Think he knew this was coming and decided to bail first? Like you mentioned, this could be just the start. When your fearless, I thought, leader abandons you, why should anyone stick around?
I'm there with you on this. Until today, there was no bigger Fernando supporter than me, but loyalty means a lot. Loyalty was lacking in his "statement;" it sounded like it was written by a speechwriter, who used a template.
If you decide to burn the shirt, please record it and post it online.
Only Wilcox could destroy a promising season and a whole program in one season.
We should have 9-10 wins right now, fans should be pouring money and support into Cal football, Mendoza should be taking practice reps for our bowl game right now. Instead the program is at its lowest point since the 2001 season and looks like it is about to sink even deeper next season and no hope of a new HC on the horizon.
I do hold the head coach with a multi million dollar contract, 8 years of on the job training, who recruited all these players, hired all these coaches, has complete control over the program and is paid to win games accountable for all of those missed FGs (last season and this season), the failings of the OL (basically every season he has been here), and making terrible coaching hires (McClure at OL, Musgrave as OC, Bloesch as OC, not hiring a dedicated OL coach this season), a losing overall conference record.
But hey, he gets Cal so send him a participation trophy for trying really, really hard.
To all the Wilcox detractors I have the same question - who are you going to get that is better? And even if a new coach gets lucky one season, why would they stay? I heard all the same talk about Dykes and he went on to play in the championship game a few years after being fired from Cal. It's not the coach, it's the situation.
Such a defeatist attitude. If that’s the case, then why even have a football program or support the team.
Flip the question, for all the Wilcox supporters, what makes you believe he can actually win and turn Cal around? What has he done to earn and deserve more time and support?
As an alum and looong time fan, if I were to subjectively chart how good the Cal football program has been since, say, the Pac-10 was born in 1978, we actually (ignore covid please) are only a small step below the program's pinnacle(s) which I'd say occurred in 1991 (under Bruce Snyder) & 2002-3 under Tedford. For most of those 47 seasons, Cal was absolutely in a class below the blue bloods. Blowout losses to good teams were the rule, not the exception.
Now (and for arguments sake, let's say the 2024 roster was completely healthy), I think this team could hang with anyone. Cal-Notre Dame was a toss-up. We were crushing this year's #13 Miami. Wilcox has beaten these high-end teams in his tenure: 'Ol Miss (2x), UNC (2x), BYU, USC (2x), & Auburn. Plus a ton of same-as's.
I see Wilcox as doing the hard work necessary to make a solid program, but the fates have not had the ball bouncing Cal's way in recent years. I'd love to be 10-2 every year too, I love wins. A bounce here, a field goal there and Cal is 10-2 _this_ season & Wilcox is a genius.
But everyone on this board should know how hard it is to win at Cal. I shouldn't have to say why we can't recruit some of the same players that 19 football factories out of the current CFP top 20 can. And the one program with academic standards similar to Cal had 23 four-star recruits in 2023 only because Notre Dame is a premium football brand, i.e. an exception. Cal had 1 four-star that year.
Expectations are great, but should have a touch of reality factored in.
Yup the evidence is in. Two winning seasons in eight and none since 2019. What more do people need? And in no profession do you hang on to someone who's doing a bad job out of fear you can't find a replacement who'll do better. You've got to back yourself to find the next Tedford.
R McManus answered your question already. S/he doesn’t believe any coach can win or succeed here. Because of “the situation.” Which invites other questions.
I’d rather cycle through good coaches who leave than stick with a guy who is incapable of lucking into even one good season forever. Wilcox is a coordinator masquerading as a head coach. I like the guy, don’t get me wrong. But his understanding of offensive football just hasn’t evolved and he’s responsible for the whole program. As a result, he’s been wholly deferential to less-than-exceptional offensive staffs, which he himself assembled. Good coaches are hard to come by, yes. But I also don’t think the bar Wilcox has set is one that’s particularly difficult to reach even for a mid coach.
I get it, Wilcox's record has been disappointing. But so has almost every Cal head coach in the last 50 years. Jeff Tedford was the best with an overall winning percentage of 0.59. Overall Cal winning percentage since 1960 is 0.46. Wilcox is 0.46.
I think Wilcox is a good fit for Cal. I like the kind of players he brings to the team, and this is highlighted every time I see one of them interviewed. I'm proud that they represent Cal. He put together a pretty good team this year and they could have easily gone 9-3 or 8-4. Then everyone would think he was a great coach. That's the difference of a few missed field goals in this sport.
