Well it worked. He wrote me back too. I specifically asked him about the university buying housing for the use of assistant coaches to help compensate for Bay Area housing prices and he said, “ You (sic) idea is spot on and something we have been investigating over the last year. Stanford, as a private school, has a lot more flexibility than we do with respect to these type of initiatives but we are working on options and I talked to a major donor today about this opportunity (he gives to both Stanford and Cal and has played a role in their housing for assistant coaches).”
Cal is 1-8 in 1 score games the last 2 seasons. This is unusually bad luck. I agree with getting rid of Musgrave, but I think getting rid of Wilcox would be a bad move.
That may be more of long-term trend, related to a tendency to wilt under pressure to finish. In the 1970s, I was never confident, unless Cal was up by two or three scores and that remains through today.
Fair. And if we're being honest, Wilcox is not going anywhere after Knowlton handed him that puzzling extension.
But the dude clearly needs a mentor...he is a high quality guy, and one I'm sure parents are very comfortable entrusting the leadership of their kids to. But he is not a very good head coach right now...there's something missing from this squad from an organizational and leadership perspective.
remember when they outnumbered us on the short side of the field, our safety saw it, we called a timeout to talk about it, then didn't change anything and gave up a TD anyways
SEEMS LIKE CAL HAD FIFTEEN MEN ON THE FIELD..VIZ. ELEVEN WITH HELMITS PLUS FOUR OFFICALS WHO PENALIZED WASHINGTON ENOUGH TO KEEP CAL IN THE GAME. GERBEAR
The zebras were trying to make up for the Immaculate conroachment call at ND. But, yeah, they tend, often, to favor the home crowd.
OR (my own emerging conspiracy theory) was there a behind-the-scenes memo to make up to Cal for some undisclosed corrupt calls by PAC 12 refs in the past?
Honestly, it would make some sense, because we never get breaks like this.
I’ll say this after watching the Sac State/Montana game. I didn’t realize Troy Taylor was only in his third season. He took a middling FCS program at a commuter school with little to no historical tradition and made them nationally relevant his first season, going to the FCS playoffs for the first time in program history. In Season 2 they won the Big Sky going undefeated in conference play and made it to round 2 of the playoffs. Now they’re 7-0 for the first time ever. That’s significant because it means he’s doing it largely with other people’s players, and doing it with inferior talent to players probably found at historically successful FCS powerhouses. I don’t know if what he’s doing will work in FBS, but that tells me he knows how to coach up what he has vs producing middling results in a never ending rebuild project. His teams are fun to watch too.
I would be very curious to listen in on conversations that Wilcox and Musgrave have about Cal's offense. I would imagine more insightful conversations happen between 1st graders. This offense is so bad that even when we have multiple good skill position players (Ott, Sturdivant, Hunter, Anderson) it looks completely incompetent. I would not blame any of the four guys mentioned above for entering the transfer portal, while I would like them to stay, I can also sympathize with wanting to be in an offense that properly schemes for them. I would say fire Wilcox, but we all know with Knowlton still as AD we will end up with the Marx Fox of football, which is even worse than Wilcox. Need a new AD before football can even have hopes of being a middling team that can go 6-6 and make low level bowl games.
Regarding Marshawn calling out the fans for not showing up - if it is a worthwhile product on the field fans will pay for it. It's a chicken or the egg problem. Alternative thought: maybe Cal should open up the empty parts of the stadium and offer free admission. That way when the cameras pan the stands it won't look so empty. Since the majority of the money generated for the program comes from TV revenue (and indirectly supports the non-revenue "championship" sports) why not give it a try? Thoughts?
Nah, it's terrible marketing. If you have bad marketing, you rely upon the product on the field. If you know how to market your product, you keep those butts there because of a number of things: the total game experience. The sense that you're part of something. To see friends. Etc. Our athletic department is stuck in the 20th Century and can't get out of that mindset.
And virtually every pro sports team has a marketing team. On top of that, most all pro sports teams have buy-in activities that keep attendees engaged- look at AT&T (or whatever it is, now), because there will be boring parts of almost any sports event and little extras for those less ardent fans can help make the experience more positive. Cal Football should think of the "customer" more than it does, now.
Someone else mentioned parking. Yes, it is not easy and nor is public transportation.
I would be there every week. I can not afford to go to the games right now - just a problem since pandemic hit. And watching Cal play every week is something I look forward to, even if on TV!
Even though I am pretty sure I scared the 2 kitties I’m kitty-sitting for because of my loud cheering (ok they say ‘yelling’, I say ‘cheering passionately’)…#GoBears 💙🐻💛🏈💙🪓❤️
There are many ways to camouflage free tickets. Prizes for local media, hey, including W4C, could do giveaways, contests, or drawings. That way the "free tickets" are somehow "earned" (#EarnIt) or won.
