I'm not really worried about recruiting. Tosh can recruit. Even if Davis signed with Cal, he wouldn't be able to do much in this Cal offense. And even if Davis decommited, Tosh will find another top level WR. So I'm not worried about the talent at skill positions. What we are all worried about is the on field product Tosh is showcasing. If he can't win, talent means nothing
I just watched the first drive again where adam mohammed was cooking. We got to 3rd and 2 and threw the ball incomplete twice to turn it over on downs. Now I'm upset all over again.
That call by the OC on 3rd down and 1+ yards to go was TERRIBLE. Muhammed was getting plus yardage on all his carries and he should have gotten the ball then or some type of fake dive and then a quick pitch to the outside..
Definitely NOT sparse. It filled steadily thru Q1 as Cal fans/students are wont to do. Student section ultimately full. Whole stadium was alive, making noise, and staying engaged long past reason imho.
I don't know if I would call it sparse but it could definitely be better. With that said decades of mediocrity and irrelevance plus what the current product is gives no one any reason to fill the stadium. Win and they will show up.
Ok, the recruitment meltdown has begun. UCLA just wiped out Maryland 54-3. Cal was probably relatively lucky to catch them before they really got it in gear.
Back in March, I purchased two season tickets and contributed to the NIL fund. I had never bought season tickets as an alum (I live in Los Angeles) and I do not like the idea of NIL money buying players, but I bought into the hype. That Cal – consistently mediocre at 5-7/6-6/7-5 – just needed a talent upgrade and a good recruiter. Wilcox was an ok coach and had coached up barely recruited defensive players, but could never break through with what he had, and thus would never attract top level talent across the board to make us competitive for a successful season. Talent attracts talent and money is needed to keep talent. Wilcox had a potential breakthrough QB and took a gamble starting him as true freshman, which was unusual and yet welcome. We had some really great wins but an equal number of horrible losses last year, and the inability to recruit a decent o-line, wide receivers (DeJesus being an exception but he was not a deep threat WR), and a kicking game meant it would never get any better.
I totally bought in, especially when not only did Tosh retain JKS, but nabbed wide receivers and tight ends in transfer portal high demand and brought with him several highly regarded (albeit raw) defensive players from Oregon. To me, given the schedule and the talent, an 8-4 season was the floor. Anything equal to last season was, by definition, a failed season.
And I liked that he was calling at the fan base to show up for the marquee games – both in terms of money invested and butts in the seats for the opening game.
This was exceedingly high risk because if Cal failed to win early on – the nationally televised UCLA and Clemson games - he could lose the fan base. And risk losing quality players would be poached. And recruits who had signed on would start dropping. If you crank up the hype machine but it does not deliver, it is even more glaring. It took less than 18 hours for the first recruit to react.
Given this, I would have thought the effort to scheme out the game plans for both of these games would have been top priority and the players would get it. Like, under no circumstances would sloppy play, poor tackling, and idiotic coaching decisions determine why we would lose.
Boy, was I completely fooled. After the first drive of the UCLA game, it was obvious to me that the team was hopelessly ill-prepared on both sides of the ball. I could at least somewhat understand the defense – true turnover from last season and UCLA was way better than advertised (though we should have freaking planned for it) – but the offense was pathetic and special teams continued to be an embarrassment. What made it worse is that even when the running game was working – like in the first drive against UCLA – the coaching staff went away from it and it became apparent JKS was not comfortable. I could not believe that this coaching staff, in its first time on the field, at home, on national television, against an important rival, could have been done so little with so much.
If possible, the Syracuse game was worse because it took a superhuman effort by a single defensive player and Syracuse doing everything possible to lose that game for us to win, barely.
But the offense was actually worse than the UCLA game.
And Wagner. Sure, beat up on a terrible FCS team. But even that game was weak. We were favored by 58.5 points. We won by 42. We had dumb penalties. Our kicking game remained awful. And JKS could not hit downfield throws and there was almost nothing creative in the passing game. Throwing a bubble screen (a 15 yard throw down the line is itself very risky) so that the WR can run throw high-school level defenders for 80 yards gives me little comfort the offense was fixed.