I'm realistic about the chance of striking gold with another coach and having that coach hang around if they are successful. It's pretty low odds and the chances are we will have to endure 3 or 4 Tom Holmoes or Keith Gilbertsons before finding another Jeff Tedford. I'm good with Wilcox for at least another year.
I've been around this program for 4.5 decades, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for the "this is the way it's always been and that's all we should expect" attitude. We're sitting on the precipice of relegation, which will have profound impact on the fates of all Cal sports and the university's bottom line. At least partly because of those implications, we hired a chancellor with an expectation to change the status quo with athletics. Any coach who can get us more wins is a better fit as coach for Cal. We have to win and win now if we want a future. I watched Wilcox coach us out of maybe four wins last year with his end-of-game decision making. I watched him assemble maybe two years of the worst unit (o-line) I can remember in my forty years of watching this program. I watched him bungle our QB room so bad that it sent our most popular QB in at least a decade to Indiana. And donors have begun to get cold feet. None of that has anything to do with bureaucratic inertia, Knowlton, NIL or faculty indifference.
I haven't been a huge anti-Wilcox vocalist, but W did decide not to give Bhaghani a scholarship over loyalties to a shaky talent that left anyway-- that is the choice of a 40-something.
In W's defense, he thought he had something in Coe, who was very good at Cincinnatti in 2022, but apparently did not come all of the way back from his 2023 injury. That decision could be on W or on the assurance of his special teams coach.
What f’ing drugs are you on where you think field goals are to blame for blowing 2 score 4th quarter leads where you outgained the other team by 200 yards?
Noooooooo couldn’t possibly be due to stubbornly calling 3 straight inside runs and 2 high Nickle zone repeatedly any time you have a lead.
Wilcox is mother f’ing dog doo doo!
If he isn’t gone by September many of us alums will make sure Lyons shows him the door.
I'm not happy with Nando. We gave him a LOT. He was a 2 star and we gave him a scholly and coached him up. He worked very hard and turned into a good (not great) QB. He is a great leader and well respected, and he has the chance to grow into a very good QB. But now I'm not sure that happens. Time will tell.
I am still celebrating NIL because players deserve to be paid. Wilcox is making millions of dollars for being a below average coach while Nando is out there taking hits and risking injuries to his body to beat Stanford and keep Wilcox and his staff employed despite not being good at their jobs.
Now, while I support players being paid, I do believe the NCAA or conferences need to step in and start regulating NIL across the board so it is a more fair and even playing field for all schools. The issue isn’t NIL, it’s the lack of policies, oversight and regulation that is the issue.
Golden: You are making a great point and there is nothing anti-free market about regulating NIL/salaries. The NFL does it all the time but they just call it the salary cap. Every single billionaire owner in the NFL shares revenues from TV and they do it to ensure the survival of every team, not just a privileged few. College athletics, especially the revenue sports of football and basketball, is unsustainable if there are only two leagues (SEC and Big 10) that have any assurance of long-term survival.
Just wrote this in an email to some fellow CAL Football fans:
For all you CAL fans wondering why Fernando Mendoza decided to leave CAL.
I think a number of things. He has grown into a good but not great QB. He's a wonderful kid and a great leader. He is a pro style QB who has some ability to run, but you cannot build a game plan around his running ability.
He would be playing under his third offensive coordinator in three years if he stayed. The new OC (Harsin) runs a pro-style offense with a ton of shifts (Chris Petersen offense), which means Nando would need to learn the new system from scratch, and lose any advantage he has as a returning starting QB from knowing the current system. Btw, Nando chose to enter the portal the day after it was announced that Harsin is CAL's new OC.
Coach Wilcox has a reputation of transparency and honesty with his players. He also believes that steel sharpens steel and that competition is a good thing. I am assuming he told Fernando that CAL will always recruit the best talent they can find, and who they believe would elevate the team. While Fernando was the returning starter, his starting position was not guaranteed and he would need to continue competing for the starting job. CAL will look for a QB (or QB's) that has/have experience in a similar system to the one Harsin runs.
I'm sure that when Fernando thought about all this he probably came to the conclusion that if he still needed to compete for a job, perhaps he would go someplace where he viewed the grass as greener.
His transferring is not a bad thing for CAL. He is a good QB and did well, even with a bad O-line, in the system that Bloesch ran at CAL. But he has limitations. If he had stayed at CAL we would have had a difficult time recruiting solid competition from the portal for the job. With him leaving we can probably recruit at least one, and maybe two, very good prospects from the portal to compete for the job.
