I know you're trying to run a tight ship in order to not have the thread fall off the deep end but that was pretty satirical from Jimmy. He and I always poke fun at LT, its nothing like my rant from months ago where I took a whole round of shots at him :/
Okay, so if anyone is interested, LA County had tightened COVID-19 protocols and then loosened them for football players in response to UCLA and USC's requests. The updated rules, published Aug. 24, allowed for "vaccinated athletes exposed to COVID-19 to continue taking part in practice and competition as long as they remain asymptomatic and test negative for five consecutive days." So, these are looser than Berkeley's 10 day quarantine. What I can't remember was whether the 10 day quarantine period was Berkeley's protocols before vaccinations were available. If so, it seems like Berkeley's protocols do not recognize that vaccinations lower the spread of the virus-even if someone tests positive (as in a break through case) , they statistically do not carry the viral load that unvaccinated people do. I wouldn't call Berkeley's policies arcane but I would say they are probably the strictest in the conference. On the other hand, Alameda County with 1.6+ million people has only had 1407 deaths from COVID since the start of the pandemic. So there's that.
This has City of Berkeley idiocy written all over it. Would love for someone to do some digging here and find out what really happened. I refuse to believe two dozen vaccinated players all came down with covid. There must be some other protocols in place here. And that can only be City of Berkeley. You're right, I wouldn't call their policies 'arcane' .... they're INSANE.
If these were the same rules prior to vaccinations being available, the "emergency order" that brought these back into place are an "outlier." I wouldn't call them "insane," because there are breakthrough cases; also, I assume they adjust the protocols depending on the infection rate; the city health dept. updated the protocols on Oct. 28.
Does the Oct 28 "emergency order" state if one is vaccinated and asymptomatic they must isolate for 10 days? If so, I could see why Cal would be pissed off. This puts them at a competitive disadvantage to U$C & fucla per the LA County ruling. So the CoB "emergency order" in this case really screwed Cal. I was not aware of the "emergency order" and was going on vaccinated and asymptomatic would be cleared to play. 36 peeps with 99% vaccination could not all be symptomatic was my initial thought, and now this CoB "emergency order" clears it up.
This is the only site, that I'm aware of, that has mentioned the "emergency order".
In my opinion, and this comes from working for 20+ years at a university (not at Berkeley), bureaucracies are not good at communication. Making rules, and even being thoughtful about them, yes. Communicating rule changes to those impacted by them, no. So the quarantine order changed on Oct. 28, and the website I looked at doesn't suggest to someone not working at the health dept. the reason why they're changing. It's to "align" the protocols with an acronym, the latter of which clearly refers to something; at least on their website they're just not saying why or giving any context.
Now, imagine that order is publicly announced at 4:00 p.m. on Oct. 28. Did the AD know it was going to change? When? Wilcox mentioned this past Weds, Thursday, and Friday, as when they found out. Obviously someone tested positive, and they probably were vaccinated. But how did the information flow work between the city's health department, the university, the athletic department and the football program? Plus, if you read the quarantine orders, while you don't have to be Einstein to understand them, they are detailed and lengthy.
In my experience, people do not just "turn on a dime," and communication in bureaucracies and between them is often just poor.
Yes, I would be pissed if I were Wilcox, not only because of what transpired and possibly not even hearing about what rules they were under until after someone tested positively. Also, he must know that other universities have been willing to go to bat for their football programs, but my guess is (and for plenty of good reasons) Berkeley decided not to do that.
I'm not talking about what is the "right" set of protocols. The program went through a "misunderstanding" about the protocols last year. This year, after everyone is vaccinated, the rules they start with change at the end of October, which is a little after mid-season. Cal ends up with players in quarantine as a result. Yes, I'd be pissed, if I were in his position, regardless of whether he should have done a better job of developing qbs.
All that may be true. I just don't remember two dozen Georgia or Ohio State players and coaches being held out of games because of health departments of Athens and Columbus. Why does this kinda thing only seem to happen to us?
The Pac12 rule says that even if you are asymptomatic, if you test positive for Covid you need to isolate for 10 days. You do not need to isolate if you are negative even if you are exposed to Covid thru contact tracing.
Cal, last year, had contingencies in place to practice outside of Berkeley. I suggest they implement the plan immediately and move the venue of next week's game. Only 3 weeks left so while an inconvenience to the players and staff, at least they would be able to play.