Fun Fact: The publicity builds hype. Often a certain percentage of those who do not earn it or win, have the thought planted and still attend the game. Not sure if watching Oregon murder us will win them as life-long, fans who regularly attend, but who knows? There's only two national program, football teams in the North Bay and only one in the East Bay. Look how the 49er faithful suffered through their "wilderness years."
Sort of a cost benefit analysis needs to be done. Obviously filling up the stadium would generate more eyeballs both at the game and on TV. Time to admit that the media rights are paying the freight. There could be Bear backer premium sections which generate revenue.
Honestly, my whole buy-in with WIlcox was that it signaled a systemic, cultural rebuild into a competitive team that we all want. I am still inclined to be patient with JW, but, much like Plummer taking time he does not have while in the pocket, JW seems slow, too slow, to pull the trigger on the tough decisions. And, unfortunately, that works against him for the sake of fan support. I could live with it if we were seeing results by now.
I think the campus leadership's, as well as the greater community's, tendencies to hobble and throttle football success is, at present, appearing. Wilcox has trouble recruiting talent that also is capable of the academic rigors Cal presents, as well as working under the arbitrary limits on admission exceptions for recruits.
Yesterday, I was secretly rooting for UCLA, since they are, after all, the "Number 1 Public University" and if they can have a competitive football program, then so should we. I get that Wilcox has been setback by forces beyond his control, but the program, if progressing, should not quite look like this, now, six years later. So, if it's a long game, it may be a miscalculation that we can endure the damage to our brand name and reputation, in the meantime. Think how much next year will be set back if we do lose some our better players in the transfer portal.
We were aided throughout the game by UW drops and penalties, some a little questionable late. I think we're still reaping the karmic backlash from the ND offsides penalty.
Honestly? It's better that we lose out this year. Bottoming out seems to be the only thing that convinces the Cal administration that major changes are needed.
Yeah, that game looks maybe 50-50. We might catch UCLA napping on a short week coming off USC, but I wouldn't bet on it. The others don't look good. We don't have the horses to hang with Oregon or SC, and I'm skeptical that we can get much going at Oregon State considering how inept we were in our last two road games against weaker teams.
Stanford is probably the last game that we have a legitimate shot to win, leaving us at 4-8 for the season in year 6 of the Wilcox era. Is that good enough folks?
New Cal loss. Now with less depressing!
What is the AD’s email? He’s the only one not listed on the website and I heard he actually writes back.
The Berkeley directory has him at jim.knowlton at berkeley.edu. I have never received a response from him, though, so it might not be his current one.
Well it worked. He wrote me back too. I specifically asked him about the university buying housing for the use of assistant coaches to help compensate for Bay Area housing prices and he said, “ You (sic) idea is spot on and something we have been investigating over the last year. Stanford, as a private school, has a lot more flexibility than we do with respect to these type of initiatives but we are working on options and I talked to a major donor today about this opportunity (he gives to both Stanford and Cal and has played a role in their housing for assistant coaches).”
It’s something at least.
He does.
His go-to though is to blame COVID for all the ills that befall the Department.
Cal is 1-8 in 1 score games the last 2 seasons. This is unusually bad luck. I agree with getting rid of Musgrave, but I think getting rid of Wilcox would be a bad move.
That may be more of long-term trend, related to a tendency to wilt under pressure to finish. In the 1970s, I was never confident, unless Cal was up by two or three scores and that remains through today.
Fair. And if we're being honest, Wilcox is not going anywhere after Knowlton handed him that puzzling extension.
But the dude clearly needs a mentor...he is a high quality guy, and one I'm sure parents are very comfortable entrusting the leadership of their kids to. But he is not a very good head coach right now...there's something missing from this squad from an organizational and leadership perspective.
remember when they outnumbered us on the short side of the field, our safety saw it, we called a timeout to talk about it, then didn't change anything and gave up a TD anyways
And burned a time out.
SEEMS LIKE CAL HAD FIFTEEN MEN ON THE FIELD..VIZ. ELEVEN WITH HELMITS PLUS FOUR OFFICALS WHO PENALIZED WASHINGTON ENOUGH TO KEEP CAL IN THE GAME. GERBEAR
The zebras were trying to make up for the Immaculate conroachment call at ND. But, yeah, they tend, often, to favor the home crowd.
OR (my own emerging conspiracy theory) was there a behind-the-scenes memo to make up to Cal for some undisclosed corrupt calls by PAC 12 refs in the past?
Honestly, it would make some sense, because we never get breaks like this.
“Whenever you’re faced with an explanation of what’s going on ..., the choice between incompetence and conspiracy, always choose incompetence.”
