Listened to this on my walk today. About recruiting with interesting insights both past and contemporary regarding coaches, schools, etc. If link does not come through intact, it's the Andy Staple Show & Friends - posted today on Apple Podcasts.
"...structural issues at CAL are keeping him from unlocking his full potential". "...smart folks believe that with the right program/facilities he could be an elite coach. He's very smart." What a slam on the CAL program. The question that Knowlton and CAL has to ask themselves is: "Are we going to do what it takes to be competitive or are we going to pretend and continue to be posers?" The fans are turning off to the all talk and no action and the decline in interest will continue as long as the Big U does not step up to facilitate the environment needed to create a successful program. Perhaps the best example of this is the City of Berkeley completely fucking over the team before the AZ game, and the University response was limp. If CAL doesn't want to to what it takes to field a competitive team they need to stop fucking pretending. Then they can figure out how to pay off that $400m stadium makeover.
Why do UCLA revenue sports programs run rings around Cal's? Both campuses are part of the same university system.
The logical conclusion to me is that the campus administration takes a position of indifference, if not outright hostility.
If Cal alums want to make a difference they can. They just need to be realistic that football will never be more than a passing fancy if they don't develop a strongly supportive voice.
I agree with you and my guess is Knowlton made that case. Knowlton is actually pretty damn good. I don't think the City of Berkeley gives a shit about CAL Football, or anything to do with CAL. They never have. CAL is a cash register for them, other than that Berkeley looks at CAL as a nuisance.
I'd love to hear an explanation for why our program/facilities made it impossible for Wilcox to field a consistent offense for five years, but didn't prevent him from fielding elite defenses over that time, while the same program/facilities allowed Dykes to field an elite offense for four years, but somehow prevented him from ever fielding a competent defense.
All true. But here's what I am talking about. To win consistently in the P5 you need two things: talent and great coaches. To get talent you need great facilities, known solid coaches and a winning tradition. We have wonderful facilities. We do not have a winning tradition so we must create one over time. To do this you need coaches who are the best at two things: 1. recruiting, 2. coaching. You can usually find assistants good at one of these two things, but finding the ones who are good at both is hard and thus the price for them is high. We need to recruit better. Wilcox was on his way with a #19 class when Covid hammered us. We have a lot of new coaches, some of whom may not be at the elite level. Paying a head coach the going rate but not doing the same for solid assistants is like hiring a great CEO and then a bunch of so-so employees. Why was our back up not coached up? Maybe he was and he just didn't have the talent. There is only so much to go around we aren't nearly as deep as the good teams. Recruiting and coaching. We need the folks who are the best.
Musgrave's system doesn't take two seasons to learn, it takes one FULL season to learn. We just had our first, normal, full season in two years. No one was able to get reps in 2020 because of Covid. Neither Milner nor Glover had previous practice time in Musgrave's system. Zach Johnson had the experience but was not allowed to travel for the Arizona game, even though he was asymptomatic (just like Garbers). Wilcox wanted Musgrave's system because once a team masters it it offers a lot of options with play calling and is very difficult to defend. I am a fan of the spread, which is simple and now widely used, however the spread is easier to defend (and the spread has other limitations that Wilcox did not want). Our problem is simple: we don't have the depth of talent we need with time in the system. This will come with recruiting and training, as long as we have solid assistants who can recruit well and coach well. I'm not sure of the last part of the previous sentence, but I will say IMHO that Musgrave is not the problem.
Maybe because Wilcox himself is a defensive coach, and Dykes is an offensive coach? And both of them hired unproven, unemployed, or inexperienced coordinators for the other side of the ball?
We all criticize Wilcox and Dykes for poor coordinator hires, but we don't know what their constraints were when making the selections, or whether they had the budget to get who they really wanted.
(BTW that is a genuine "maybe" above, not a sarcastic way of saying "obviously")
True...a contingent of the Oregon media is looking for an excuse to sign off on hiring a guy with a 15-25 record in the P12...the easy out is "it's hard to win at Cal" which ignores the fact that good coaches can and do win there.