I'm sorry to see him go and wish him the best of luck, but I am not nearly as worried about his leaving as are many others.
I think you are understating how good Nando was/is and how difficult it will be to replacing him. I also think you are overestimating the QB portal talent. Cal isn’t going to get a top tier portal QB to come to Cal. We will probably get some middle level, FCS or G5 QB to come to Cal.
Nando, IMO has a few things that will be difficult to replace:
1. Accuracy, he has a 69% completion percentage, which when taken into context of how bad our OL was this season, is amazing.
2. He protects the ball. He only threw 6 picks all season, which is amazing when you consider how bad our OL was this season.
3. He showed improvement in all his key passing metrics from last season to this season.
Completion % = 63% —> 68.7%
TDs = 14 —> 16
Interceptions = 10 —> 6
Yards = 1,708 —> 3,004
If we are going the portal route, I doubt we find or get any QB with comparable stats.
This. QBs with comparable stats are leaving group of 5 schools to go to upper tier power conference schools, not Cal lol. And given Wilcox recruits at a middling group of 5 level, we’re either going to the portal to find a guy that flamed out elsewhere, has limitations, or relying on our high school recruiting and hoping we can find another diamond in the rough (WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THE GUY WE JUST LOST WAS!).
Honestly, it comes down to Harsin and the O-line. With or without Mendoza, Wilcox’s ceiling is 6…competent play calling + improved OL play holds the key to 2025.
No way, he will be anointed the starter at just about any P5 school with an open job. He is the best QB we've had since Goff, having carried the offense under very difficult circumstances. We are not going to get a better QB in the portal. Our only hope is that the oline and run game issue gets fixed to offset the loss to our passing game.
Certainly some schools with a lack of good QB's will promise him a starting role to land him. If that's what he wants then I say go for it. We may take a step back, but like I said in another post, good coaching can solve a lot of problems. Now, we have yet to see if we have an upgrade in our offensive coaching. We shall see.
I don't think he's afraid of competition, especially here of all places. I think he's looking for a bag and a place to showcase for a potential future at the next level (AKA not getting pummeled every 3rd snap).
I agree that he's proven to be an above average but not great QB, and I also think that QB starved Cal fans like myself saw his seemingly great intangibles as a sign that he had breakthrough potential. Time will tell on that.
It's also important to keep in mind that there's reporting out there that Cal really wanted to keep him and that Cal had enough NIL money, so it'll be interesting to see where he ends up. His personality outwardly indicated that he wouldn't shy away from a QB competition, so I'm not ready to think he left Cal for any reason other than he felt it would advance his football career or allow him to be closer to family.
There's so much flux with the team now that we really just need to wait for the dust to settle before making any conclusions.
I also find it amusingly ironic to think about portal entrant Justyn Martin transferring to Cal. His decommitment was very disappointing at the time, but literally opened up the scholarship that went to Mendoza.
Hope this is sufficient crisis to wrap up the firing of Knowlton over the McKeever mismanagement and related lawsuits, and set a course for future ability of Cal sports to grow in a positive direction under inspiring GM/AD. It may be another year for the buyout, but Lyons needs to take action now to create a stepping stone of hope.
While his loss is crushing, so typical of him to write (and format!) the perfect farewell with all kinds of odes to Cal-ness, including a dig at our variety of names. I for one appreciate his use of Fiat Lux, as he really truly does get Cal, and boy did his light shine for all of us. It is a business decision, we have all made them- his of a bigger magnitude than any I have personally faced. I will be a fan of his wherever he next lands.
I guess this was inevitable and I wish Fernando the best of luck at his next school and beyond. I don't blame Fernando and I don't blame Wilcox. College football is broken and so are the rest of college athletics that depend on football income for survival. This is the inevitable outcome of NIL and the transfer portal: rich schools will get richer and attect more talent and mid to low level schools will never be competitive again.
I'm out. No more season tickets. I'm not going to feed the NIL because that is the monster that broke college athletics. I'm not going to invest in players that are not invested in the Universty. It's incredibly sad to see traditions die like this, but the 2024 Big Game was a good one to go out on. "Go Bears forever!"
I had a feeling we were in trouble when he didn’t play in the last game at SMU. Reports that he was “sick” seemed to be disingenuous as he was walking around talking to teammates while not wearing a mask.
Nah. The players are free to make whatever decision they want, but that doesn’t mean that fans are not entitled to their feelings about those decisions or make their judgements about them.