— Charles Krauthammer
IS IT POSSIBLE WILCOX'S MAIN FAILURE IS LACK OF RECRUITING EFFECTIVELY OR EFFICIENTLY. AT LEAST HE SUFFERS AS MUCH AS WE DO! GERBEAR
We are not just bad, we are boring and bad. Tough to fill the stands with that combo.
Yes, a winning boring team would be more palatable.
This team could win 6-3 every game and if they got to 6 wins and a bowl, I'd be pumped
They basically were doing that in 2018. It was maddening and glorious all at the same time. Then Cheez-it happened...
I’ll say this after watching the Sac State/Montana game. I didn’t realize Troy Taylor was only in his third season. He took a middling FCS program at a commuter school with little to no historical tradition and made them nationally relevant his first season, going to the FCS playoffs for the first time in program history. In Season 2 they won the Big Sky going undefeated in conference play and made it to round 2 of the playoffs. Now they’re 7-0 for the first time ever. That’s significant because it means he’s doing it largely with other people’s players, and doing it with inferior talent to players probably found at historically successful FCS powerhouses. I don’t know if what he’s doing will work in FBS, but that tells me he knows how to coach up what he has vs producing middling results in a never ending rebuild project. His teams are fun to watch too.
I would be very curious to listen in on conversations that Wilcox and Musgrave have about Cal's offense. I would imagine more insightful conversations happen between 1st graders. This offense is so bad that even when we have multiple good skill position players (Ott, Sturdivant, Hunter, Anderson) it looks completely incompetent. I would not blame any of the four guys mentioned above for entering the transfer portal, while I would like them to stay, I can also sympathize with wanting to be in an offense that properly schemes for them. I would say fire Wilcox, but we all know with Knowlton still as AD we will end up with the Marx Fox of football, which is even worse than Wilcox. Need a new AD before football can even have hopes of being a middling team that can go 6-6 and make low level bowl games.
Knowlton has different priorities...winning is secondary.
It did look good in the third quarter though.
Yes, and naturally, at that point, the defense began to crack apart enough to let UW start to score TDs.
Regarding Marshawn calling out the fans for not showing up - if it is a worthwhile product on the field fans will pay for it. It's a chicken or the egg problem. Alternative thought: maybe Cal should open up the empty parts of the stadium and offer free admission. That way when the cameras pan the stands it won't look so empty. Since the majority of the money generated for the program comes from TV revenue (and indirectly supports the non-revenue "championship" sports) why not give it a try? Thoughts?
College football is a business. Cal needs to take care of business.
Nah, it's terrible marketing. If you have bad marketing, you rely upon the product on the field. If you know how to market your product, you keep those butts there because of a number of things: the total game experience. The sense that you're part of something. To see friends. Etc. Our athletic department is stuck in the 20th Century and can't get out of that mindset.
And virtually every pro sports team has a marketing team. On top of that, most all pro sports teams have buy-in activities that keep attendees engaged- look at AT&T (or whatever it is, now), because there will be boring parts of almost any sports event and little extras for those less ardent fans can help make the experience more positive. Cal Football should think of the "customer" more than it does, now.
Someone else mentioned parking. Yes, it is not easy and nor is public transportation.
I would be there every week. I can not afford to go to the games right now - just a problem since pandemic hit. And watching Cal play every week is something I look forward to, even if on TV!
Even though I am pretty sure I scared the 2 kitties I’m kitty-sitting for because of my loud cheering (ok they say ‘yelling’, I say ‘cheering passionately’)…#GoBears 💙🐻💛🏈💙🪓❤️
Kitties: "Aunt Jeri must have seen a mouse."
But how does free admission work? Everything on the east side is free?
Just a thought.
There are many ways to camouflage free tickets. Prizes for local media, hey, including W4C, could do giveaways, contests, or drawings. That way the "free tickets" are somehow "earned" (#EarnIt) or won.
Fun Fact: The publicity builds hype. Often a certain percentage of those who do not earn it or win, have the thought planted and still attend the game. Not sure if watching Oregon murder us will win them as life-long, fans who regularly attend, but who knows? There's only two national program, football teams in the North Bay and only one in the East Bay. Look how the 49er faithful suffered through their "wilderness years."
Give Marshawn a pile to hand out. Dude will have a whip caravan the entire length of Telegraph.
Makes sense. As I recall, student passes were a bargain to begin with and I doubt they make much from the passes.
And that might go to the Student Union or somehow divided with The Rally Committee.
You can't make people pay for seats, and then on the day of, allow people to come in for free. No one will buy tickets
Sort of a cost benefit analysis needs to be done. Obviously filling up the stadium would generate more eyeballs both at the game and on TV. Time to admit that the media rights are paying the freight. There could be Bear backer premium sections which generate revenue.
save the embarrassment of giving away all free tickets and STILL having an empty stadium
Hmmm... Could happen I guess
Yes, Oregon is a perfect example of this.