There’s been three good coaches since the 1950’s, and that’s White, Snyder, and Tedford. Mike White was way before my time, but I know he had at least three winning seasons, his best being 8 wins with the Joe Roth team of 75. Snyder had two winning seasons in a five year stint before being run off to ASU. I was pretty little at the time but I know my Cal football history. The first winning season was only six regular season wins and a bowl game. Only the 91 team was truly amazing and, it was a team that was stupid talented. His first three years in the rebuilding period had some seriously ugly losses that people can’t or don’t want to remember. He was then run off by our moronic AD before he ever got to finish building what he started. He did what he did with shit facilities. I would argue he could have been great. Only Tedford has done what nobody else could do, and even then, he couldn’t sustain what he built over the long term.So really, I would argue Cal has had one great coach and a handful of good ones in over half a century.
Agreed with the exception that Snyder was a great coach. He followed it up at ASU for a few years. But he definitely had a rocky start at Cal and a disappointing ending at ASU.
Snyder’s treatment was a travesty and it really is a sham he never had the chance to keep going. After watching some of the 93 games I realized the only reason Gilbertson had any success at all that year was all of the players on the team were Snyder’s recruits.
You could argue that plenty of FBS programs have had 1 great and a handful of good coaches in the past 50 years...Cal is no different from 80% of the P5 schools out there, which is why I don't buy the "you can't win with the Administrative nonsense at Cal." That seems a bullschitt reason to try to excuse a coach that is 15-25 in conference in 5 years.
I wouldn’t say it’s an excuse as much as I don’t think the statement “good coaches can and do win at Cal” isn’t necessarily true. Even White and Snyder struggled to win and their tenures weren’t very long. 6 and 5 years if i remember right. Snyder also never won a Big Game.
So now that we know Wilcox is actively looking for a new HC job (can’t blame him), is he just a lame duck Coach now, especially in the eyes of new recruits and even existing players? Would this prompt the Cal Admin to hire a new Coach right now? Or does everyone pretend that this didn’t happen?
I don't think a short extension, with a token pay increase and very small buyout, is unwarranted. There are "please don't ever leave us" extensions and "let's give you another year or two" extensions.
Without a small extension, I agree he's a lame duck and will start (continue?) hemorrhaging players and staff.
Lots of people on here don’t seem to think there’s a difference. I might love my current job, but if my dream job called me out of the blue, I think I’d at least listen to what they had to say. At the very least, it might motivate my current employer to decide throw some incentives my way. That being said, I’d probably want better metrics of my performance to have the upper hand.
This. Chip will get an extension and raise, Lane Kiffen got an extension.....it's what you DO. And for JW, it IS his version of Cristobal's Miami. And let's not forget those "structural issues" include academic requirements where UO likely doesn't have the same bar to clear. As much as they groused about Jimmy Lake's comments on academics, they know it's true. That's one of the reasons Brian Kelly went to LSU, along with the boat of greenbacks. I DON'T think JW is looking around for another gig, but for UO you DO take the interview.
If Wilcox stays, it will be very interesting to see how he transitions back home and recruits and hires. I don't want him to be lame duck. He's been middling even when fully invested. And why aren't there deep pocket Cal alums who pony up for great assistants? It's a perpetual mystery to me that Cal graduates such successful business people and yet we don't have many deep pocket donors to the athletic programs. I don't buy the whole academics focus argument. People love sports.
With those comments from Oregon then we are going to look really really bad if we don't extend him and do more to help him succeed. This is a turning point for CAL Football. We'll either figure it out and finally start doing what it takes to build a successful team or we will fade into mediocrity for years to come.
I think that’s the frustrating part. I really like him as a person (from what I’ve seen), and everyone around him seems to like him too. I like that our teams aren’t getting blown out and are competitive. It fees like we’re a good OC hire away from getting over the hump.
Thanks Avi, really enjoying your updates..if Lanning is not the guy, it would be another PR blow for the Ducks. Urban Meyer should be available within 6 weeks, and speculation is that he is Phil’s #1 guy...should be interesting.