Worst Cal football game I have ever seen. Worse than the Hill Mary. Worse than the 7-37 loss to winless in UCLA 2018. Worse than the 14-62 curtains on Tedford's tenure in Corvallis. Worse than Riley's ill-fated scramble in 2007. Worse than 200k Tennessee fans chanting "overrated" as we're losing 0-35 in Neyland.
It may have been the worst game in an absolute sense, but it wasn't the worst performance relative to a realistic expectation. We were playing with half a team on a 90 degree day.
How do we know that players did that? I get that that’s the most likely way to be exposed to COVID, but it’s certainly not the only way. Seems premature to start blaming the players when we have virtually no information on anything, including how many players tested positive, displayed symptoms, etc.
We have recruited well at QB. We had 5 going into Spring: Chase Garbers, Zach Johnson, Spencer Brasch, Robby Rowell and Jaden Casey. Casey and Brasch decided to transfer after Spring. In the Fall we welcomed Glover and four star Milner. The problem is not our recruiting, the problem was that we got notified Wednesday of those who were required to enter the Covid Protocol as defined by the City of Berkeley. Then we had to get our team ready in three days, when normally Monday is install, Tues and Weds are hitting days, Thursday is Shells and Friday is helmets only. Tough to install a game plan and get Glover game ready in three days and NOT have Zach Johnson on the travel squad. This is not all on WIlcox, but the lesson to be learned here it to make sure your backups get reps ALL season long. Lastly, let me address Musgrave. His system is complicated and takes time to learn. This was our first FULL season under his system. Once we figured it out it worked very well. I give you the Oregon State game as an example. The problem as I see it, is that Musgrave's system is like Tedford's system and QB's that don't have a lot of reps just won't play well. It is a pro offense for a reason. Pros have virtually unlimited practice, meeting and film study time, college kids don't. That's why I like the spread offense for college. It's easy to learn fast. I'm not a fan of the Air Raid, but I do like Urban Meyer's modified spread with TE's and RB formations. In any event, some of the blame for this failure is on Wilcox and some lies on other groups. The City of Berkeley certainly is no friend of CAL football, or even CAL for that matter. The University does so much for the City and as I see it the City is unhappy with CAL's presence and sees Saturday football as a nuisance.
Big picture all this means is that we finish 6-6 instead of 7-5. We still go to a bowl game. Besides, three weeks from now after we've swept our three rivals for the first time since the Eisenhower administration, we'll have forgotten all about today's game and be dancing in the streets.
Oski: Even if by some miracle we find a way to beat all three of our rivals in one year (Holy shit, we haven't done this since the 1950s?), there is no way to forget this one. We lost to an 0-8 team! A few weeks ago they were looking for walk-ons from the student body! This isn't the NFL where the worst team can beat the best team on any given day. Even with all of our players being out, we should have won this game.
I can tell you for a fact that if we beat U$C, Furd and UC, Los Angeles in consecutive weeks, the Arizona game will NOT be bothering me in the slightest.
I, for one, thought this was an amazing game that tickled and titillated me with regards to what is on the horizon at the QB position in the next year or two for our beloved Golden Bears. Wilcox is so clever, and so mischievous at the same time!
I mean, just fire Wilcox at this point. He doesn’t get a Covid pass for this because he clearly hasn’t been able to recruit or develop any competent or viable backup QB in the 5 years he has been at Cal
You really have a hard on for Wilcox don't you? You should read my post elsewhere on this thread about his recruiting and QB's. Basically you are just wrong. And my next question for you: how many schools in P5 have really good back up QB's. And remember, Zach Johnson couldn't travel. I imagine Wilcox will finish out his last year with a caveat about performance. If he pulls it off then he gets an extension.
5 starters out on offense with arguably the 2 most important positions included: QB & center. Cal's defense with 4 starters out and hardly a two deep in any position group (no rotation).
And peeps claim that this is the worst Cal game ever? Hardly.
The lads competed for the entire game. Yes, a very frustrating game and one that could have been won.
I think all those things contribute it to being one of the worst Cal games, from a fan perspective. That's not to discredit the players on the field. Take the distinctly "only in Berkeley" way that we were without starters to begin with, and add to that the head coach's (who has long been derided for being stubborn) decision to stay with the FCS grad transfer at QB when many have been teaming for the 4 star freshman all year long.. and you've got a recipe for AWESOME, in my book!
This had a feeling of 2010 Cal-Oregon game. Our defense, led by Conte, stopped Oregon and held them to 1 TD but we had Brock Mansion starting due to Riley injury and lost the game. A half decent QB play would have won us the game. The difference? Oregon was undefeated and ranked #1 at the time. Arizona was 0-8 and winless in two years.
