It’s not the losses that really bother me. At its best, Cal is a consistent 8-4 program, I recognize that. What bothers me most is sitting in empty stadiums year after year.
Berkeley game days were fun during the Tedford era because people were legitimately excited about the team. Tedford only won 8 games 6/11 years. He wasn’t some god but he did two things. 1. Develop exciting talented players and 2. You knew we were a 7-8 win program, but every year from 2003-2011 it was a possibility we’d do something exciting and win 10 games and challenge for the conference. We only actually did it a couple times but you could realistically talk yourself into it every august.
It is starting to seem like Wilcox is a 7-5 coach AND he’s not good enough to develop enough talent or out-coach better teams to have one of those special seasons. Not only are we a 6-7 win program under him...we are a really boring 6-7 win program. That’s purgatory.
We might be able to run the ball (game 1). We might be able to throw the ball (game 2). We likely have an average defense (game 1 & 2). Cal's margin of error is very thin ~ college players will make mental and physical mistakes. . Wilcox can no longer hope to play dirty and pull it out in the last few minutes of the game. He doesn't have the defense for that strategy anymore.
What Cal has no margin for is critical mistakes by the coaching staff. Football/coaching 101 says you never take points off of the board. Especially in the first half and on the road!! That choice combined with a few questionable choices later in the game was too much to overcome for this Cal team.
To add salt to the wound, furd did ~ in fact ~ successfully take points off the board and convert it to a + 4 point advantage in their demolition of U$C.
Pretty poor effort by the defense. Yeah, we made some plays but the missed tackles and bad angles showed almost a Dykesian level of incompetence. Losing a game with very good offensive output (Hey, we hit some deep balls!) and 32 points with past Wilcox' defenses would have notched a win. I have no idea why Ragle is still employed. The only consolation I can come up with is that both Nevada and TCU are getting Top 25 votes so they are actually good teams.
Nam is absolutely right about one thing: Losing The 'Root to Oregon is going to be a huge hit against us this season. The tackling yesterday was atrocious and there were times when we didn't look like we could stop anyone. I don't think that he was the best recruiter but man, can he build a defense! As Nam pointed out, look what he did with the Duck's defense WITH THEIR BEST PLAYERS OUT! Don't be surprised if Oregon runs the table in the Pac-12.
"· They threw, with multiple timeouts available, on a 3rd and 2 from their own 28, leading to an incomplete pass, and eventually, a rushing touchdown to Zach Evans with 11 seconds to go in the half." This was the most confounding, atrocious coaching move I can recall. I estimate that throw to have a 25% success rate. so 75% you've either an incompletion, sack or interception; all leading to extremely positive outcomes for TCU.
+ Did Musgrave feel he couldn't get 2 yards since we weren't able to on 4th down from the 7?
+ Did he think Gary Patterson's defense would not be ready?
+ Does he believe this play to have a 50%+ success rate?
Confounding and angering. Players make and miss tackles as they try their hearts out. A multi-decade coach calling these plays in these scenarios is unforgivable.
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It’s not the losses that really bother me. At its best, Cal is a consistent 8-4 program, I recognize that. What bothers me most is sitting in empty stadiums year after year.
Berkeley game days were fun during the Tedford era because people were legitimately excited about the team. Tedford only won 8 games 6/11 years. He wasn’t some god but he did two things. 1. Develop exciting talented players and 2. You knew we were a 7-8 win program, but every year from 2003-2011 it was a possibility we’d do something exciting and win 10 games and challenge for the conference. We only actually did it a couple times but you could realistically talk yourself into it every august.
It is starting to seem like Wilcox is a 7-5 coach AND he’s not good enough to develop enough talent or out-coach better teams to have one of those special seasons. Not only are we a 6-7 win program under him...we are a really boring 6-7 win program. That’s purgatory.
We might be able to run the ball (game 1). We might be able to throw the ball (game 2). We likely have an average defense (game 1 & 2). Cal's margin of error is very thin ~ college players will make mental and physical mistakes. . Wilcox can no longer hope to play dirty and pull it out in the last few minutes of the game. He doesn't have the defense for that strategy anymore.
What Cal has no margin for is critical mistakes by the coaching staff. Football/coaching 101 says you never take points off of the board. Especially in the first half and on the road!! That choice combined with a few questionable choices later in the game was too much to overcome for this Cal team.
To add salt to the wound, furd did ~ in fact ~ successfully take points off the board and convert it to a + 4 point advantage in their demolition of U$C.
Pretty poor effort by the defense. Yeah, we made some plays but the missed tackles and bad angles showed almost a Dykesian level of incompetence. Losing a game with very good offensive output (Hey, we hit some deep balls!) and 32 points with past Wilcox' defenses would have notched a win. I have no idea why Ragle is still employed. The only consolation I can come up with is that both Nevada and TCU are getting Top 25 votes so they are actually good teams.
Nam is absolutely right about one thing: Losing The 'Root to Oregon is going to be a huge hit against us this season. The tackling yesterday was atrocious and there were times when we didn't look like we could stop anyone. I don't think that he was the best recruiter but man, can he build a defense! As Nam pointed out, look what he did with the Duck's defense WITH THEIR BEST PLAYERS OUT! Don't be surprised if Oregon runs the table in the Pac-12.
"· They threw, with multiple timeouts available, on a 3rd and 2 from their own 28, leading to an incomplete pass, and eventually, a rushing touchdown to Zach Evans with 11 seconds to go in the half." This was the most confounding, atrocious coaching move I can recall. I estimate that throw to have a 25% success rate. so 75% you've either an incompletion, sack or interception; all leading to extremely positive outcomes for TCU.
+ Did Musgrave feel he couldn't get 2 yards since we weren't able to on 4th down from the 7?
+ Did he think Gary Patterson's defense would not be ready?
+ Does he believe this play to have a 50%+ success rate?
Confounding and angering. Players make and miss tackles as they try their hearts out. A multi-decade coach calling these plays in these scenarios is unforgivable.
Wondering how much poor special teams correlates with lack of depth on the roster
The Part-Time Vegetarian by Nicola Graimes offers a refreshing take on plant-based cooking. With innovative recipes, it caters to both vegetarians and flexitarians. Delta Executor, like Roblox, this book lets you explore new culinary worlds. Graimes' dishes are a playground for taste buds, making every meal an adventure! https://deltaexecutor.app
Not a novel, but how about some haiku?
Oh watch the Bears play
The media has their say
In Defense we pray