Isn't Urban finishing his first year in the NFL? I'd think he'd give it another season, unless you think he'll be fired. But yeah, they cannot wait that long. If he becomes available he'll be the hottest commodity out there.....
Jason La Canfora with another report documenting continued dysfunction in Jacksonville under Meyer, prompting talk of an in-house replacement by Charlie Strong.
IMHO, I don't see anyway Meyer is back for another year, and me may be out as early as Monday after this weekends road loss to a Titans team coming off a bye....it's been that much of a disaster off the field. Could be wrong, but there's a strong tie and respect between Phil Knight and Meyer.
Meyer is pretty polarizing right now, though, and having to walk back the Dan Lanning-to-Oregon talk is a PR mess for the Ducks...reports that the Oregon job will be finalized by Monday, and now THIS report that Meyer may not be long for the Jax gig....add up the pieces, and Meyer may be the home run Uncle Phil is looking to hit.
GoldenSD81's point about the recruiting is very valid tho...lots of questions.
Thanks for expanding on that. I have zero institutional memory from that era since I wasn’t alive. I didn’t realize Ray Willsey coached that long, and had as many winning seasons as he did.
Was not Craig Morton around then? All in all, IMO, he was a pretty decent QB who went on, I think to play/start in two super bowls for two different teams.
I tossed the ball back and forth with Morton....way back as an elementary school youngster a few times and his back up, Jerry Walters. My older sister had a few dates with Craig which is how I met him.
Do we give Wilcox a big enough budget to attract the best assistant coaches? I look at our PR and think its second rate compared to the Big Football schools like Bama, Texas, USC and even UW and Oregon..
I hear ya, Rug, and there's a middle ground...we may not approach the Blue Bloods from a facilities/administrative standpoint, and the Bay Area cost of living is a challenge for the coaching staff, no doubt...but someone on another thread said that Ragle made $250K to head special teams? Better than I thought...and Wilcox made $3.5M in 2021, his 2nd consecutive losing season. The money is competitive, at least, and Cal has decent enough facilities/tradition to be a consistent 7-8 win team. It can be done.
The question is, how do we make the jump with Wilcox at the helm? Can we? Is he even good enough? There's so much apathy surrounding Wilcox and the program....how can you extend a coach that's coming off 2 straight losing seasons and is 15-25 in the P12 in 5 years? How can you NOT extend a guy that has won 2 of the last 3 Big Games, beat SC, and has bowled 2 of the last 4?
Strange days in Berkeley, that's for sure. Let's land Adrian Martinez and go from there!
Don't disagree. Then let's just admit that we are posers. Good. I'll stop hoping and stop watching CAL Football and they can figure out who else will watch them on TV and buy tickets to pay off that $400m loan.
Apparently the positive tests were a result of the PCR tests being too sensitive. Did you hear what the epidemiologist at UCSF said? She said every person who is vaccinated or has natural immunity will have traces of the virus in their sinuses. She went on to say if the players were asymptomatic they should not have been tested. The whole thing was a knee jerk fuck up from the City of Berkeley who has yet to acknowledge they overreached and had no idea what they were doing. I also heard that the City official responsible has no medical background, but don't hold me to the last part.
If PCR tests were too sensitive, then we'd be seeing a glut of false positives in our everyday lives and the team probably wouldn't have had so many symptomatic players.
Plus, your body and the environment around you is literally filled with enzymes called RNases whose job is to degrade the RNA that these tests will detect. The claim that RNA is just sitting in your nose for hours or days to trigger a false positive is highly unlikely.
I'm just repeating what the epidemiologist from UCSF said. Chase Garbers posted the video on his twitter feed. Someone earlier said they thought the players were symptomatic. They may have been but I had not heard that. I heard Chase was asymptomatic (as was Zach Johnson) and they were still not allowed to travel. Btw, I have heard before that PCR tests are often overly sensitive.
I don't know the full story, but that doctor at UCSF backtracked on her comments after learning more about the situation. Either Cal was sloppier than other schools about following protocols (which I doubt), or was unlucky (which I doubt), or was less aggressive than other schools in trying to game the system to keep people playing (which I don't doubt).