In the 1970s, anyway, Oregon, OSU, WSU, and, occasionally, Washington, all used to be kind of a joke, while Cal was at the top of the mediocres.
But, they (alll, but Cal) got tired of mediocrity and, eventually, prioritized football and, now, look at their stadiums, packed with fans.
What surprised me was how long a leash Rich Brooks got up in Eugene with that mediocrity…like 14 seasons before he righted the ship.
That’s probably Knowlton’s plan with Wilcox….
Honestly, my whole buy-in with WIlcox was that it signaled a systemic, cultural rebuild into a competitive team that we all want. I am still inclined to be patient with JW, but, much like Plummer taking time he does not have while in the pocket, JW seems slow, too slow, to pull the trigger on the tough decisions. And, unfortunately, that works against him for the sake of fan support. I could live with it if we were seeing results by now.
I think the campus leadership's, as well as the greater community's, tendencies to hobble and throttle football success is, at present, appearing. Wilcox has trouble recruiting talent that also is capable of the academic rigors Cal presents, as well as working under the arbitrary limits on admission exceptions for recruits.
Yesterday, I was secretly rooting for UCLA, since they are, after all, the "Number 1 Public University" and if they can have a competitive football program, then so should we. I get that Wilcox has been setback by forces beyond his control, but the program, if progressing, should not quite look like this, now, six years later. So, if it's a long game, it may be a miscalculation that we can endure the damage to our brand name and reputation, in the meantime. Think how much next year will be set back if we do lose some our better players in the transfer portal.
Very well said.
The morning after reaction. https://twitter.com/Gabriele_Corno/status/1584120998357790720?s=20&t=LC3Nm2iD7__mQ6aHYl0FJw
LOL. And seven years (more) of bad luck.
https://media.giphy.com/media/7sN1E4GmLMqebhc8wL/giphy.gif
The highlight of the game was Marshawn Lynch and his return to the cart for a ride around Memorial Stadium. Gained more yards than Cal’s rushing game.
I’m an alum who hasn’t been to a game in years. Getting called out by His Beastness makes me ashamed. Gotta get back to Strawberry Canyon this season.
That MFer *shocked face,* showed up!
"He's a bad mother f...."
BAMF
Straight outta' Oakland.
Surprised at the score, not surprised at the result.
Didn’t watch, didn’t care.
Apathy has set in and if Cal starts to lose long-time, (former) diehards like me, the program is in trouble.
Probably not too many wide shots of the stands.
I agree. I am there too. Long time fan. Even cared through the Holmoe years. This is the worst I have felt about being a fan.
We were aided throughout the game by UW drops and penalties, some a little questionable late. I think we're still reaping the karmic backlash from the ND offsides penalty.
The Immaculate Encroachment continues to both curse and bless us. To what saint should we pray for intervention?
We rush 4 and yet WR is always wide open. Where is the coverage?
UW rushes 3 or 4 and constantly gets pressure on Plummer.
Honestly? It's better that we lose out this year. Bottoming out seems to be the only thing that convinces the Cal administration that major changes are needed.
Agreed, sy…5-7 gets us status quo from this Cal leadership group.
5-7 is an aspirational goal for this Coach / Team.
I’m hoping for a win against Stanford that ruins their chance at a bowl game.
Yeah, that game looks maybe 50-50. We might catch UCLA napping on a short week coming off USC, but I wouldn't bet on it. The others don't look good. We don't have the horses to hang with Oregon or SC, and I'm skeptical that we can get much going at Oregon State considering how inept we were in our last two road games against weaker teams.
Stanford is probably the last game that we have a legitimate shot to win, leaving us at 4-8 for the season in year 6 of the Wilcox era. Is that good enough folks?
No, but good enough for many "mediocre-is-our-goal" folks to rationalize that the dumpster fire is fine.
Wilcox now has losses to the following coaches this season:
1. Interim head coach (Colorado)
1. First year head coach (Notre Dame)
2. First year Pac12 coaches (WSU* & UW)
I expect him to lose to another 1st year HC when we play Oregon and he loses to Lanning.
He will also lose to another 1st year Pac12 coach when we play USC and loses to Riley.
Wilcox is running out of Pac12 coaches he can beat, despite being the 3rd longest tenured Pac12 coach.
*WSU HC was their interim coach last season when he beat Wilcox so this isn’t his first year with HC experience.
Rolovich was still the HC when Cal lost to WSU last year. Dickert was the DC
That’s right, he was fired right after the Cal game.
For non-football reasons.
Well it sure wasn’t because he lost to Cal.
Nope...they blitzed the hell out of us...the game was not competitive after the 2Q.