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.
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.
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.
I'm wondering if the more hysterically freaked out Cal fans on this board started as Cal fans during the Tedford era. Those of us who were fans in the 90s or before have seen far worse than this and have a little perspective. What you think folks? Does the vintage of your Cal fandom affect your current level of horror?
I go back to the Marv Levy day. I've seen some seriously bad Cal teams. This vintage is not as awful as some but particularly frustrating. We're incapable of winning close games -- UNLV being the exception.
I spent my whole walk home from the stadium trying to figure out why Plummer didn't run for the first down on our last offensive play. From where we sit it looked like he could have made it with ease. Like I said, frustrating.
I think you nailed it. Holmoe teams were inept. I even remember a game where we had to kick off in both halves because they won the coin toss and elected to kick-off rather than defer the choice to the second half. These teams just leave you feeling frustrated by playing solid defense just competently enough to give you hope only to crush it at the end.
Agree to a point. One thing that doesn’t happen often under Wilcox teams are blowouts. I remember lots of blowouts under Holmoe. I don’t miss that at all. Not to mention the Davenport/Ainsworth scandal which kept the 2002 Cal team from a bowl. Holmoe teams couldn’t even commit academic fraud competently.
Sure, Wilcox doesn't get blown out. But does that excuse a 16-28 P12 record over 6 seasons? Dunno.
I had very little confidence in Tom Holmoe-coached teams to get a win...I feel the same way about Justin Wilcox-coached teams. Whether they're losing by 7 or 27, at the end of the day, it's a loss.
I've been afflicted since my freshman year in 1984. Most of the folks on this board were on the earlier board, California Golden Blogs. We've seen it all for decades. Nothing compares to the Holmoecaust.
Well, there was the Mouse Davis experience in Roger Theder's final year (...and 1986, even though we did win Big Game that year).
Yeah, there can be some comparison to 1981, especially since Davis, the OC who attempted to bring the Run-and-Shoot to Cal, was fired mid-season. Hmmm...so it can be done.
Of course, it wasn't his fault necessarily that Gale Gilbert broke his leg in the season opener that year against Texas A&M, shortly after leading the Bears to a 28-0 lead in the new offense. But J Torchio couldn't run the offense, and, because Cal, the Aggies came back to win 29-28. That was the harbinger.
Theder, trying to save his job once the team's season was immolating at 1-6, needed a scapegoat, so Davis--who did have success with his passing oriented offense with the likes of Neil Lomax and Jim Kelly, was offered up as a sacrifice. Unlike Wilcox, Theder had no loyalties to his OC, and canned him. It didn't work. Theder's eventual firing after the season led, of course, to Joe Kapp and we all know how that worked out.
Graduated HS in '92, but attended Cal games as a kid in the family section in the mid-80's.
We actually haven't seen far worse than this. We saw Holmoe, which was horrible, no doubt, but somewhat brief...other than that, Snyder, Gilbertson, Mooch, Tedford, Dykes all produced above average offense.
Unfortunately, Wilcox's offenses are very similar to Holmoe's in terms of futility...it's just that Wilcox's D are far more competent, which keeps us in games, but doesn't win many.
Holmoe's offenses were significantly worse. I remember going to games where we only got excited when the other team was on offense, since our D/ST were our only strengths. This offense has already won 3 times the games of the last year of Holmoe.
Sure, Holmoe's final season was brutal...1-10. Still, saying Holmoe's O was worse is simply a matter of semantics, as inept is inept, John. The offense under both coaches is inept.
Who cares if Cal has a better offense than Toledo or Akron.
There are 65 Power 5 schools in the country.
From a points per game standpoint (which is as good a metric as any to gauge the strength of your offense because you need to score points to win) Cal is 53rd. You could argue that this is skewed as well by the 49-point outlier v U of A.
Only Colorado, Iowa, Ga Tech, UVA, Northwestern, Va Tech, BC, Tx A & M, Auburn, Rutgers, Iowa St. score fewer points per game than Cal.
Roughly 82% of the P5 teams out there have a better offense, so yeah, that’s inept. Worse yet, they’re failing the eye test…watching all 4 losses, a sputtering offense is singlehandedly responsible for the outcome.