"The team was not free of symptoms. In the meeting with parents and in subsequent statements, university officials revealed that of 172 team players, staff and volunteers tested, 46 were infected — and at least 31 were symptomatic"
That is not what the article above says. Where did yo get your info. Btw, I am not saying the article I posted is correct, its just the only news I have seen about the situation where a MD spoke about the situation.
So now it seems that it is, in fact, Lanning. Not impressed w/ this hire. I'll be interested to see who he brings in as his OC.
https://twitter.com/AaronJFentress/status/1469797863169294338
There's a good candidate. An Oregon alum with NFL and Pac12 coaching experience.
Doesn't....Win....Enough...at least to helm an elite program...
He needs to string together a couple of 8 win seasons before he can realistically expect to get a job like Oregon.
Let's start in '22...
Question is: what happens at Cal now? Any guesses?
Wilcox returns. Gets a two-year extension. Time marches on.
I'm ok with years, but they can't give him more dollars, can they? Can they?
I don’t they have much of a choice. Can’t have a lame duck. Maybe it’s incentive laden?
It is basically SEC Wilcox.
Who will likely jump to UGA when Kirby Smart gets inevitably fired for not being able to beat Nick Saban in the SEC Championship game.
Listened to this on my walk today. About recruiting with interesting insights both past and contemporary regarding coaches, schools, etc. If link does not come through intact, it's the Andy Staple Show & Friends - posted today on Apple Podcasts.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stars-matter-michigans-recruiting-philosophy-college/id1477536795?i=1000544639116
UO should call Pete Carroll after the season the 'Hawks had....
"...structural issues at CAL are keeping him from unlocking his full potential". "...smart folks believe that with the right program/facilities he could be an elite coach. He's very smart." What a slam on the CAL program. The question that Knowlton and CAL has to ask themselves is: "Are we going to do what it takes to be competitive or are we going to pretend and continue to be posers?" The fans are turning off to the all talk and no action and the decline in interest will continue as long as the Big U does not step up to facilitate the environment needed to create a successful program. Perhaps the best example of this is the City of Berkeley completely fucking over the team before the AZ game, and the University response was limp. If CAL doesn't want to to what it takes to field a competitive team they need to stop fucking pretending. Then they can figure out how to pay off that $400m stadium makeover.
Why do UCLA revenue sports programs run rings around Cal's? Both campuses are part of the same university system.
The logical conclusion to me is that the campus administration takes a position of indifference, if not outright hostility.
If Cal alums want to make a difference they can. They just need to be realistic that football will never be more than a passing fancy if they don't develop a strongly supportive voice.
That quote is what caught my eye as well. We can cycle through coaches with varying levels of success but the facts remain:
-Football revenue is the best chance to pay off stadium debt
-There's something about the University that makes it hard to coach. If UC Los Angeles can figure it out, we should be able to.
I agree with you and my guess is Knowlton made that case. Knowlton is actually pretty damn good. I don't think the City of Berkeley gives a shit about CAL Football, or anything to do with CAL. They never have. CAL is a cash register for them, other than that Berkeley looks at CAL as a nuisance.
I'd love to hear an explanation for why our program/facilities made it impossible for Wilcox to field a consistent offense for five years, but didn't prevent him from fielding elite defenses over that time, while the same program/facilities allowed Dykes to field an elite offense for four years, but somehow prevented him from ever fielding a competent defense.
All true. But here's what I am talking about. To win consistently in the P5 you need two things: talent and great coaches. To get talent you need great facilities, known solid coaches and a winning tradition. We have wonderful facilities. We do not have a winning tradition so we must create one over time. To do this you need coaches who are the best at two things: 1. recruiting, 2. coaching. You can usually find assistants good at one of these two things, but finding the ones who are good at both is hard and thus the price for them is high. We need to recruit better. Wilcox was on his way with a #19 class when Covid hammered us. We have a lot of new coaches, some of whom may not be at the elite level. Paying a head coach the going rate but not doing the same for solid assistants is like hiring a great CEO and then a bunch of so-so employees. Why was our back up not coached up? Maybe he was and he just didn't have the talent. There is only so much to go around we aren't nearly as deep as the good teams. Recruiting and coaching. We need the folks who are the best.
