Random observation, but I missed most of the Sonny Dykes era, and I’m watching some of these games for the first time. Tonight’s selection is the 2016 Texas game. For as ugly as our team has played this year, a Sonny Dykes defense is truly a dumpster fire to behold. I’m into the second quarter and I can’t believe they end up winning this game.
Its just interesting. I remember getting frustrated about the Gregory Bend But Don’t Break philosophy when Tedford was here. Davis Webb throwing bombs all over the field is definitely more interesting to watch than what we’re watching now, but it seems like the Dykes offense with Art Kauffman defense basically gives the same results we have now, only the games are 5 hours long and come down to who has the ball last or the defense getting a lucky pick or the opposing team making a mistake at a critical time. Why in God’s name can’t we have have both things at the same time?
Harsin coached with Wilcox at Boise State 2001–2002 and 2006–2009. Harsin is a QB coach at heart, has won championships, was a poor fit at Auburn, and I'm sure has buyout language that makes the financials work.
"Unless something unexpectedly changes about this team, the rest of the season is about adding insult to injury." Yep. Appreciate your efforts despite the pain of doing so.
I have little doubt Wilcox will start Plummer in the USC game as long as he came make it to the huddle. Aside from that, I am now convinced that Wilcox is mirroring Holmoe into coaching oblivion. .
I found it insightful to look at Holmoe's second to last season at Cal when his team finished 3-8. Like Wilcox, the team played a lot very close games that year. You can easily make the argument that 2000 team was far more exciting than this version. Cal beat No 13 UCLA that year and lost to No. 6 Oregon 25-17 in the second to last game of the season. The Bears scored 46, 24, 28, 32, 17 and 30 points in their last six games, not one of them a blow-out. (Just a fact check, but Cal has scored 9, 13, 21 and 24 points in its last four losses.)
I think the bottom falls out on programs when the players don't see any forward thinking vision or ability to make paradigm shifts when things are not working. We know there was some talent on that 1-10 2001 team because Tedford instantly turned them into winners the next season. Same situation now. Wilcox will have new coaches, but won't change anything because he is innately afraid of change.
Even worse, Knowlton inexcusably committed us to Wilcox with that baffling extension 7 months ago…there’s no Tedford on the horizon. Plus, with the ease of the transfer portal now as opposed to ‘01, this team could get absolutely gutted. We’ll see if the players are as loyal to Wilcox as he is to them.
Coupled with the current recruiting struggles, our beloved program is literally on the precipice of utter collapse.
And 10 years ago, it’s in no way as big a concern…1st year starters like them would be back. Nowadays, though, with the NIL and portal, it’s naive to think they’re a lock to be back.
It's like Tedford's insistence that a hobbled Longshore (hurt in the final minutes of the epic win in Autzen) was somehow better than Kevin Riley as the team collapsed in 2007.
While it's easy to dismiss Riley's performance that year because of the brain fart in the final seconds against Oregon State, people forget that without Riley, the team would have never been in the position to tie or win the game in the final minutes in the first place. At least Tedford finally realized the futility of trying to play Nate through that injury and let Riley lead the team back to the win over Air Force in the bowl game that post-season--but we had to watch that terrible tailspin that could have been avoided if Coach had simply overcome his risk-aversion (and maybe misplaced anger over the OSU loss) to playing a youngster.
I'm guessing that Wilcox is terrified to start Millner over Plummer because of some perceived second-guessing if Millner plays badly, for very similar reasons. Which means a winnable game like Big Game now becomes, like in 2007, less so.
I have to confess that I didn't have the resilience to watch the end of the Oregon game, so missed Milner's cameo. Having watched Milner in various scrimmages and practices, he doesn't seem to me like he's a short-term answer and maybe not a long-term one either. For all of Plummer's short-comings, until last game, he's doesn't make many bad turnovers. He takes a lot of hits and doesn't fumble, and he doesn't throw a lot of INTs considering the pressure he is constantly facing. You'd look at our pts. per game average and assume we turn the ball over a lot and we really don't. With a young QB and all of that pressure, you can assume the turnovers will go up, up, up. My guess is that Wilcox will wait until we're bowl ineligible or Plummer gets injured that he fully commits to Milner. Also, Plummer still has a year of eligibility for COVID I think if he wants it, so not sure how/if that plays into it.