Which brings me to last night. I stopped watching at the half because I knew it was over even though it was 10-7. Our defense had done reasonably well (other than not great tackling on broken player QB runs but still, well enough because Clemson rarely got first downs on first or second down). But the defense was obviously getting tired. And it was getting tired because (a) the offense was designed to do three and outs without regard to the effect on the defense and (b) special teams had an even worse game (if that is possible). The coaching went out of its way to make the one decent part of the team be in the worst possible position.
For what it is worth, Mohammed is a good running back. He runs hard and has decent vision. He rarely gets hit and goes down in the backfield. If he is gaining 4+ yards a carry, by definition we will win because if you just hand him the ball every time, every drive will carry forward. Is this simplistic thinking? Maybe, except that handing him the ball (i) by definition bleeds their defense so that by the second half they are gassed, not us; (ii) takes pressure off of JKS to make plays he for whatever reason cannot make this season; and (iii) helps our defense.
What summed it for me was the second drive, when it was 3 and 2 after a solid run and a short pass to Mini on second down. We empty set, which means we have absolutely limited our options to only a pass (unless a designe QB run, which this offense will not do with JKS) against a team that has NFL caliber defensive backs (just read Know the Enemy columns this week) but is not great against the run and had injuries to their d-line. So if course it fails. So we go for it on 4th down and it too fails. If we were always going to go for it on 4th down, why not run on the 3rd down?
The next drive (after we scored the defensive TD and then Clemson drove for the FG where special teams killed us on the offsides, which may have been the single most important play of the game because of the time suck on defense), we did a 1-yard pass (the long down the line out that does nothing against really good defensive backs), a 7-yard run (again, Mohammed being solid), and then, of course, another pass play on 3 and 2 and took a sack. So, after not having the ball for 7+ minutes, we go three and out with two pass plays.
All season long, JS has looked terrible. He has massively hurt his NFL stock. So, I guarantee you he is going to go to a school like Mendoza, Beck, Mensah, and others to improve his stock. Why wouldn’t he?
I wonder if a major reason why JKS has regressed so badly is that Somerville idiotically wants to run a pro-style offense when virtually no high school or college teams run it and are not prepared to run it. The top QBs drafted either spent a year on the bench learning the pro-style offense or are thrown in and go 1-15 (Aikman, Manning, for example) and then figure it out or become draft busts. But for a college player to learn a pro-style system in less than six months, with brand new players who each come from different teams, is insanity. Add to the very obvious fact Somerville is so far out of his element, I already know that this season is lost. If we got 6-6 now, I’d be shocked (and that is 6-6 including Wagner, a terrible Stanford team, and a fairly easy schedule).
Ron Rivera needs to take a long and hard look in the mirror and own this.
I agree with many of your conclusions, but I am confused as to why you thought Cal was hopeless from the first UCLA drive. Cal scored a touchdown on that drive.
We shouldn’t be running a pro style offense in today’s rotating portal class. Need a system that’s easy to learn so new players can pick it up quick, build up a variety of plays and focus on fundamentals. Cal needs to move away from the current system and to play out of the shotgun, building few plays a week if necessary, but start the move now.
JKS is gone along with any high level recruits.
Please stop spending money on expensive QBs and receivers. Spend it on the lines and defense first. Even a good O line can make an average QB look really good, but a bad O line can certainly make a great QB look bad.
After what he saw last night and really all year no surprise. If you count the three games not including the Wagner game, Cal has the worst offense in the ACC. There's no time any more to get it right, even RR said himself they have two years to become a winner. I say let Somerville go now and promote Rolovich, they can't afford to wait until the end of the year. I'm not putting this on the players, even the same guys (like Mini and King) that last year were frequently wide open can't get any separation this season. I'm not even sure that DeJesus could do much in this offense. The coaches devised an offensive strategy and a system that just doesn't work.
Cal Fans: Farudo had a good column on the Sports Illustrated website which basically said what I posted last night: We are not ready for prime time but be patient. Lupoi is a good coach and I don't think that Nick Saban, Dan Lanning and numerous other coaches would have vouched for him if he was a disaster waiting to happen. The Farudo column reminded me that it took Bruce Snyder three years to build the team that defeated Clemson in the Ctirus Bowl. Cal faithful, stay strong!!!!! The Bear Does Not Quit!!!! The Bear Will Not Die!!!!! GO BEARS!!!!!! FOREVER!!!!!!!