We weren't missing 10 starters for that game, though. And Arizona's bad, but they've been competitive in most of their games this year.
People are dragging the coaches because we don't have a better backup QB and I suppose that's fair to some extent, but QB is a not a position where you can build depth by rotating guys.
Or how about the UW game that year? The last game before the renovation. It had the "bonus" that the Bears were leading until UW finally punched it in at the end of the game.
Arizona didnt beat Cal. Arizona beat the stupid city of Berkeley and its rules.
No, I’m pretty sure they beat Cal football today.
Arizona held open tryouts for the football team 3 weeks ago.
Their defense was allowing 32 PPG.
We won the turnover battle 2-0.
And we still only scored 3 points with our backup QB.
If Wilcox and staff are as good as they are supposed to be then we should have been able to beat an 0-8 Arizona team in year 5 of his tenure.
Personally, I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Lars Thiemann...
Cmon man. Either talk about the game or don’t but don’t bring in and take shots at other players for other sports.
I know you're trying to run a tight ship in order to not have the thread fall off the deep end but that was pretty satirical from Jimmy. He and I always poke fun at LT, its nothing like my rant from months ago where I took a whole round of shots at him :/
Yes, this. It was a sarcastic joke…again, no harm was intended…
Will probably stick strictly to the DBD from now on…thanks for your efforts & all of the staff, Rob. See you at the SC tailgate!
I'm taking you up on that blame too, easy outlet to blame tbh.
3-0
Okay, so if anyone is interested, LA County had tightened COVID-19 protocols and then loosened them for football players in response to UCLA and USC's requests. The updated rules, published Aug. 24, allowed for "vaccinated athletes exposed to COVID-19 to continue taking part in practice and competition as long as they remain asymptomatic and test negative for five consecutive days." So, these are looser than Berkeley's 10 day quarantine. What I can't remember was whether the 10 day quarantine period was Berkeley's protocols before vaccinations were available. If so, it seems like Berkeley's protocols do not recognize that vaccinations lower the spread of the virus-even if someone tests positive (as in a break through case) , they statistically do not carry the viral load that unvaccinated people do. I wouldn't call Berkeley's policies arcane but I would say they are probably the strictest in the conference. On the other hand, Alameda County with 1.6+ million people has only had 1407 deaths from COVID since the start of the pandemic. So there's that.
This has City of Berkeley idiocy written all over it. Would love for someone to do some digging here and find out what really happened. I refuse to believe two dozen vaccinated players all came down with covid. There must be some other protocols in place here. And that can only be City of Berkeley. You're right, I wouldn't call their policies 'arcane' .... they're INSANE.
If these were the same rules prior to vaccinations being available, the "emergency order" that brought these back into place are an "outlier." I wouldn't call them "insane," because there are breakthrough cases; also, I assume they adjust the protocols depending on the infection rate; the city health dept. updated the protocols on Oct. 28.
Does the Oct 28 "emergency order" state if one is vaccinated and asymptomatic they must isolate for 10 days? If so, I could see why Cal would be pissed off. This puts them at a competitive disadvantage to U$C & fucla per the LA County ruling. So the CoB "emergency order" in this case really screwed Cal. I was not aware of the "emergency order" and was going on vaccinated and asymptomatic would be cleared to play. 36 peeps with 99% vaccination could not all be symptomatic was my initial thought, and now this CoB "emergency order" clears it up.
This is the only site, that I'm aware of, that has mentioned the "emergency order".
In my opinion, and this comes from working for 20+ years at a university (not at Berkeley), bureaucracies are not good at communication. Making rules, and even being thoughtful about them, yes. Communicating rule changes to those impacted by them, no. So the quarantine order changed on Oct. 28, and the website I looked at doesn't suggest to someone not working at the health dept. the reason why they're changing. It's to "align" the protocols with an acronym, the latter of which clearly refers to something; at least on their website they're just not saying why or giving any context.
Now, imagine that order is publicly announced at 4:00 p.m. on Oct. 28. Did the AD know it was going to change? When? Wilcox mentioned this past Weds, Thursday, and Friday, as when they found out. Obviously someone tested positive, and they probably were vaccinated. But how did the information flow work between the city's health department, the university, the athletic department and the football program? Plus, if you read the quarantine orders, while you don't have to be Einstein to understand them, they are detailed and lengthy.
In my experience, people do not just "turn on a dime," and communication in bureaucracies and between them is often just poor.