And I'm not advocating this for Wilcox. This is just where I suspect his mindset is. Problem is Plummer already looks resigned from the abuse he's taken combined with the poor results. You really need some energy in that position if you're gonna salvage anything of this season.
Millner is going to have numerous spurts where he looks clueless. And also hopefully some stretches where he proves his 4-star rating coming out of high school. Whether it's Millner or Plummer, Cal is very likely going to lose at least four out of its last five games. So play Millner now and give us at least a little hope and excitement for next year. In all fairness, it would also give Plummer some time to think about his next transfer portal destination for his last season of eligibility at a school with hopefully a better O line.
The concern is that Wilcox remains stubbornly committed to a below-average P5 QB in Jack Plummer, while a potentially better player in Kai Millner flees through the transfer portal.
Gone are the days where younger kids will wait their turn, and I have zero confidence in this coaching staff's ability to identify and play the better player.
Let's be honest here......Cal has zero chance of making a bowl game this year. The next two games are on the road at SC and OSU, and both of those schools have higher aspirations than losing to Cal at home. I'f I'm Wilcox, I pull Plummer aside and tell him Millner is starting those two games, if anything to see if Millner is one of those dudes who may not look great in practice but takes it to another level when it counts. It would also give Plummer a chance to heal up. I then declare a 1-game open competition in practice to see who starts the Stanford game, the only winnable game left on the schedule. Of course Wilcox will do none of those things.
Agree on everything, especially that Wilcox will do none of those things.
Honestly, given the relatively strength of the the P12, this team's chances of making a bowl game realistically hit zero after the loss in Boulder. The math didn't work.
Yes, let's head back to the glory days of the Holmoe-led Bears (3-8, 5-6, 4-7, 3-8, 1-10). Like Wilcox, Holmoe was defensive minded and always put good defenses on the field which kept us close in games, but he was also completely out of his depth as a HC, trying to learn on the job, and plus had the benefit of some left-over Mariucci recruits at a time when the talent level in the PAC was more evenly distributed. And don't forget, Tedford was run out of town partially because he stuck with his underperforming favorites too long also. Post Holmoe & Tedford, Cal increased the academic requirements for athletes, shrinking our pool of potential recruits even further. Wilcox, on the other hand, is a fully competent HC and has been attempting to build a long-term winning team the only way one can be built at Cal - defense first, then bring along the offense. His plan hasn't worked out because it's tougher to recruit to Cal than probably any other BCS school, and his choice of Musgrave doesn't excite enough top-talent offensive highschoolers to want to come & run a solid, 1990's style NFL offense. Since 1960, Cal has had winning seasons about 1/3 of the time. If we end up with a losing season, Wilcox will be exactly at 1/3. What were you expecting? Who could do better?
I can think of a whole busload of them. Let's start with that former Cal QB who has won everywhere he has been and currently has the number two FCS team in the nation at a commuter school that never before had a winning tradition. As for the tough academic requirements, is this the same university that is eliminating the requirement to use ACT and SAT test scores for admissions starting in 2023?
Yes, bringing in Troy Taylor will solve all of our problems. Every stellar athlete will want to come to Cal & easily gain admission, the faculty and administration will all of a sudden fully support athletics, the crushing stadium debt will be forgiven, and the stands will be full for every FCS home game. And yes, since getting rid of the ACT & SAT, Cal has gone from one of the toughest schools in the country to gain admission to the easiest. Now, where's the button for that sarcasm font?
Actually, I don't think Cal will remain one of the toughest schools in the country to gain admission with their new woke policies. Goodbye test scores, hello grade inflation. Just sayin.
The word woke has been weaponized, so instead of using it, I'll just say that I agree with you that it's a big problem that schools have become places where certain voices, whether it's a controversial speaker, or a comedian who might offend can no longer speak. But, since only a tiny percentage of school life really involves those unfortunate changes, and doing well in classes in your chosen field of study dwarfs everything else, I don't see it as an impediment to the school still being selective in admissions. And as the dad of two high school juniors who are in the process, it's painfully obvious that getting into Cal would be a major achievement.
As an aside, I'm not sure what grade inflation you're talking about - I am very aware of it as almost a public school policy during the pandemic, but we're finding out that high school grades have returned to the real world this year, and it's proving a shock to our kids.