What are you smoking? This was not what we were led to believe would happen if we wrote the checks that would result in the purchase of quality employees who would take Cal football to the promised land. This ain’t it and it seems the football gods have decided to banish Cal football to the hell of mediocrity forever!
Eric: I smoked the same Northern California shit that everyone in Berkeley smoked so maybe my judgement is cloudy. But, I also know that in this modern age of college football, eveybody expects new coaches to be the second coming of Curt Cignetti, which probably isn't very realistic.
This is so pollyannish. Tosh did not inherit a terrible team like Snyder, Tedford and Dykes did. He inherited a very good team, armed with a lot of NIL money, that should go 8-4 at minimum. But it is not going to, and that is strictly coaching. This is more akin to Gilbertson inheriting a solid team in 1992 and screwing it up; sure, he did very well in 1993 but reverted back in 1994. The world has changed since 1992 and no coach has that kind of time.
Eric: Me? Pollyannish? I'm a Cal Fan so being pollyannish pretty much goes with the territory. Seriously, what other choice do we have but to give Tosh a chance?
A Cal fan's dashed hopes are Dave Barr getting injured, the dropped TD that was missed in 2002 against Carson Palmer, Mack Brown whoring himself to keep us out of the Rose Bowl, DeSean stepping out by a heel, the insanity of the Cheez-It Bowl, and no targeting call on Nando. But you are missing the issue here - it isn't us having horrible luck this season - it is a comprehensive failure by the coaching staff when we were led to believe otherwise. Giving "Tosh a chance" doesn't mean making excuses for poor coaching.
Check out UCLA. A worse season last year. A maligned returning QB. A less regarded transfer portal class (by a lot). And a new coach. But a coach who understood how critical it was to match his talent to the offense. UCLA looks likely it could actually now for the Big-10 (or at least a playoff spot).
Why isn't that us? Or should we "just give Tosh a chance"?
Eric: Yes, there was some bad playcalling last night but it is still early and I'm not writing the season off just yet. Yes, FUCLA seems to have better coaching but they are also playing most of the bottom half teams in the Big 10. I think we are going to find out how good they are when they play Oregon next week. We all need to take a deep breath and evaluate everything once the season is over. If it turns out that Tosh isn't going to be our savior, then we really have no choice but to wait for the next couple of years and then start over, which is somehting Cal Football has LOTS of experience doing. Sigh......
Let’s face it. We fans were sold a bill of goods that is not paying off. All the preseason hype, not to mention the millions raised by RR to put Cal football on the map and start a new post-Wilcox era, all that is now wasted!
The coaching staff clearly could not see the problems in the preseason and now they are obvious for all of us to see. This team has played terribly. Period. And I lay it at the feet of the coaching staff. Obviously, the lack of experience from the head coach on down is a big problem. Cal paid out millions in NIL money and for what?
Tosh Lupoi is reportedly being paid close to $2M! For what? To wear his hat on backwards and look like an idiot on the sidelines?
Yes, I am really pissed. I’ve been watching Cal football since my father took me to the 1958 Rose Bowl, which, of course Cal lost, to powerful Iowa! I went to the Garden State bowl in 1979 to watch Cal get beaten by another football powerhouse, Temple University. I was also in the stands for “The Play.” All of which is to say I’ve seen one hell of a lot of Cal football, and most of it, with a few years of exception during the Tedford years, as been mediocre at best and sometimes really terrible, like now!
The problem is that it’s clearly not just an offense that has generational talent at QB and cannot score largely because the hyped WRs seem completely incapable of getting separation and an OL that is just hopeless at pass protection. If Mohammed is out with an injury Cal will have pretty much no running game which will nicely complement our lack of a passing game.
Or there’s our defense that is only slightly better than the offense, but still makes big mistakes, can’t tackle worth sh&t, and has become expert at holding, pass interference, and personal foul penalties at the worst possible times.