Personally, I loved Nando. More than I loved a Cal player in many years. But all love carries the risk of betrayal and that risk has materialized so now I feel eff this guy. And eff these BS posts from guys about how much they love the universities they are ditching for more cash. It is insulting and dishonest. If you want to leave, just leave, and spare me this garbage.
Using words such as "betrayal", like Mendoza take some vows to the program is just an emotional response, which I get. Looking at this logically and honestly and assuming he has already had offers to play closer to home for a better program AND more money, why should he stay?
Staying at a declining program like Cal with a lame duck coach like Wilcox for another year is a level of loyalty that frankly the program doesn't deserve and even if we did, the current state of college football has made it quite clear "deserve got nothing to do with it"
Yeah, any of our players could be saying that Cal "betrayed" them. I'm sure coaches promised so many great things to recruits that never actually happened.
I am for sure being emotional, yes, 100%. But being a sports fan is an intensely emotional pursuit. The feeling of being in the stands, rooting for your team amongst a crowd of thousands is perhaps the best example there is of Durkheim’s concept of collective effervescence. That emotion is what keeps us engaged, keeps us coming back time and time again. Without that emotion, fans would not spend time and money on their teams, and players would have no NIL dollars to chase. I do not think a response to this news is somehow invalid because it is emotional - that emotion is all there is.
In other words, a fan upset at a favorite player leaving often gets the response that their feelings are a product of ignorance because the fan does not understand the bureaucratic workings of the system. To that I would say it is the bureaucrats who are ignorant, in particular of what it means to be a fan.
Noise is just that. It's rumor and conjecture. Nando has been a total class act while at CAL. It's who he is. I would suggest that unless someone has proof of malfeasance, that they don't become part of a rumor mill that disparages a fine young man who loves CAL.
Assuming that's true, what would have been different if he did act on the "up and up"? He obviously made this decision before the SMU game, does that change things?
If Mendoza told Wilcox that he was staying AND that was the deciding factor with JKS going to Oregon, then I would have a bone to pick with Mendoza. Then again, coaches play that same game ALL THE TIME.
I truly enjoyed Fernando's era. A reminder of a true Student-Athlete ... like Russell White. He's from Miami, he's very involved with bringing attention to his mother's MS condition back home and his dad played HS football with the Hurricanes' HC. Wilcox stayed with Cal when Oregon was calling. A few plays, referee calls and kicks and we might be a top 15 team right now. It was a painfully enjoyable season. We'll always have those 98 yards on our turf ...
Well, let’s not go patting Wilcox on the back too much…he had $28M reasons to stay at Cal, despite being completely and utterly unworthy of such a contract.
Substack has a heart icon for articles, but where is the broken heart icon so I can respond appropriately?
Nyziah was just the beginning of the quake.
Ouch.
Think he knew this was coming and decided to bail first? Like you mentioned, this could be just the start. When your fearless, I thought, leader abandons you, why should anyone stick around?
Nando definitely had the locker room.
I can only guess that this may be a little bit of Nando's own ego gratification hoping that his exit provokes disaster.
Young people + egos = intermittent sketchy decisions.
I wish him all the best, but maybe he and we need this for a reality check.
Like Plummer, he may end up making quite a splash.
Or he may end up regretting his decision.
NIL + yearly transfer portal + NCAA settlement = broken system
It certainly is for Cal.
That equation does not value academics. When academics have been rendered an afterthought, Cal is in trouble.
Same with Stanford. We have officially entered Rice territory and I’m not talking about the food.
Rice Bowl: CAL vs. Stanfurd
We should return to the renewed Pac 12 with Stanfurd and OSU WSU Fresno State etc.
I really thought "Go Bears Forever" meant "Go Bears Forever!" Sadly, I was wrong.
I think he sneezed and covered his mouth as he was mouthing "forever".
Call me bitter, but I don't care to hear about his platitudes. If he got paid, good for him, I don't care though.
(I'm slightly pissed off by the fact that my 98yds with my boys tshirt got here yesterday and now it's become useless)
On the bright side, if you ever wanted to burn a shirt you now have a great opportunity
I had just ordered mine too. So upsetting -!not about an obsolete t-shirt, but losing Nando…
Likewise. Don't know if I will ever wear that shirt.
I'm there with you on this. Until today, there was no bigger Fernando supporter than me, but loyalty means a lot. Loyalty was lacking in his "statement;" it sounded like it was written by a speechwriter, who used a template.