You can't just count certain conferences. Whether or not we measure up to the non-Power 5 teams matters too. And I really don't think the bottom 20% of anything, especially the bottom 20% of a group that consists of top teams that you've cherry-picked, means ineptitude. The bottom 5%, maybe 10% at most. To put it another way, we're averaging over 23 points a game. Not good, but inept is stretching it. We're in a tight group with the other mediocre but not disastrous offenses in the PAC--Stanfurd, WSU, and ASU. Colorado is way behind everyone at less than 14 a game--that's inept. In any case, I'm not trying to say everything is sunshine. I was just wondering if my theory about fans from the Holmoe era and before was true. I guess the answer is "mostly." You can't unsee Justin Vedder.
I attended during 1 year of Mooch and the rest Holmoe. That Colorado game was as bad as any horror of that era. Tonight's game was better than expected, especially given the injuries, but still very Holmoe-esque.
Holmoe had plenty of "tease" games like this, including beating USC sometimes. But you knew there was never any chance of him fielding a winner for a whole season.
And every once in a while they’d beat someone they shouldn’t have, like ranked UCLA in OT in 2000 only to follow it up with finding some incomprehensible way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against Washington.
Yeah, there are a lot of uncomfortable similarities right now.
That said, and to be fair: Holmoe never produced anything like Wilcox's 8-5 in 2019 (which almost certainly would have been better if our starting QB hadn't missed a bunch of games to injury in the middle of the season). So on that alone he's been better. But man, the last few seasons are looking very Holmoe-esque.
Exactly. The Hit Squad could keep things close if only the QB didn't get sacked 7 times a game. Had moments where we lost our best scoring option because they stopped kicking to Deltha.
With our stadium debt, shifting conference alignments and need to increase ticket sales / lucrative partnerships, Cal must do better to ensure its survival.
Exactly Dave. The changing landscape of college football, plus Cal’s own unique circumstances, make bowl eligibility a necessary revenue source.
For the 3rd consecutive year, this team is not bowling, in season 6. This is made more frustrating by the fact that a team that consistently struggles on the road had 7 home games that accompany an even year schedule, and still failed to get to .500.
My hope is that with his 3rd attempt at hiring an OC, Wilcox veers from this ‘pro-style’ nonsense and chooses an innovative play caller that incorporates some elements of the spread offense.
Agree. With the contract structured the way it is, Wilcox is staying for a few more years.
OC and OL Coach are gone and Wilcox has to come out of his conservative comfort zone and hand the keys to an innovative play-caller to restore some Offensive balance.
We don’t have the horses in the trenches to consistently win at the point of attack…it makes all offenses challenging, but especially one that relies on consistent execution.
Tedford awakened me to the possibility that Cal could be far more than mediocre. So, yes, decades of frustration, interrupted by a few years of renewed hope, but mediocrity is our normal state.
Well the offense finally showed up in the 2nd half after being MIA for the last 10 quarters. It was nice to see signs of offensive type substance at Memorial tonight, to bad it was too little, too late.
Defense did well enough playing BBDB in the first half but Uw made adjustments and was able to convert drives to TDs in the 2nd half.
I know Musgrave and Angus will be here next week and the rest of the season. I also know they won’t be here next season.
I don’t know if Wilcox will get his 3rd OC and OL hires right but I also know that even if he doesn’t, Wilcox will be here throughout 2025 regardless if he does get it right or wrong.
Wilcox will be at Cal for a long, long time regardless of his conference and overall W/L record all because he “gets Cal”, is a nice guy and turned down Oregon.
Someone needs to do an investigation on this whole, “Wilcox turned down the Oregon job”, business. That story makes absolutely no sense then and even less now.
I can believe it. They figured he is “one of them” and with high institutional support and top level offensive coaches and talent (all of which he would have there) he could be successful. I could see that. All we really know is that he is no better than mediocre at Cal. We don’t really know how we would do in some totally different situation.
The rumor I heard, from someone who claimed to have insider knowledge of the negotiations, was that Wilcox would not have had final say on recruits. He didn't want to be stuck coaching players that he didn't want to coach, no matter how talented they might be. That's why he rejected Oregon's offer.