To paraphrase James Carville, “It’s the coaching, Stupid!” Lupoi is in way over his head as is most of what is largely, at base, an inexperienced coaching staff made up of guys for whom their current position is a big step up and for several, a step for which they clearly had no business taking. I don’t know what Nick Saban was thinking when he supposedly told RR that Lupoi was ready to take on the head coaching job, but I have to believe Nick was distracted by painting walls, cooking pizza or talking to a duck.
Basically, we are f$@ked for this season unless there’s a miraculous turn around, though the Pope is busy in France so that’s doubtful. But it’s so much worse because of NIL and the portal. Cal will lose its best high school recruits who won’t want to bet their futures on what they see on the field. The better portal transfers will look elsewhere and the best of our current players will leave. What can Cal promise these kids? That things will get better? Sure, Cal has sent great players to the NFL in the past, but that won’t be enough to get today’s players to trust their futures to this particular coaching staff based on what they see on the field this year.
I am resigning myself to a year of sub-mediocre Cal football where the only possibility for a bright spot, and after last night it’s more remote than I would have thought, is a win over Stanford which would be a battle of the worsts! I figure maybe a win over UNLV but that could be a stretch, so it’s possible we’ll be looking at a 4-8 season when this travesty is (finally) over. I wish I could sound a note of hope, but the reality is we’re stuck with this hot mess of a train wreck inside a dumpster fire. I would not want to be RR and have to take the calls from the big donors who were tapped to bankroll this program — and they get to watch it all from the comfortable seats in the Chancellor’s box. Must be fun, fun for RR and Rich Lyons to get a direct earful from the money guys!
Like I said, we were sold a bunch of hype and allowed an inexperienced head coach to hire an inappropriate and inexperienced coaching staff. Hopeless doesn’t begin to describe the mess we are now in.
I'm not really worried about recruiting. Tosh can recruit. Even if Davis signed with Cal, he wouldn't be able to do much in this Cal offense. And even if Davis decommited, Tosh will find another top level WR. So I'm not worried about the talent at skill positions. What we are all worried about is the on field product Tosh is showcasing. If he can't win, talent means nothing
I just watched the first drive again where adam mohammed was cooking. We got to 3rd and 2 and threw the ball incomplete twice to turn it over on downs. Now I'm upset all over again.
That call by the OC on 3rd down and 1+ yards to go was TERRIBLE. Muhammed was getting plus yardage on all his carries and he should have gotten the ball then or some type of fake dive and then a quick pitch to the outside..
Sparse attendance in the stadium doesn’t help re recruitment either.
Definitely NOT sparse. It filled steadily thru Q1 as Cal fans/students are wont to do. Student section ultimately full. Whole stadium was alive, making noise, and staying engaged long past reason imho.
I don't know if I would call it sparse but it could definitely be better. With that said decades of mediocrity and irrelevance plus what the current product is gives no one any reason to fill the stadium. Win and they will show up.
Not sparse at all. Not a sellout but a good turnout. Student section was packed, until it wasn't.
Recruits leaving might be the one language we know Tosh understands.
Ok, the recruitment meltdown has begun. UCLA just wiped out Maryland 54-3. Cal was probably relatively lucky to catch them before they really got it in gear.
What Eric wrote is 🔥🔥 i
Back in March, I purchased two season tickets and contributed to the NIL fund. I had never bought season tickets as an alum (I live in Los Angeles) and I do not like the idea of NIL money buying players, but I bought into the hype. That Cal – consistently mediocre at 5-7/6-6/7-5 – just needed a talent upgrade and a good recruiter. Wilcox was an ok coach and had coached up barely recruited defensive players, but could never break through with what he had, and thus would never attract top level talent across the board to make us competitive for a successful season. Talent attracts talent and money is needed to keep talent. Wilcox had a potential breakthrough QB and took a gamble starting him as true freshman, which was unusual and yet welcome. We had some really great wins but an equal number of horrible losses last year, and the inability to recruit a decent o-line, wide receivers (DeJesus being an exception but he was not a deep threat WR), and a kicking game meant it would never get any better.
I totally bought in, especially when not only did Tosh retain JKS, but nabbed wide receivers and tight ends in transfer portal high demand and brought with him several highly regarded (albeit raw) defensive players from Oregon. To me, given the schedule and the talent, an 8-4 season was the floor. Anything equal to last season was, by definition, a failed season.