If you decide to burn the shirt, please record it and post it online.
Only Wilcox could destroy a promising season and a whole program in one season.
We should have 9-10 wins right now, fans should be pouring money and support into Cal football, Mendoza should be taking practice reps for our bowl game right now. Instead the program is at its lowest point since the 2001 season and looks like it is about to sink even deeper next season and no hope of a new HC on the horizon.
Just despair right now.
I really didn't see any football related kudos to staff- glaring.
Yes, be sure to blame Wilcox for a few missed field goals and the vagaries of decisions made by 20 year olds.
I do hold the head coach with a multi million dollar contract, 8 years of on the job training, who recruited all these players, hired all these coaches, has complete control over the program and is paid to win games accountable for all of those missed FGs (last season and this season), the failings of the OL (basically every season he has been here), and making terrible coaching hires (McClure at OL, Musgrave as OC, Bloesch as OC, not hiring a dedicated OL coach this season), a losing overall conference record.
But hey, he gets Cal so send him a participation trophy for trying really, really hard.
To all the Wilcox detractors I have the same question - who are you going to get that is better? And even if a new coach gets lucky one season, why would they stay? I heard all the same talk about Dykes and he went on to play in the championship game a few years after being fired from Cal. It's not the coach, it's the situation.
At this point give me the unknown over what we have now.
Such a defeatist attitude. If that’s the case, then why even have a football program or support the team.
Flip the question, for all the Wilcox supporters, what makes you believe he can actually win and turn Cal around? What has he done to earn and deserve more time and support?
As an alum and looong time fan, if I were to subjectively chart how good the Cal football program has been since, say, the Pac-10 was born in 1978, we actually (ignore covid please) are only a small step below the program's pinnacle(s) which I'd say occurred in 1991 (under Bruce Snyder) & 2002-3 under Tedford. For most of those 47 seasons, Cal was absolutely in a class below the blue bloods. Blowout losses to good teams were the rule, not the exception.
Now (and for arguments sake, let's say the 2024 roster was completely healthy), I think this team could hang with anyone. Cal-Notre Dame was a toss-up. We were crushing this year's #13 Miami. Wilcox has beaten these high-end teams in his tenure: 'Ol Miss (2x), UNC (2x), BYU, USC (2x), & Auburn. Plus a ton of same-as's.
I see Wilcox as doing the hard work necessary to make a solid program, but the fates have not had the ball bouncing Cal's way in recent years. I'd love to be 10-2 every year too, I love wins. A bounce here, a field goal there and Cal is 10-2 _this_ season & Wilcox is a genius.
But everyone on this board should know how hard it is to win at Cal. I shouldn't have to say why we can't recruit some of the same players that 19 football factories out of the current CFP top 20 can. And the one program with academic standards similar to Cal had 23 four-star recruits in 2023 only because Notre Dame is a premium football brand, i.e. an exception. Cal had 1 four-star that year.
Expectations are great, but should have a touch of reality factored in.
Yup the evidence is in. Two winning seasons in eight and none since 2019. What more do people need? And in no profession do you hang on to someone who's doing a bad job out of fear you can't find a replacement who'll do better. You've got to back yourself to find the next Tedford.
R McManus answered your question already. S/he doesn’t believe any coach can win or succeed here. Because of “the situation.” Which invites other questions.
Rich Brooks
I’d rather cycle through good coaches who leave than stick with a guy who is incapable of lucking into even one good season forever. Wilcox is a coordinator masquerading as a head coach. I like the guy, don’t get me wrong. But his understanding of offensive football just hasn’t evolved and he’s responsible for the whole program. As a result, he’s been wholly deferential to less-than-exceptional offensive staffs, which he himself assembled. Good coaches are hard to come by, yes. But I also don’t think the bar Wilcox has set is one that’s particularly difficult to reach even for a mid coach.
I get it, Wilcox's record has been disappointing. But so has almost every Cal head coach in the last 50 years. Jeff Tedford was the best with an overall winning percentage of 0.59. Overall Cal winning percentage since 1960 is 0.46. Wilcox is 0.46.
I think Wilcox is a good fit for Cal. I like the kind of players he brings to the team, and this is highlighted every time I see one of them interviewed. I'm proud that they represent Cal. He put together a pretty good team this year and they could have easily gone 9-3 or 8-4. Then everyone would think he was a great coach. That's the difference of a few missed field goals in this sport.