Living in Oregon, I know a lot of Duck fans. Some that have close ties to the program believe that they made an offer to JW that he would never accept (he would have little say in hiring assistant coaches) as a way to appease all of the alums (Herbert, Marriota,etc) that signed the letter calling for UofO to hire someone with ties to the university (ie JW). With the unacceptable offer they could say they tried. No idea if this is true but they clearly were not willing to give him control of the football program which was a smart move.
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
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.
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?
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.
That was why I agreed with the strategy to slow it down on our last scoring drive midway through the 4th. Go slow and score, get the stop, then go slow and score again to get it to overtime. No other scenario (with multiple UW possessions) with this team would realistically get us there. Almost worked.. But our offensive line simply cant block and there isnt much you can do with that.
Yep, in close games where the team has to reach deep to win, in more cases than not, we will falter. Plummer's last futile pass is emblematic of our wilting nature.
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.
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.
Another week, another loss to a better coached team.
But it was fun to watch a well-coached team with some creative plays. Too bad our OC is 70's old school.
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 💙🐻💛🏈💙🪓❤️
Kitties: "Aunt Jeri must have seen a mouse."
College football is a business. Cal needs to take care of business.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Knowlton has different priorities...winning is secondary.
I'm wondering if the more hysterically freaked out Cal fans on this board started as Cal fans during the Tedford era. Those of us who were fans in the 90s or before have seen far worse than this and have a little perspective. What you think folks? Does the vintage of your Cal fandom affect your current level of horror?
I go back to the Marv Levy day. I've seen some seriously bad Cal teams. This vintage is not as awful as some but particularly frustrating. We're incapable of winning close games -- UNLV being the exception.
I spent my whole walk home from the stadium trying to figure out why Plummer didn't run for the first down on our last offensive play. From where we sit it looked like he could have made it with ease. Like I said, frustrating.
It was the anti-Riley moment. Clipboards flying up from the ground.
I think you nailed it. Holmoe teams were inept. I even remember a game where we had to kick off in both halves because they won the coin toss and elected to kick-off rather than defer the choice to the second half. These teams just leave you feeling frustrated by playing solid defense just competently enough to give you hope only to crush it at the end.
I was at that game.
There are many parallels between Holmoe and Wilcox...defense-first, high quality dudes but they absolutely cannot produce a competent offense.
Agree to a point. One thing that doesn’t happen often under Wilcox teams are blowouts. I remember lots of blowouts under Holmoe. I don’t miss that at all. Not to mention the Davenport/Ainsworth scandal which kept the 2002 Cal team from a bowl. Holmoe teams couldn’t even commit academic fraud competently.
Sure, Wilcox doesn't get blown out. But does that excuse a 16-28 P12 record over 6 seasons? Dunno.
I had very little confidence in Tom Holmoe-coached teams to get a win...I feel the same way about Justin Wilcox-coached teams. Whether they're losing by 7 or 27, at the end of the day, it's a loss.
I think Plummer was, once again, playing injured. He did not take QB run option in any plays I saw, but, maybe, I missed that.
I've been afflicted since my freshman year in 1984. Most of the folks on this board were on the earlier board, California Golden Blogs. We've seen it all for decades. Nothing compares to the Holmoecaust.
Well, there was the Mouse Davis experience in Roger Theder's final year (...and 1986, even though we did win Big Game that year).
Yeah, there can be some comparison to 1981, especially since Davis, the OC who attempted to bring the Run-and-Shoot to Cal, was fired mid-season. Hmmm...so it can be done.
Of course, it wasn't his fault necessarily that Gale Gilbert broke his leg in the season opener that year against Texas A&M, shortly after leading the Bears to a 28-0 lead in the new offense. But J Torchio couldn't run the offense, and, because Cal, the Aggies came back to win 29-28. That was the harbinger.
Theder, trying to save his job once the team's season was immolating at 1-6, needed a scapegoat, so Davis--who did have success with his passing oriented offense with the likes of Neil Lomax and Jim Kelly, was offered up as a sacrifice. Unlike Wilcox, Theder had no loyalties to his OC, and canned him. It didn't work. Theder's eventual firing after the season led, of course, to Joe Kapp and we all know how that worked out.
Freshman year 2003. I tell people I came in same year as Aaron Rodgers.
Graduated HS in '92, but attended Cal games as a kid in the family section in the mid-80's.