And I liked that he was calling at the fan base to show up for the marquee games – both in terms of money invested and butts in the seats for the opening game.
This was exceedingly high risk because if Cal failed to win early on – the nationally televised UCLA and Clemson games - he could lose the fan base. And risk losing quality players would be poached. And recruits who had signed on would start dropping. If you crank up the hype machine but it does not deliver, it is even more glaring. It took less than 18 hours for the first recruit to react.
Given this, I would have thought the effort to scheme out the game plans for both of these games would have been top priority and the players would get it. Like, under no circumstances would sloppy play, poor tackling, and idiotic coaching decisions determine why we would lose.
Boy, was I completely fooled. After the first drive of the UCLA game, it was obvious to me that the team was hopelessly ill-prepared on both sides of the ball. I could at least somewhat understand the defense – true turnover from last season and UCLA was way better than advertised (though we should have freaking planned for it) – but the offense was pathetic and special teams continued to be an embarrassment. What made it worse is that even when the running game was working – like in the first drive against UCLA – the coaching staff went away from it and it became apparent JKS was not comfortable. I could not believe that this coaching staff, in its first time on the field, at home, on national television, against an important rival, could have been done so little with so much.
If possible, the Syracuse game was worse because it took a superhuman effort by a single defensive player and Syracuse doing everything possible to lose that game for us to win, barely.
But the offense was actually worse than the UCLA game.
And Wagner. Sure, beat up on a terrible FCS team. But even that game was weak. We were favored by 58.5 points. We won by 42. We had dumb penalties. Our kicking game remained awful. And JKS could not hit downfield throws and there was almost nothing creative in the passing game. Throwing a bubble screen (a 15 yard throw down the line is itself very risky) so that the WR can run throw high-school level defenders for 80 yards gives me little comfort the offense was fixed.
Which brings me to last night. I stopped watching at the half because I knew it was over even though it was 10-7. Our defense had done reasonably well (other than not great tackling on broken player QB runs but still, well enough because Clemson rarely got first downs on first or second down). But the defense was obviously getting tired. And it was getting tired because (a) the offense was designed to do three and outs without regard to the effect on the defense and (b) special teams had an even worse game (if that is possible). The coaching went out of its way to make the one decent part of the team be in the worst possible position.
For what it is worth, Mohammed is a good running back. He runs hard and has decent vision. He rarely gets hit and goes down in the backfield. If he is gaining 4+ yards a carry, by definition we will win because if you just hand him the ball every time, every drive will carry forward. Is this simplistic thinking? Maybe, except that handing him the ball (i) by definition bleeds their defense so that by the second half they are gassed, not us; (ii) takes pressure off of JKS to make plays he for whatever reason cannot make this season; and (iii) helps our defense.
What summed it for me was the second drive, when it was 3 and 2 after a solid run and a short pass to Mini on second down. We empty set, which means we have absolutely limited our options to only a pass (unless a designe QB run, which this offense will not do with JKS) against a team that has NFL caliber defensive backs (just read Know the Enemy columns this week) but is not great against the run and had injuries to their d-line. So if course it fails. So we go for it on 4th down and it too fails. If we were always going to go for it on 4th down, why not run on the 3rd down?
The next drive (after we scored the defensive TD and then Clemson drove for the FG where special teams killed us on the offsides, which may have been the single most important play of the game because of the time suck on defense), we did a 1-yard pass (the long down the line out that does nothing against really good defensive backs), a 7-yard run (again, Mohammed being solid), and then, of course, another pass play on 3 and 2 and took a sack. So, after not having the ball for 7+ minutes, we go three and out with two pass plays.
All season long, JS has looked terrible. He has massively hurt his NFL stock. So, I guarantee you he is going to go to a school like Mendoza, Beck, Mensah, and others to improve his stock. Why wouldn’t he?