Musgrave's system doesn't take two seasons to learn, it takes one FULL season to learn. We just had our first, normal, full season in two years. No one was able to get reps in 2020 because of Covid. Neither Milner nor Glover had previous practice time in Musgrave's system. Zach Johnson had the experience but was not allowed to travel for the Arizona game, even though he was asymptomatic (just like Garbers). Wilcox wanted Musgrave's system because once a team masters it it offers a lot of options with play calling and is very difficult to defend. I am a fan of the spread, which is simple and now widely used, however the spread is easier to defend (and the spread has other limitations that Wilcox did not want). Our problem is simple: we don't have the depth of talent we need with time in the system. This will come with recruiting and training, as long as we have solid assistants who can recruit well and coach well. I'm not sure of the last part of the previous sentence, but I will say IMHO that Musgrave is not the problem.
Maybe because Wilcox himself is a defensive coach, and Dykes is an offensive coach? And both of them hired unproven, unemployed, or inexperienced coordinators for the other side of the ball?
We all criticize Wilcox and Dykes for poor coordinator hires, but we don't know what their constraints were when making the selections, or whether they had the budget to get who they really wanted.
(BTW that is a genuine "maybe" above, not a sarcastic way of saying "obviously")
Right on with that sentiment.
This. Every word of this.
The facilities, program support and Covid aren’t the reason we started 1-5 and Wilcox has failed to find a decent and competent backup QB.
I’m a Wilcox skeptic in terms of him ever being an elite or upper echelon HC. I think he is a good coach.
Yes, this.
I mean it's Oregon media saying this. It's like comparing your local playground to Disneyland.
True...a contingent of the Oregon media is looking for an excuse to sign off on hiring a guy with a 15-25 record in the P12...the easy out is "it's hard to win at Cal" which ignores the fact that good coaches can and do win there.
There’s been three good coaches since the 1950’s, and that’s White, Snyder, and Tedford. Mike White was way before my time, but I know he had at least three winning seasons, his best being 8 wins with the Joe Roth team of 75. Snyder had two winning seasons in a five year stint before being run off to ASU. I was pretty little at the time but I know my Cal football history. The first winning season was only six regular season wins and a bowl game. Only the 91 team was truly amazing and, it was a team that was stupid talented. His first three years in the rebuilding period had some seriously ugly losses that people can’t or don’t want to remember. He was then run off by our moronic AD before he ever got to finish building what he started. He did what he did with shit facilities. I would argue he could have been great. Only Tedford has done what nobody else could do, and even then, he couldn’t sustain what he built over the long term.So really, I would argue Cal has had one great coach and a handful of good ones in over half a century.
Agreed with the exception that Snyder was a great coach. He followed it up at ASU for a few years. But he definitely had a rocky start at Cal and a disappointing ending at ASU.
Snyder’s treatment was a travesty and it really is a sham he never had the chance to keep going. After watching some of the 93 games I realized the only reason Gilbertson had any success at all that year was all of the players on the team were Snyder’s recruits.
Nice research, thanks docsuess. Good recap.
You could argue that plenty of FBS programs have had 1 great and a handful of good coaches in the past 50 years...Cal is no different from 80% of the P5 schools out there, which is why I don't buy the "you can't win with the Administrative nonsense at Cal." That seems a bullschitt reason to try to excuse a coach that is 15-25 in conference in 5 years.
I wouldn’t say it’s an excuse as much as I don’t think the statement “good coaches can and do win at Cal” isn’t necessarily true. Even White and Snyder struggled to win and their tenures weren’t very long. 6 and 5 years if i remember right. Snyder also never won a Big Game.
So now that we know Wilcox is actively looking for a new HC job (can’t blame him), is he just a lame duck Coach now, especially in the eyes of new recruits and even existing players? Would this prompt the Cal Admin to hire a new Coach right now? Or does everyone pretend that this didn’t happen?
Considering that an extension for Wilcox would be completely unwarranted right now, yes he is a lame duck.