I'm realistic about the chance of striking gold with another coach and having that coach hang around if they are successful. It's pretty low odds and the chances are we will have to endure 3 or 4 Tom Holmoes or Keith Gilbertsons before finding another Jeff Tedford. I'm good with Wilcox for at least another year.
I've been around this program for 4.5 decades, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for the "this is the way it's always been and that's all we should expect" attitude. We're sitting on the precipice of relegation, which will have profound impact on the fates of all Cal sports and the university's bottom line. At least partly because of those implications, we hired a chancellor with an expectation to change the status quo with athletics. Any coach who can get us more wins is a better fit as coach for Cal. We have to win and win now if we want a future. I watched Wilcox coach us out of maybe four wins last year with his end-of-game decision making. I watched him assemble maybe two years of the worst unit (o-line) I can remember in my forty years of watching this program. I watched him bungle our QB room so bad that it sent our most popular QB in at least a decade to Indiana. And donors have begun to get cold feet. None of that has anything to do with bureaucratic inertia, Knowlton, NIL or faculty indifference.
The situation is why this coach is still around.
Your hindsight is perfect.
So executives can never be held accountable for their decisions, leadership, and personnel management?
Nope. The situation.
I haven't been a huge anti-Wilcox vocalist, but W did decide not to give Bhaghani a scholarship over loyalties to a shaky talent that left anyway-- that is the choice of a 40-something.
In W's defense, he thought he had something in Coe, who was very good at Cincinnatti in 2022, but apparently did not come all of the way back from his 2023 injury. That decision could be on W or on the assurance of his special teams coach.
What f’ing drugs are you on where you think field goals are to blame for blowing 2 score 4th quarter leads where you outgained the other team by 200 yards?
Noooooooo couldn’t possibly be due to stubbornly calling 3 straight inside runs and 2 high Nickle zone repeatedly any time you have a lead.
Wilcox is mother f’ing dog doo doo!
If he isn’t gone by September many of us alums will make sure Lyons shows him the door.
Enough is enough.
Nil is to college football commitment as tinder is to long lasting relationships
Mendoza was the ultimate college QB, kinda like our version of Tim Tebow.
Mendoza entering the transfer portal is also the epitome of college football players today.
It’s always tough to be a Golden Bear!
Best of luck Nando! Truly mean that.
I also am really hating this version of $$$ driven CFB.
All of you were celebrating NIL. It has totally destroyed the sport.
I'm not happy with Nando. We gave him a LOT. He was a 2 star and we gave him a scholly and coached him up. He worked very hard and turned into a good (not great) QB. He is a great leader and well respected, and he has the chance to grow into a very good QB. But now I'm not sure that happens. Time will tell.
I am still celebrating NIL because players deserve to be paid. Wilcox is making millions of dollars for being a below average coach while Nando is out there taking hits and risking injuries to his body to beat Stanford and keep Wilcox and his staff employed despite not being good at their jobs.
Now, while I support players being paid, I do believe the NCAA or conferences need to step in and start regulating NIL across the board so it is a more fair and even playing field for all schools. The issue isn’t NIL, it’s the lack of policies, oversight and regulation that is the issue.
Golden: You are making a great point and there is nothing anti-free market about regulating NIL/salaries. The NFL does it all the time but they just call it the salary cap. Every single billionaire owner in the NFL shares revenues from TV and they do it to ensure the survival of every team, not just a privileged few. College athletics, especially the revenue sports of football and basketball, is unsustainable if there are only two leagues (SEC and Big 10) that have any assurance of long-term survival.
Just wrote this in an email to some fellow CAL Football fans:
For all you CAL fans wondering why Fernando Mendoza decided to leave CAL.
I think a number of things. He has grown into a good but not great QB. He's a wonderful kid and a great leader. He is a pro style QB who has some ability to run, but you cannot build a game plan around his running ability.
He would be playing under his third offensive coordinator in three years if he stayed. The new OC (Harsin) runs a pro-style offense with a ton of shifts (Chris Petersen offense), which means Nando would need to learn the new system from scratch, and lose any advantage he has as a returning starting QB from knowing the current system. Btw, Nando chose to enter the portal the day after it was announced that Harsin is CAL's new OC.
Coach Wilcox has a reputation of transparency and honesty with his players. He also believes that steel sharpens steel and that competition is a good thing. I am assuming he told Fernando that CAL will always recruit the best talent they can find, and who they believe would elevate the team. While Fernando was the returning starter, his starting position was not guaranteed and he would need to continue competing for the starting job. CAL will look for a QB (or QB's) that has/have experience in a similar system to the one Harsin runs.