Yes, I would be pissed if I were Wilcox, not only because of what transpired and possibly not even hearing about what rules they were under until after someone tested positively. Also, he must know that other universities have been willing to go to bat for their football programs, but my guess is (and for plenty of good reasons) Berkeley decided not to do that.
I'm not talking about what is the "right" set of protocols. The program went through a "misunderstanding" about the protocols last year. This year, after everyone is vaccinated, the rules they start with change at the end of October, which is a little after mid-season. Cal ends up with players in quarantine as a result. Yes, I'd be pissed, if I were in his position, regardless of whether he should have done a better job of developing qbs.
All that may be true. I just don't remember two dozen Georgia or Ohio State players and coaches being held out of games because of health departments of Athens and Columbus. Why does this kinda thing only seem to happen to us?
The Pac12 rule says that even if you are asymptomatic, if you test positive for Covid you need to isolate for 10 days. You do not need to isolate if you are negative even if you are exposed to Covid thru contact tracing.
https://www-mercurynews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.mercurynews.com/2021/08/20/hotline-mailbag-covid-protocols-vax-rates-mask-mandates-big-ten-alliance-directv-outlook-and-more/amp/?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16362522841605&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mercurynews.com%2F2021%2F08%2F20%2Fhotline-mailbag-covid-protocols-vax-rates-mask-mandates-big-ten-alliance-directv-outlook-and-more
If someone has the CoB emergency order, could you please post it, ty.
https://www.cityofberkeley.info/uploadedFiles/Health_Human_Services/Public_Health/covid19/COB-health-order-n20-12-quarantine.pdf
Do those loosened protocols also come with a competent backup Pac 12 QB? Because if they don’t it doesn’t matter as we would still lose this game.
Cal, last year, had contingencies in place to practice outside of Berkeley. I suggest they implement the plan immediately and move the venue of next week's game. Only 3 weeks left so while an inconvenience to the players and staff, at least they would be able to play.
That was for camp. The kids need to attend classes unless they are online.
Worst Cal football game I have ever seen. Worse than the Hill Mary. Worse than the 7-37 loss to winless in UCLA 2018. Worse than the 14-62 curtains on Tedford's tenure in Corvallis. Worse than Riley's ill-fated scramble in 2007. Worse than 200k Tennessee fans chanting "overrated" as we're losing 0-35 in Neyland.
It may have been the worst game in an absolute sense, but it wasn't the worst performance relative to a realistic expectation. We were playing with half a team on a 90 degree day.
Yeah, it was hot. Cut the team some slack.
There was this sound, like a garbage truck dropped off the Empire State Building!
I guess I'm getting old, because I still find thinking about the 1990 Big Game traumatic.
That was a good game, two dumb penalties, and one poorly handled onside kick.
The only game that comes close was the 63-13 thrashing by Furd in 2013, since it was the Big Game.
I remember sitting in the coliseum in 1994 for what would turn out to be 61-0. And that was after USC took their foot off the gas pedal.
It can get way way worse than this game, sorry.
Stop blaming the city of Berkeley and start placing blame where it belongs; the players who went out unmasked and congregated in large gatherings.
No I blame the city. Everyone has had a chance to get vaccinated, we have effective treatments now, its time to move on.
Are you arguing they should play with Covid?
You can be vaccinated but still get Covid.
How do we know that players did that? I get that that’s the most likely way to be exposed to COVID, but it’s certainly not the only way. Seems premature to start blaming the players when we have virtually no information on anything, including how many players tested positive, displayed symptoms, etc.
Also the coaching staff did not recruiting at QB better.
We have recruited well at QB. We had 5 going into Spring: Chase Garbers, Zach Johnson, Spencer Brasch, Robby Rowell and Jaden Casey. Casey and Brasch decided to transfer after Spring. In the Fall we welcomed Glover and four star Milner. The problem is not our recruiting, the problem was that we got notified Wednesday of those who were required to enter the Covid Protocol as defined by the City of Berkeley. Then we had to get our team ready in three days, when normally Monday is install, Tues and Weds are hitting days, Thursday is Shells and Friday is helmets only. Tough to install a game plan and get Glover game ready in three days and NOT have Zach Johnson on the travel squad. This is not all on WIlcox, but the lesson to be learned here it to make sure your backups get reps ALL season long. Lastly, let me address Musgrave. His system is complicated and takes time to learn. This was our first FULL season under his system. Once we figured it out it worked very well. I give you the Oregon State game as an example. The problem as I see it, is that Musgrave's system is like Tedford's system and QB's that don't have a lot of reps just won't play well. It is a pro offense for a reason. Pros have virtually unlimited practice, meeting and film study time, college kids don't. That's why I like the spread offense for college. It's easy to learn fast. I'm not a fan of the Air Raid, but I do like Urban Meyer's modified spread with TE's and RB formations. In any event, some of the blame for this failure is on Wilcox and some lies on other groups. The City of Berkeley certainly is no friend of CAL football, or even CAL for that matter. The University does so much for the City and as I see it the City is unhappy with CAL's presence and sees Saturday football as a nuisance.