I don't think a short extension, with a token pay increase and very small buyout, is unwarranted. There are "please don't ever leave us" extensions and "let's give you another year or two" extensions.
Without a small extension, I agree he's a lame duck and will start (continue?) hemorrhaging players and staff.
If I were the AD I would consider a 1 year extension with basically a COLA for a pay raise.
Wilcox wouldn’t agree to a small buyout unless he was getting a multi year extension with a major pay increase.
I hope he stays but if he is actively looking for other gigs (Oregon or otherwise) now what do we do?
Is Wilcox really "actively" looking for a new HC job? Or did Oregon come calling and he accepted the interview?
Lots of people on here don’t seem to think there’s a difference. I might love my current job, but if my dream job called me out of the blue, I think I’d at least listen to what they had to say. At the very least, it might motivate my current employer to decide throw some incentives my way. That being said, I’d probably want better metrics of my performance to have the upper hand.
This. Chip will get an extension and raise, Lane Kiffen got an extension.....it's what you DO. And for JW, it IS his version of Cristobal's Miami. And let's not forget those "structural issues" include academic requirements where UO likely doesn't have the same bar to clear. As much as they groused about Jimmy Lake's comments on academics, they know it's true. That's one of the reasons Brian Kelly went to LSU, along with the boat of greenbacks. I DON'T think JW is looking around for another gig, but for UO you DO take the interview.
Losing James Franklin really hurt them. Derek Mason from Furd wasn't the answer, though he had them almost at 500 and a couple of bowl game losses.
Our posts crossed in the ether. My thoughts exactly.
If Wilcox stays, it will be very interesting to see how he transitions back home and recruits and hires. I don't want him to be lame duck. He's been middling even when fully invested. And why aren't there deep pocket Cal alums who pony up for great assistants? It's a perpetual mystery to me that Cal graduates such successful business people and yet we don't have many deep pocket donors to the athletic programs. I don't buy the whole academics focus argument. People love sports.
With those comments from Oregon then we are going to look really really bad if we don't extend him and do more to help him succeed. This is a turning point for CAL Football. We'll either figure it out and finally start doing what it takes to build a successful team or we will fade into mediocrity for years to come.
I think that’s the frustrating part. I really like him as a person (from what I’ve seen), and everyone around him seems to like him too. I like that our teams aren’t getting blown out and are competitive. It fees like we’re a good OC hire away from getting over the hump.
It is much much simpler than "a good OC" hire. We are 5 - 8 OL that are PAC12 caliber from getting over the hump, especially at the tackle positions.
Or, maybe we have the talent but not the right OL coach.
Nice post - you read my mind
Thanks Avi, really enjoying your updates..if Lanning is not the guy, it would be another PR blow for the Ducks. Urban Meyer should be available within 6 weeks, and speculation is that he is Phil’s #1 guy...should be interesting.
Isn't Urban finishing his first year in the NFL? I'd think he'd give it another season, unless you think he'll be fired. But yeah, they cannot wait that long. If he becomes available he'll be the hottest commodity out there.....
Jason La Canfora with another report documenting continued dysfunction in Jacksonville under Meyer, prompting talk of an in-house replacement by Charlie Strong.
IMHO, I don't see anyway Meyer is back for another year, and me may be out as early as Monday after this weekends road loss to a Titans team coming off a bye....it's been that much of a disaster off the field. Could be wrong, but there's a strong tie and respect between Phil Knight and Meyer.
Meyer is pretty polarizing right now, though, and having to walk back the Dan Lanning-to-Oregon talk is a PR mess for the Ducks...reports that the Oregon job will be finalized by Monday, and now THIS report that Meyer may not be long for the Jax gig....add up the pieces, and Meyer may be the home run Uncle Phil is looking to hit.
GoldenSD81's point about the recruiting is very valid tho...lots of questions.
The difficult part for a potential Meyer hire is recruiting. The Ducks can’t wait 6 weeks to hire him because of the early signing period.
Thanks for expanding on that. I have zero institutional memory from that era since I wasn’t alive. I didn’t realize Ray Willsey coached that long, and had as many winning seasons as he did.