I'm sure that when Fernando thought about all this he probably came to the conclusion that if he still needed to compete for a job, perhaps he would go someplace where he viewed the grass as greener.
His transferring is not a bad thing for CAL. He is a good QB and did well, even with a bad O-line, in the system that Bloesch ran at CAL. But he has limitations. If he had stayed at CAL we would have had a difficult time recruiting solid competition from the portal for the job. With him leaving we can probably recruit at least one, and maybe two, very good prospects from the portal to compete for the job.
I'm sorry to see him go and wish him the best of luck, but I am not nearly as worried about his leaving as are many others.
I think you are understating how good Nando was/is and how difficult it will be to replacing him. I also think you are overestimating the QB portal talent. Cal isn’t going to get a top tier portal QB to come to Cal. We will probably get some middle level, FCS or G5 QB to come to Cal.
Nando, IMO has a few things that will be difficult to replace:
1. Accuracy, he has a 69% completion percentage, which when taken into context of how bad our OL was this season, is amazing.
2. He protects the ball. He only threw 6 picks all season, which is amazing when you consider how bad our OL was this season.
3. He showed improvement in all his key passing metrics from last season to this season.
Completion % = 63% —> 68.7%
TDs = 14 —> 16
Interceptions = 10 —> 6
Yards = 1,708 —> 3,004
If we are going the portal route, I doubt we find or get any QB with comparable stats.
This. QBs with comparable stats are leaving group of 5 schools to go to upper tier power conference schools, not Cal lol. And given Wilcox recruits at a middling group of 5 level, we’re either going to the portal to find a guy that flamed out elsewhere, has limitations, or relying on our high school recruiting and hoping we can find another diamond in the rough (WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THE GUY WE JUST LOST WAS!).
Honestly, it comes down to Harsin and the O-line. With or without Mendoza, Wilcox’s ceiling is 6…competent play calling + improved OL play holds the key to 2025.
Thanks Rug.
The program will survive Mendoza leaving.
I’m sure we can go 6-6 with another quarterback.
May even do better, O.
No way, he will be anointed the starter at just about any P5 school with an open job. He is the best QB we've had since Goff, having carried the offense under very difficult circumstances. We are not going to get a better QB in the portal. Our only hope is that the oline and run game issue gets fixed to offset the loss to our passing game.
I dunno…Davis Webb was pretty damn good. I’m taking him over Mendoza, tho respect your point, cp.
Certainly some schools with a lack of good QB's will promise him a starting role to land him. If that's what he wants then I say go for it. We may take a step back, but like I said in another post, good coaching can solve a lot of problems. Now, we have yet to see if we have an upgrade in our offensive coaching. We shall see.
I don't think he's afraid of competition, especially here of all places. I think he's looking for a bag and a place to showcase for a potential future at the next level (AKA not getting pummeled every 3rd snap).
For sure that certainly factors into his decision.
I agree that he's proven to be an above average but not great QB, and I also think that QB starved Cal fans like myself saw his seemingly great intangibles as a sign that he had breakthrough potential. Time will tell on that.
It's also important to keep in mind that there's reporting out there that Cal really wanted to keep him and that Cal had enough NIL money, so it'll be interesting to see where he ends up. His personality outwardly indicated that he wouldn't shy away from a QB competition, so I'm not ready to think he left Cal for any reason other than he felt it would advance his football career or allow him to be closer to family.
There's so much flux with the team now that we really just need to wait for the dust to settle before making any conclusions.
I also find it amusingly ironic to think about portal entrant Justyn Martin transferring to Cal. His decommitment was very disappointing at the time, but literally opened up the scholarship that went to Mendoza.
“Go bears forever”
This is the correct answer.
Hope this is sufficient crisis to wrap up the firing of Knowlton over the McKeever mismanagement and related lawsuits, and set a course for future ability of Cal sports to grow in a positive direction under inspiring GM/AD. It may be another year for the buyout, but Lyons needs to take action now to create a stepping stone of hope.
Hope you're right, but it's not. Welcome to Cal, where Groundhog Day is every day.
Once that happens, we’ll be on the right track.
THAT’S the big domino that needs to fall.
we won't necessarily be on the right track. We will however be off the wrong track.
Right now, that’s the only thing that is going to change the direction. You know what you’re getting with another season of Wilcox.
not disagreeing, just being aware of the fact that the next regime could also be a train wreck
Rich. Lyons.
