This has to end sooner rather than later. Wilcox is a really nice guy but a nice guy who just can't deliver, can't put together a winning group of assistant coaches, and can't seem to recruit enough good players to build a winning program is not worth the millions we pay him. This NIL world in which D1/Power4-5 teams are now playing requires someone who understands the college game and can recruit outstanding high school players while poaching good players from other teams via the portal. If the program isn't strong enough to hold the nucleus of good players for more than a year, then it's a whack-a-mole forever situation where you're constantly having to rebuild every year and teach the system to a whole new set of players (sound familiar).. That just isn't sustainable if the goal is a winning program. I don't mean to underestimate how difficult this is for any coach with a sub-prime team -- even Nick Saban has commented about how nuts the college game has become with NIL and all the big money that's necessary to feed a major D1 program. I am assuming that Ron is going to fire Wilcox at the end of the season, though if Cal loses to VT I'd like to see it a lot sooner, and that he is already scouting a potential replacement, something that won't be easy in the context of other opportunities that we know are already available to coaches who may be looking to move. So, I guess we will just have to hang on and see "what's next."
I wonder what the odds of winning are for a team traveling cross country against a home team coming off a bye. Probably good for a 7 point advantage.
Great question! It's usually about four to five points, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, is where the line was yesterday (Oct. 23).
From the data I've seen:
- Typical home-field advantage in college football is 2.5 or 3 points
- Home-field advantage for some schools (most of the SEC, Penn State, Oregon) increases and is 4 or 4.5 points
- Typical travel penalty (cross-country or two or more time zones) is 0.5 or 1 point
- Typical bye week advantage is 0.5 or 1 point
Ron said "eight wins is a good season...."
6-6, 5-7, 7-5 take your pick, but 8-4 is a pipe dream with this crew. If they lose to VT, it’s all down hill from there and lucky to beat Stanford.
Well then we know what's next. Its very simple.
This has to end sooner rather than later. Wilcox is a really nice guy but a nice guy who just can't deliver, can't put together a winning group of assistant coaches, and can't seem to recruit enough good players to build a winning program is not worth the millions we pay him. This NIL world in which D1/Power4-5 teams are now playing requires someone who understands the college game and can recruit outstanding high school players while poaching good players from other teams via the portal. If the program isn't strong enough to hold the nucleus of good players for more than a year, then it's a whack-a-mole forever situation where you're constantly having to rebuild every year and teach the system to a whole new set of players (sound familiar).. That just isn't sustainable if the goal is a winning program. I don't mean to underestimate how difficult this is for any coach with a sub-prime team -- even Nick Saban has commented about how nuts the college game has become with NIL and all the big money that's necessary to feed a major D1 program. I am assuming that Ron is going to fire Wilcox at the end of the season, though if Cal loses to VT I'd like to see it a lot sooner, and that he is already scouting a potential replacement, something that won't be easy in the context of other opportunities that we know are already available to coaches who may be looking to move. So, I guess we will just have to hang on and see "what's next."
The question is whether or not we're prepared to pay the $8M-$10M a year that's required for a competitive coach? And that's without staff salaries.