In the end, it's not about wins and losses. It's not even about the same procedural penalties that kill us season after season.
Wilcox is incapable of keeping his team hungry and engaged. I've never seen a program consistently trot out half asleep to start the game for half the season, getting comfy every time we start out 3-0. The first seasons were a result of TDR, Gerald, and Beau Baldwin being great coaches & coordinators. Our defense never had the same attention to detail and discipline since they left, and while Baldwin was heavily limited by our inability to recruit he was at least as good as everyone that came after him.
Wilcox is a great defensive mind, but he's just not made out to be a head coach. Look at Orgeron in comparison. Coaching was questionable but his kids would run through a brick wall for him.
not sure I agree about Baldwin, but 100% agree about Wilcox. He may talk about adversity and complacency , but when it hits he has absolutely no idea what to do. Drives me nuts to see him standing on the sideline like a bewildered statue while everything collapses.
It was a terrible game after the first 20 minutes. Just a monumental collapse. No indication of any ability to adapt as Duke made changes on the fly with a whole new bunch of linebackers and a very good QB. That’s on coaching. What were all those coaches in the sky room doing? It’s not like they couldn’t see the changes Duke was making. We are headed for another dismal, mediocre season and even beating a middling Stanford team is not a given. God or Ron help us!
I have the utmost respect for you and all of the WFC writers that continue to put in such hard, stellar work, Wilcox-game after Wilcox-game. Your drive is impressive.
Rewatching the game I was reminded of Coach Wilcox’s comment about how just one player’s mistake can result in a bad play. That showed up with offensive linemen not holding blocks in pass protection or defensive players being out of position on run fits or pass defense. The most damaging instance of this was the play where JKS was injured. Quaron was running left behind the line of scrimmage when he tripped over an offensive lineman being pushed backwards. If Quaron stays up, he and Mini would have overloaded the left side, instead JKS was left with one less receiver to pass to or one less blocker on the scramble.
All of JKS’s interceptions and sacks happened after the injury. On the interceptions he couldn’t fully weight his left leg and on 3 of the 4 interceptions, (I’m including the one called back on the Duke offsides), the pass was short. The fourth was high off the receiver’s hands. The OL was not strong enough to protect JKS, with his reduced mobility.
Definitely one of the most insightful and reassuring comments in this thread. With unlikely improvement after a bye week, maybe Rivera will spice up the time off with a good old fashioned mid-season coach firing and start of a national search for someone to lead Cal to a National Championship at some (distant) point in the future. Hey, since when is dreaming against the law?
GoldenBear68: If Indiana can become a competitive, nationual title contending team with Cignitti, then so can we. We just have to find that special coach!
I'm having trouble finding all the 2025 games on the chart. Maybe it's my old guy eyesight. But I thought it might be interesting to see how the team trends during the season. Is it just meandering around the chart, or will it meander toward bad?
So far the team has spent the most time near the middle of the chart in the Pillowfights-Bizarro Games overlap (Duke, BC, and Minnesota all sit near there). SDSU (Bad) and OSU (Bizarro) aren't too much farther away, albeit in opposite directions. The only outlier so far is Texas Southern (far left edge of The Good).
In the end, it's not about wins and losses. It's not even about the same procedural penalties that kill us season after season.
Wilcox is incapable of keeping his team hungry and engaged. I've never seen a program consistently trot out half asleep to start the game for half the season, getting comfy every time we start out 3-0. The first seasons were a result of TDR, Gerald, and Beau Baldwin being great coaches & coordinators. Our defense never had the same attention to detail and discipline since they left, and while Baldwin was heavily limited by our inability to recruit he was at least as good as everyone that came after him.
Wilcox is a great defensive mind, but he's just not made out to be a head coach. Look at Orgeron in comparison. Coaching was questionable but his kids would run through a brick wall for him.
not sure I agree about Baldwin, but 100% agree about Wilcox. He may talk about adversity and complacency , but when it hits he has absolutely no idea what to do. Drives me nuts to see him standing on the sideline like a bewildered statue while everything collapses.
It was a terrible game after the first 20 minutes. Just a monumental collapse. No indication of any ability to adapt as Duke made changes on the fly with a whole new bunch of linebackers and a very good QB. That’s on coaching. What were all those coaches in the sky room doing? It’s not like they couldn’t see the changes Duke was making. We are headed for another dismal, mediocre season and even beating a middling Stanford team is not a given. God or Ron help us!
Thanks B97….nice job.
I have the utmost respect for you and all of the WFC writers that continue to put in such hard, stellar work, Wilcox-game after Wilcox-game. Your drive is impressive.
Rewatching the game I was reminded of Coach Wilcox’s comment about how just one player’s mistake can result in a bad play. That showed up with offensive linemen not holding blocks in pass protection or defensive players being out of position on run fits or pass defense. The most damaging instance of this was the play where JKS was injured. Quaron was running left behind the line of scrimmage when he tripped over an offensive lineman being pushed backwards. If Quaron stays up, he and Mini would have overloaded the left side, instead JKS was left with one less receiver to pass to or one less blocker on the scramble.
All of JKS’s interceptions and sacks happened after the injury. On the interceptions he couldn’t fully weight his left leg and on 3 of the 4 interceptions, (I’m including the one called back on the Duke offsides), the pass was short. The fourth was high off the receiver’s hands. The OL was not strong enough to protect JKS, with his reduced mobility.
You got it exactly right, pillowfight with Duke having rocks in their pillows. The good news is we won't lose in October this week...
The key to most Cal games is which team puts goodly amounts of rocks in their pillow cases, and which one only has pebbles in their pockets.
Definitely one of the most insightful and reassuring comments in this thread. With unlikely improvement after a bye week, maybe Rivera will spice up the time off with a good old fashioned mid-season coach firing and start of a national search for someone to lead Cal to a National Championship at some (distant) point in the future. Hey, since when is dreaming against the law?
It is Berkeley, and California generally. I'm sure there is either a law or ordinance, or else a permit process.
You think Rivera reads this tripe all us experts shovel out after every game?
GoldenBear68: If Indiana can become a competitive, nationual title contending team with Cignitti, then so can we. We just have to find that special coach!
Your mouth to Rivera’s ears!
I found the most lol video. One guy says Cal is the most surprising team in the nation and will run the table in ACC.
https://www.usatoday.com/embed/video/86481248007/
Where is DBD today?
I'm having trouble finding all the 2025 games on the chart. Maybe it's my old guy eyesight. But I thought it might be interesting to see how the team trends during the season. Is it just meandering around the chart, or will it meander toward bad?
It's easier to read the the full-size image (unnecessarily long link here: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dz4W!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F19bb3476-4215-44dc-b1cb-d0d88012c1af_3000x3000.png)
So far the team has spent the most time near the middle of the chart in the Pillowfights-Bizarro Games overlap (Duke, BC, and Minnesota all sit near there). SDSU (Bad) and OSU (Bizarro) aren't too much farther away, albeit in opposite directions. The only outlier so far is Texas Southern (far left edge of The Good).