Musgrave said Glover took majority of the first team reps on Tuesday
I will say this…the kids played hard. Disappointed for them.
in glover's defense, he had 2 nice long balls that were catchable
Big picture all this means is that we finish 6-6 instead of 7-5. We still go to a bowl game. Besides, three weeks from now after we've swept our three rivals for the first time since the Eisenhower administration, we'll have forgotten all about today's game and be dancing in the streets.
Oski: Even if by some miracle we find a way to beat all three of our rivals in one year (Holy shit, we haven't done this since the 1950s?), there is no way to forget this one. We lost to an 0-8 team! A few weeks ago they were looking for walk-ons from the student body! This isn't the NFL where the worst team can beat the best team on any given day. Even with all of our players being out, we should have won this game.
I can tell you for a fact that if we beat U$C, Furd and UC, Los Angeles in consecutive weeks, the Arizona game will NOT be bothering me in the slightest.
That’s fair, tho the chances of sweeping California over the next 3 weeks is infinitesimally small...nonexistent if Garbers remains out.
And if THIS is the team that sees the field Sat, SC will blow us out. Kedon will march.
I really hope that whoever got to wear the John Wick costume to the team's Halloween party last weekend, thought that it was worth it.
I, for one, thought this was an amazing game that tickled and titillated me with regards to what is on the horizon at the QB position in the next year or two for our beloved Golden Bears. Wilcox is so clever, and so mischievous at the same time!
I'm usually excited to see a new player, especially QB who we can rarely see other than a starter. It was not pleasant
Can’t believe I signed up for a trial on a streaming service for that. Absolutely putrid.
Can we just rate the game as unwatchable?
I'll allow it.
I mean, just fire Wilcox at this point. He doesn’t get a Covid pass for this because he clearly hasn’t been able to recruit or develop any competent or viable backup QB in the 5 years he has been at Cal
You really have a hard on for Wilcox don't you? You should read my post elsewhere on this thread about his recruiting and QB's. Basically you are just wrong. And my next question for you: how many schools in P5 have really good back up QB's. And remember, Zach Johnson couldn't travel. I imagine Wilcox will finish out his last year with a caveat about performance. If he pulls it off then he gets an extension.
5 starters out on offense with arguably the 2 most important positions included: QB & center. Cal's defense with 4 starters out and hardly a two deep in any position group (no rotation).
And peeps claim that this is the worst Cal game ever? Hardly.
The lads competed for the entire game. Yes, a very frustrating game and one that could have been won.
Not the worst Cal game but definitely one of the worst QB play I have ever seen.
May I introduce Justin Vedder to you...
He beat USC at the coliseum. I will always remember him fondly for that.
Poor guy could barely see over his line. Though he did manage a good view of the Washington pass rush.
I think all those things contribute it to being one of the worst Cal games, from a fan perspective. That's not to discredit the players on the field. Take the distinctly "only in Berkeley" way that we were without starters to begin with, and add to that the head coach's (who has long been derided for being stubborn) decision to stay with the FCS grad transfer at QB when many have been teaming for the 4 star freshman all year long.. and you've got a recipe for AWESOME, in my book!
Compress all my Holmoe-last-season agony into just 60 minutes.
This had a feeling of 2010 Cal-Oregon game. Our defense, led by Conte, stopped Oregon and held them to 1 TD but we had Brock Mansion starting due to Riley injury and lost the game. A half decent QB play would have won us the game. The difference? Oregon was undefeated and ranked #1 at the time. Arizona was 0-8 and winless in two years.
We weren't missing 10 starters for that game, though. And Arizona's bad, but they've been competitive in most of their games this year.
People are dragging the coaches because we don't have a better backup QB and I suppose that's fair to some extent, but QB is a not a position where you can build depth by rotating guys.
Let's at least celebrate today's 11th Anniversary of Brock's triumphent leadership in beating Wazzu that season!
Or how about the UW game that year? The last game before the renovation. It had the "bonus" that the Bears were leading until UW finally punched it in at the end of the game.