We actually haven't seen far worse than this. We saw Holmoe, which was horrible, no doubt, but somewhat brief...other than that, Snyder, Gilbertson, Mooch, Tedford, Dykes all produced above average offense.
Unfortunately, Wilcox's offenses are very similar to Holmoe's in terms of futility...it's just that Wilcox's D are far more competent, which keeps us in games, but doesn't win many.
Holmoe's offenses were significantly worse. I remember going to games where we only got excited when the other team was on offense, since our D/ST were our only strengths. This offense has already won 3 times the games of the last year of Holmoe.
Sure, Holmoe's final season was brutal...1-10. Still, saying Holmoe's O was worse is simply a matter of semantics, as inept is inept, John. The offense under both coaches is inept.
Holmoe was worse but if that is the bar for acceptable levels of coaching (just being better than our worst coach ever is ok) then we are truly fucked
Cal's offense is mediocre, but it's still better than about 40% of FBS teams. Are you saying 40% of FBS teams have inept offenses?
Who cares if Cal has a better offense than Toledo or Akron.
There are 65 Power 5 schools in the country.
From a points per game standpoint (which is as good a metric as any to gauge the strength of your offense because you need to score points to win) Cal is 53rd. You could argue that this is skewed as well by the 49-point outlier v U of A.
Only Colorado, Iowa, Ga Tech, UVA, Northwestern, Va Tech, BC, Tx A & M, Auburn, Rutgers, Iowa St. score fewer points per game than Cal.
Roughly 82% of the P5 teams out there have a better offense, so yeah, that’s inept. Worse yet, they’re failing the eye test…watching all 4 losses, a sputtering offense is singlehandedly responsible for the outcome.
Side note - the ACC is BBBBAAAADDDDDD.
You can't just count certain conferences. Whether or not we measure up to the non-Power 5 teams matters too. And I really don't think the bottom 20% of anything, especially the bottom 20% of a group that consists of top teams that you've cherry-picked, means ineptitude. The bottom 5%, maybe 10% at most. To put it another way, we're averaging over 23 points a game. Not good, but inept is stretching it. We're in a tight group with the other mediocre but not disastrous offenses in the PAC--Stanfurd, WSU, and ASU. Colorado is way behind everyone at less than 14 a game--that's inept. In any case, I'm not trying to say everything is sunshine. I was just wondering if my theory about fans from the Holmoe era and before was true. I guess the answer is "mostly." You can't unsee Justin Vedder.
Yes. I remember the crowd cheering for punts so Deltha O’Neal could have a chance to score on punt returns.
The Delta hand sign was also the perfect level of nerdiness for us.
Freshman year was 2000.
I attended during 1 year of Mooch and the rest Holmoe. That Colorado game was as bad as any horror of that era. Tonight's game was better than expected, especially given the injuries, but still very Holmoe-esque.
Holmoe had plenty of "tease" games like this, including beating USC sometimes. But you knew there was never any chance of him fielding a winner for a whole season.
And every once in a while they’d beat someone they shouldn’t have, like ranked UCLA in OT in 2000 only to follow it up with finding some incomprehensible way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against Washington.
Yeah, there are a lot of uncomfortable similarities right now.
That said, and to be fair: Holmoe never produced anything like Wilcox's 8-5 in 2019 (which almost certainly would have been better if our starting QB hadn't missed a bunch of games to injury in the middle of the season). So on that alone he's been better. But man, the last few seasons are looking very Holmoe-esque.
Same with Wilcox…these razor thin margins for error make it tough to win consistently.
Exactly. The Hit Squad could keep things close if only the QB didn't get sacked 7 times a game. Had moments where we lost our best scoring option because they stopped kicking to Deltha.
That's what he said. 1 year of Mooch.
The past does not apply to the current day.
With our stadium debt, shifting conference alignments and need to increase ticket sales / lucrative partnerships, Cal must do better to ensure its survival.
Exactly Dave. The changing landscape of college football, plus Cal’s own unique circumstances, make bowl eligibility a necessary revenue source.
For the 3rd consecutive year, this team is not bowling, in season 6. This is made more frustrating by the fact that a team that consistently struggles on the road had 7 home games that accompany an even year schedule, and still failed to get to .500.
My hope is that with his 3rd attempt at hiring an OC, Wilcox veers from this ‘pro-style’ nonsense and chooses an innovative play caller that incorporates some elements of the spread offense.