I wonder if a major reason why JKS has regressed so badly is that Somerville idiotically wants to run a pro-style offense when virtually no high school or college teams run it and are not prepared to run it. The top QBs drafted either spent a year on the bench learning the pro-style offense or are thrown in and go 1-15 (Aikman, Manning, for example) and then figure it out or become draft busts. But for a college player to learn a pro-style system in less than six months, with brand new players who each come from different teams, is insanity. Add to the very obvious fact Somerville is so far out of his element, I already know that this season is lost. If we got 6-6 now, I’d be shocked (and that is 6-6 including Wagner, a terrible Stanford team, and a fairly easy schedule).
Ron Rivera needs to take a long and hard look in the mirror and own this.
I agree with many of your conclusions, but I am confused as to why you thought Cal was hopeless from the first UCLA drive. Cal scored a touchdown on that drive.
Poor writing by me - AFTER the first drive. That first drive was good because it was run-oriented.
Comprehensively well said, Eric.
We shouldn’t be running a pro style offense in today’s rotating portal class. Need a system that’s easy to learn so new players can pick it up quick, build up a variety of plays and focus on fundamentals. Cal needs to move away from the current system and to play out of the shotgun, building few plays a week if necessary, but start the move now.
JKS is gone along with any high level recruits.
Please stop spending money on expensive QBs and receivers. Spend it on the lines and defense first. Even a good O line can make an average QB look really good, but a bad O line can certainly make a great QB look bad.
And a kicker.
After what he saw last night and really all year no surprise. If you count the three games not including the Wagner game, Cal has the worst offense in the ACC. There's no time any more to get it right, even RR said himself they have two years to become a winner. I say let Somerville go now and promote Rolovich, they can't afford to wait until the end of the year. I'm not putting this on the players, even the same guys (like Mini and King) that last year were frequently wide open can't get any separation this season. I'm not even sure that DeJesus could do much in this offense. The coaches devised an offensive strategy and a system that just doesn't work.
Wouldn't you? 🤷♂️🤬
Cal Fans: Farudo had a good column on the Sports Illustrated website which basically said what I posted last night: We are not ready for prime time but be patient. Lupoi is a good coach and I don't think that Nick Saban, Dan Lanning and numerous other coaches would have vouched for him if he was a disaster waiting to happen. The Farudo column reminded me that it took Bruce Snyder three years to build the team that defeated Clemson in the Ctirus Bowl. Cal faithful, stay strong!!!!! The Bear Does Not Quit!!!! The Bear Will Not Die!!!!! GO BEARS!!!!!! FOREVER!!!!!!!
What are you smoking? This was not what we were led to believe would happen if we wrote the checks that would result in the purchase of quality employees who would take Cal football to the promised land. This ain’t it and it seems the football gods have decided to banish Cal football to the hell of mediocrity forever!
Eric: I smoked the same Northern California shit that everyone in Berkeley smoked so maybe my judgement is cloudy. But, I also know that in this modern age of college football, eveybody expects new coaches to be the second coming of Curt Cignetti, which probably isn't very realistic.
UCLA looks like they got one.
Sycasey: You could be right. Let's see what happens next week at Oregon.
This is so pollyannish. Tosh did not inherit a terrible team like Snyder, Tedford and Dykes did. He inherited a very good team, armed with a lot of NIL money, that should go 8-4 at minimum. But it is not going to, and that is strictly coaching. This is more akin to Gilbertson inheriting a solid team in 1992 and screwing it up; sure, he did very well in 1993 but reverted back in 1994. The world has changed since 1992 and no coach has that kind of time.
Eric: Me? Pollyannish? I'm a Cal Fan so being pollyannish pretty much goes with the territory. Seriously, what other choice do we have but to give Tosh a chance?
A Cal fan's dashed hopes are Dave Barr getting injured, the dropped TD that was missed in 2002 against Carson Palmer, Mack Brown whoring himself to keep us out of the Rose Bowl, DeSean stepping out by a heel, the insanity of the Cheez-It Bowl, and no targeting call on Nando. But you are missing the issue here - it isn't us having horrible luck this season - it is a comprehensive failure by the coaching staff when we were led to believe otherwise. Giving "Tosh a chance" doesn't mean making excuses for poor coaching.
Check out UCLA. A worse season last year. A maligned returning QB. A less regarded transfer portal class (by a lot). And a new coach. But a coach who understood how critical it was to match his talent to the offense. UCLA looks likely it could actually now for the Big-10 (or at least a playoff spot).
