'm pretty sure they can catch the ball when necessary.

I'd like to see us pick up a couple of long, quick, nasty, aggressive T's and I think adding another solid QB to the room would be a good idea.

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Uh...dude was like fourth string.

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Hence the modifier...'like' which was to indicate that I wasn't being serious about his actual position, but instead indicating that he was deep in the depth chart.

Not math.

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He was technically the starter for a few days last week while Mendoza had the flu.

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We just got the third string QB from TCU. Think Sonny will survive? Not following your logic here.

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Johnson is a top guy???

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Yeah, I dunno about that. Plenty to criticize JW about, but I am not losing my mind over a grad transfer QB who was very unlikely to ever take a snap.

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Yea, Femi, Sturdivant and Millner hurt a lot more than Johnson (Millner is just more confusing). If someone has completed their Cal degree and wants to use football to facilitate a Grad Transfer I'm all for it. Particularly, when that player has not played a meaningful down.

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I am actually pretty curious to see where he goes. Is he more academic minded in this choice, or chasing playing time?

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Its not just Wilcox, though I agree that he shoulders blame being the captain of the ship. But CFB is different now and I think we are going to see the 2nd tier Div 1 teams have a very very bad time. I honestly don’t know how about 20-30 programs are going to even survive over the next few years.

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Exactly.

Wilcox and Cal’s ability to react to the changing dynamics of college football will be critical if he is to survive.

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Inb4 all the grumpy comments on how Cal football is in shambles

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Just have to see how everything pans out in the NIL/portal age. Seems like we have lost some, but may have gained more overall. It's not just Cal facing this situation.

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Jan 21, 2023·edited Jan 21, 2023

Well, as things stand on Jan 21, it doesn’t seem like we’ve gained more than we’ve lost, but there’s still plenty of time to add guys, and the new coaching hires should absolutely help.

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Jackdoza? Rashjacza?

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Anyone got $13 Million I can borrow? Asking for a friend.

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Rumor from the Florida circles are they offered $6M and then upped it to $7M and the Rashadas thought that meant they get both deals (6 + 7 = 13).

Those numbers are way more realistic given what Nico reportedly got for Tennessee ($8M for much higher rated QB). Could also just be spin from Florida folks to make the Rashada camp seem incompetent too.

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