Was not Craig Morton around then? All in all, IMO, he was a pretty decent QB who went on, I think to play/start in two super bowls for two different teams.
I tossed the ball back and forth with Morton....way back as an elementary school youngster a few times and his back up, Jerry Walters. My older sister had a few dates with Craig which is how I met him.
Do we give Wilcox a big enough budget to attract the best assistant coaches? I look at our PR and think its second rate compared to the Big Football schools like Bama, Texas, USC and even UW and Oregon..
I hear ya, Rug, and there's a middle ground...we may not approach the Blue Bloods from a facilities/administrative standpoint, and the Bay Area cost of living is a challenge for the coaching staff, no doubt...but someone on another thread said that Ragle made $250K to head special teams? Better than I thought...and Wilcox made $3.5M in 2021, his 2nd consecutive losing season. The money is competitive, at least, and Cal has decent enough facilities/tradition to be a consistent 7-8 win team. It can be done.
The question is, how do we make the jump with Wilcox at the helm? Can we? Is he even good enough? There's so much apathy surrounding Wilcox and the program....how can you extend a coach that's coming off 2 straight losing seasons and is 15-25 in the P12 in 5 years? How can you NOT extend a guy that has won 2 of the last 3 Big Games, beat SC, and has bowled 2 of the last 4?
Strange days in Berkeley, that's for sure. Let's land Adrian Martinez and go from there!
Most schools, not just Cal, don't have budget that Alabama, Texas, USC, UW, or Oregon has for football.
Don't disagree. Then let's just admit that we are posers. Good. I'll stop hoping and stop watching CAL Football and they can figure out who else will watch them on TV and buy tickets to pay off that $400m loan.
^^^^Exactly this.
Cal players were not suspended. They quarantined because they tested positive for Covid and had symptoms.
Apparently the positive tests were a result of the PCR tests being too sensitive. Did you hear what the epidemiologist at UCSF said? She said every person who is vaccinated or has natural immunity will have traces of the virus in their sinuses. She went on to say if the players were asymptomatic they should not have been tested. The whole thing was a knee jerk fuck up from the City of Berkeley who has yet to acknowledge they overreached and had no idea what they were doing. I also heard that the City official responsible has no medical background, but don't hold me to the last part.
If PCR tests were too sensitive, then we'd be seeing a glut of false positives in our everyday lives and the team probably wouldn't have had so many symptomatic players.
Plus, your body and the environment around you is literally filled with enzymes called RNases whose job is to degrade the RNA that these tests will detect. The claim that RNA is just sitting in your nose for hours or days to trigger a false positive is highly unlikely.
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/11/11/cal-football-covid-testing-asymptomatic-players-questioned-ucsf-dr-monica-gandhi/
That's old news
Is is fake news?
I'm just repeating what the epidemiologist from UCSF said. Chase Garbers posted the video on his twitter feed. Someone earlier said they thought the players were symptomatic. They may have been but I had not heard that. I heard Chase was asymptomatic (as was Zach Johnson) and they were still not allowed to travel. Btw, I have heard before that PCR tests are often overly sensitive.
I don't know the full story, but that doctor at UCSF backtracked on her comments after learning more about the situation. Either Cal was sloppier than other schools about following protocols (which I doubt), or was unlucky (which I doubt), or was less aggressive than other schools in trying to game the system to keep people playing (which I don't doubt).
They were symptomatic. Wasn't there 30+ symptomatic cases?
It turns out there was only one.
Where did you read one?
In the link to the article and video I just posted above.
What are you talking about??
"The team was not free of symptoms. In the meeting with parents and in subsequent statements, university officials revealed that of 172 team players, staff and volunteers tested, 46 were infected — and at least 31 were symptomatic"
That is not what the article above says. Where did yo get your info. Btw, I am not saying the article I posted is correct, its just the only news I have seen about the situation where a MD spoke about the situation.
I disagree. "Suspension" sounds like a bad thing, when in fact Cal did a good thing by testing and taking precautionary safety measures.
FWIW Washington recently forfeited a basketball game due to COVID.