Why isn't that us? Or should we "just give Tosh a chance"?
Eric: Yes, there was some bad playcalling last night but it is still early and I'm not writing the season off just yet. Yes, FUCLA seems to have better coaching but they are also playing most of the bottom half teams in the Big 10. I think we are going to find out how good they are when they play Oregon next week. We all need to take a deep breath and evaluate everything once the season is over. If it turns out that Tosh isn't going to be our savior, then we really have no choice but to wait for the next couple of years and then start over, which is somehting Cal Football has LOTS of experience doing. Sigh......
Let’s face it. We fans were sold a bill of goods that is not paying off. All the preseason hype, not to mention the millions raised by RR to put Cal football on the map and start a new post-Wilcox era, all that is now wasted!
The coaching staff clearly could not see the problems in the preseason and now they are obvious for all of us to see. This team has played terribly. Period. And I lay it at the feet of the coaching staff. Obviously, the lack of experience from the head coach on down is a big problem. Cal paid out millions in NIL money and for what?
Tosh Lupoi is reportedly being paid close to $2M! For what? To wear his hat on backwards and look like an idiot on the sidelines?
Yes, I am really pissed. I’ve been watching Cal football since my father took me to the 1958 Rose Bowl, which, of course Cal lost, to powerful Iowa! I went to the Garden State bowl in 1979 to watch Cal get beaten by another football powerhouse, Temple University. I was also in the stands for “The Play.” All of which is to say I’ve seen one hell of a lot of Cal football, and most of it, with a few years of exception during the Tedford years, as been mediocre at best and sometimes really terrible, like now!
The problem is that it’s clearly not just an offense that has generational talent at QB and cannot score largely because the hyped WRs seem completely incapable of getting separation and an OL that is just hopeless at pass protection. If Mohammed is out with an injury Cal will have pretty much no running game which will nicely complement our lack of a passing game.
Or there’s our defense that is only slightly better than the offense, but still makes big mistakes, can’t tackle worth sh&t, and has become expert at holding, pass interference, and personal foul penalties at the worst possible times.
To paraphrase James Carville, “It’s the coaching, Stupid!” Lupoi is in way over his head as is most of what is largely, at base, an inexperienced coaching staff made up of guys for whom their current position is a big step up and for several, a step for which they clearly had no business taking. I don’t know what Nick Saban was thinking when he supposedly told RR that Lupoi was ready to take on the head coaching job, but I have to believe Nick was distracted by painting walls, cooking pizza or talking to a duck.
Basically, we are f$@ked for this season unless there’s a miraculous turn around, though the Pope is busy in France so that’s doubtful. But it’s so much worse because of NIL and the portal. Cal will lose its best high school recruits who won’t want to bet their futures on what they see on the field. The better portal transfers will look elsewhere and the best of our current players will leave. What can Cal promise these kids? That things will get better? Sure, Cal has sent great players to the NFL in the past, but that won’t be enough to get today’s players to trust their futures to this particular coaching staff based on what they see on the field this year.
I am resigning myself to a year of sub-mediocre Cal football where the only possibility for a bright spot, and after last night it’s more remote than I would have thought, is a win over Stanford which would be a battle of the worsts! I figure maybe a win over UNLV but that could be a stretch, so it’s possible we’ll be looking at a 4-8 season when this travesty is (finally) over. I wish I could sound a note of hope, but the reality is we’re stuck with this hot mess of a train wreck inside a dumpster fire. I would not want to be RR and have to take the calls from the big donors who were tapped to bankroll this program — and they get to watch it all from the comfortable seats in the Chancellor’s box. Must be fun, fun for RR and Rich Lyons to get a direct earful from the money guys!
Like I said, we were sold a bunch of hype and allowed an inexperienced head coach to hire an inappropriate and inexperienced coaching staff. Hopeless doesn’t begin to describe the mess we are now in.
When it rains, it pours. Sigh..........
The pitchforks are coming out, for sure. I'd say give it some more time.
is it too late for me to reopen my recruitment too
Can't say I blame him.
This kind of thing would normally really upset me but… I mean yeah, fair enough.