Agree. With the contract structured the way it is, Wilcox is staying for a few more years.
OC and OL Coach are gone and Wilcox has to come out of his conservative comfort zone and hand the keys to an innovative play-caller to restore some Offensive balance.
We don’t have the horses in the trenches to consistently win at the point of attack…it makes all offenses challenging, but especially one that relies on consistent execution.
Rhome seems to keep coming up.
But, honestly, how do we improve the O line without disparaging them as though they have no talent or potential?
I keep coming back to play calling and scheme.
There are things an OC can do to help a struggling OL...Musgrave is just not doing them.
Jack Plummer is not better than average. He's actually below average.
Fan since I entered Cal, 1976.
Tedford awakened me to the possibility that Cal could be far more than mediocre. So, yes, decades of frustration, interrupted by a few years of renewed hope, but mediocrity is our normal state.
Well the offense finally showed up in the 2nd half after being MIA for the last 10 quarters. It was nice to see signs of offensive type substance at Memorial tonight, to bad it was too little, too late.
Defense did well enough playing BBDB in the first half but Uw made adjustments and was able to convert drives to TDs in the 2nd half.
I know Musgrave and Angus will be here next week and the rest of the season. I also know they won’t be here next season.
I don’t know if Wilcox will get his 3rd OC and OL hires right but I also know that even if he doesn’t, Wilcox will be here throughout 2025 regardless if he does get it right or wrong.
Wilcox will be at Cal for a long, long time regardless of his conference and overall W/L record all because he “gets Cal”, is a nice guy and turned down Oregon.
Someone needs to do an investigation on this whole, “Wilcox turned down the Oregon job”, business. That story makes absolutely no sense then and even less now.
I can believe it. They figured he is “one of them” and with high institutional support and top level offensive coaches and talent (all of which he would have there) he could be successful. I could see that. All we really know is that he is no better than mediocre at Cal. We don’t really know how we would do in some totally different situation.
The rumor I heard, from someone who claimed to have insider knowledge of the negotiations, was that Wilcox would not have had final say on recruits. He didn't want to be stuck coaching players that he didn't want to coach, no matter how talented they might be. That's why he rejected Oregon's offer.
Interesting.
Love the clickbait banner with the following headline:
"Marshawn Lynch Accidentally Drops F-Bomb During Cal Game on ESPN"
No sense whatsoever.
Living in Oregon, I know a lot of Duck fans. Some that have close ties to the program believe that they made an offer to JW that he would never accept (he would have little say in hiring assistant coaches) as a way to appease all of the alums (Herbert, Marriota,etc) that signed the letter calling for UofO to hire someone with ties to the university (ie JW). With the unacceptable offer they could say they tried. No idea if this is true but they clearly were not willing to give him control of the football program which was a smart move.
This describes the passive-obstructive technique Cal admin engages in. Very believable. Makes me wonder how they landed with Lanning.
Interesting that "ties to the university" seems notably absent from Lanning's hiring criteria:
https://www.opb.org/article/2021/12/13/university-of-oregon-officially-introduces-its-new-head-football-coach/
You mean as he was DC at Georgia, now, promoted to HC?
Oregon fans are a lot like USC fans in that they don’t care about integrity as long as he can recruit! Fuck Tosh.
So since he turned down Oregon he gets a pass for a losing record and making millions of dollars?
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.
IS IT POSSIBLE WILCOX'S MAIN FAILURE IS LACK OF RECRUITING EFFECTIVELY OR EFFICIENTLY. AT LEAST HE SUFFERS AS MUCH AS WE DO! GERBEAR
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cal just isn't built to win shootouts. Or what passes for a shootout when Cal is involved.
That was why I agreed with the strategy to slow it down on our last scoring drive midway through the 4th. Go slow and score, get the stop, then go slow and score again to get it to overtime. No other scenario (with multiple UW possessions) with this team would realistically get us there. Almost worked.. But our offensive line simply cant block and there isnt much you can do with that.
This is the wrong Conference to have a futile offense.
Washington probably has the 2nd worst D we'll face all year.
Yep, in close games where the team has to reach deep to win, in more cases than not, we will falter. Plummer's last futile pass is emblematic of our wilting nature.
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