Like this a lot. But probably not going to happen
While his loss is crushing, so typical of him to write (and format!) the perfect farewell with all kinds of odes to Cal-ness, including a dig at our variety of names. I for one appreciate his use of Fiat Lux, as he really truly does get Cal, and boy did his light shine for all of us. It is a business decision, we have all made them- his of a bigger magnitude than any I have personally faced. I will be a fan of his wherever he next lands.
I guess this was inevitable and I wish Fernando the best of luck at his next school and beyond. I don't blame Fernando and I don't blame Wilcox. College football is broken and so are the rest of college athletics that depend on football income for survival. This is the inevitable outcome of NIL and the transfer portal: rich schools will get richer and attect more talent and mid to low level schools will never be competitive again.
I'm out. No more season tickets. I'm not going to feed the NIL because that is the monster that broke college athletics. I'm not going to invest in players that are not invested in the Universty. It's incredibly sad to see traditions die like this, but the 2024 Big Game was a good one to go out on. "Go Bears forever!"
I had a feeling we were in trouble when he didn’t play in the last game at SMU. Reports that he was “sick” seemed to be disingenuous as he was walking around talking to teammates while not wearing a mask.
Anyone mad at Fernando Mendoza isn't evaluating the current state of the program or college football correctly.
Nah. The players are free to make whatever decision they want, but that doesn’t mean that fans are not entitled to their feelings about those decisions or make their judgements about them.
Personally, I loved Nando. More than I loved a Cal player in many years. But all love carries the risk of betrayal and that risk has materialized so now I feel eff this guy. And eff these BS posts from guys about how much they love the universities they are ditching for more cash. It is insulting and dishonest. If you want to leave, just leave, and spare me this garbage.
Using words such as "betrayal", like Mendoza take some vows to the program is just an emotional response, which I get. Looking at this logically and honestly and assuming he has already had offers to play closer to home for a better program AND more money, why should he stay?
Staying at a declining program like Cal with a lame duck coach like Wilcox for another year is a level of loyalty that frankly the program doesn't deserve and even if we did, the current state of college football has made it quite clear "deserve got nothing to do with it"
Yeah, any of our players could be saying that Cal "betrayed" them. I'm sure coaches promised so many great things to recruits that never actually happened.
I am for sure being emotional, yes, 100%. But being a sports fan is an intensely emotional pursuit. The feeling of being in the stands, rooting for your team amongst a crowd of thousands is perhaps the best example there is of Durkheim’s concept of collective effervescence. That emotion is what keeps us engaged, keeps us coming back time and time again. Without that emotion, fans would not spend time and money on their teams, and players would have no NIL dollars to chase. I do not think a response to this news is somehow invalid because it is emotional - that emotion is all there is.
In other words, a fan upset at a favorite player leaving often gets the response that their feelings are a product of ignorance because the fan does not understand the bureaucratic workings of the system. To that I would say it is the bureaucrats who are ignorant, in particular of what it means to be a fan.
Yup. “Go Bears. Fiat Lux. Fistfull of $.” Get paid Bro but cut the rest of it thx.
Not necessarily true, A.
There’s plenty of noise that Mendoza didn’t entirely act on the up and up…just saying.
Noise is just that. It's rumor and conjecture. Nando has been a total class act while at CAL. It's who he is. I would suggest that unless someone has proof of malfeasance, that they don't become part of a rumor mill that disparages a fine young man who loves CAL.
Assuming that's true, what would have been different if he did act on the "up and up"? He obviously made this decision before the SMU game, does that change things?
Apparently they’d have JKS.
Ok well if that's true that definitely changes things.
Would like to know if he Toshed us.
That’s the Twitter speculation. Just passing it along…may actually be BS, who knows.
But with how easy it is now, anyone hopping in the portal should surprise no one.
If Mendoza told Wilcox that he was staying AND that was the deciding factor with JKS going to Oregon, then I would have a bone to pick with Mendoza. Then again, coaches play that same game ALL THE TIME.
I truly enjoyed Fernando's era. A reminder of a true Student-Athlete ... like Russell White. He's from Miami, he's very involved with bringing attention to his mother's MS condition back home and his dad played HS football with the Hurricanes' HC. Wilcox stayed with Cal when Oregon was calling. A few plays, referee calls and kicks and we might be a top 15 team right now. It was a painfully enjoyable season. We'll always have those 98 yards on our turf ...
Well, let’s not go patting Wilcox on the back too much…he had $28M reasons to stay at Cal, despite being completely and utterly unworthy of such a contract.