I wish your kids well and hope they actually get into Cal to follow in their dad's footsteps. I bet you have had them to a ton of games to allow them to soak up the experience. There is honestly nothing better than a pre-game tailgate and a day at Memorial. We may disagree on a lot of things, but I know we do not disagree on that.
"To the extent that this season isn’t already over, the only two things Cal fans can realistically get excited about is 1) seeing younger players get an opportunity to develop and 2) maybe beating Stanford."
Sure, you always want to beat your rival, though I think you could make the argument that unlike past dark periods, current fan apathy surrounding the program would make a win over Stanford kind of ho-hum for a majority of the fan base.
Personally, while I’d love to beat Stanford, it won’t suddenly make things lollipops and Rainbow Brite in Cal fandom…we can all agree major systemic issues remain, from Wilcox on down. Who knows, you’d like to think the program doesn’t need to hit rock f-ing bottom for meaningful change (even beyond simply replacing Musgrave and Angus) to take place, but maybe it does.
There was no fight from the team or the coaches. When there was 7 and a half minutes left in the game after scoring- when down a few possessions, we should’ve tried an on side kick to try to gain more momentum and go out with a fight. Instead, we got a bad low hanging kick and a defense that couldn’t stop Oregon on 3rd and long which lead to another duck td. This team is poorly coached. Coaching to win is not in their motto. They are not coaching a game- they are coaching scrimmage.
If you check out the Oregon personnel on the field when Milner was in you'd see that there were few backups in for the Ducks. Nix never came out nor did most of the D players. He performed MUCH better under duress than Plummer. He is quicker to make decisions and he is MOBILE. Every winning college team has MOBILE QB's.
At this point we need to go with Millner. He re-energized the offense and did it with some of our back-ups in there such as Justin Richard Baker who looked quite fast. If the Ducks had back-ups in there well then so did we. Millner was also able to connect a few times with the TE Latu, whom Plummer either misses or throws over his head. He also appears to have a sort of moxie and was enjoying being in the game. And the fact is, anyway Cal for the most part cannot win without a mobile QB. How many games did we win when Chase scrambled - USC, Stanford, Washington, etc. Without that those games would have been losses and Wilcox would no longer be here.
I am from Chicago originally and was watching Bears-Cowboys. It struck me that the Bears have the same issue Cal does (atrocious O line) and deal with that by having Fields scramble, not just on broken plays but also a number of designed runs. Can you imagine a designed Plummer run, especially now that he is hurt? There is zero reason for a defense to waste any brain cells worrying about such a thing.
Now is the time to develop that depth that has so badly been missing this year. Get the young guys in so there’s hope of a decent 2-deep next year. At least that’s the only interesting thing left for this season.
The money is too good to pass up. USC only funds 21 varsity sports. They have rich alumni, who love to give back (Trojan Family). I have no doubt that 'SC is one of those 15-20 athletic programs that actually makes money, and returns some back to teh academic side of the Uni.
But note, to be in that position, one needs a will to win (of the revenue sports). Cal demonstrates the opposite.
Folt: ' just keep your noses clean and pay all the bills, and I'll stay out of your way.'
You could argue we are now really seeing the results of Nicolas Dirks’ incompetence in 2014…handing the keys to the Department over to a corporate finance guy with hardly any college athletics administration experience beyond volunteering for a task force? Maybe this is the logical result of such a move.
Respectfully, OCB, completely disagree. Carol Christ is more like the academic that doesn’t care about sports.
Dirks faced crisis after crisis, which eventually led to his resignation. He was a disaster. Hiring someone from Corporate America with no tangible experience in an Athletic Department is just another example of the havoc he wrought in his tenure.
I think we agree, Jimmy. Mike Williams was a terrible. (I would have thought a guy with a business background would know better than give a no-cut contract to an unproven employee like Jones.)
But my speculation was perhaps Dirks didn't care about P5 sports and just hired someone available (Williams) so Dirks could spend his time doing other things.
At least the current Chancellor attends a few games.
I have no personal animus against him, I’m sure he is a nice guy and all, but Knowlton above all others should be fired. He’s overseen our football and men’s basketball programs (the two primary revenue generators for the athletic department) fall into sorry states of decrepitude at the same time, hurting not just our present day revenue but our bargaining position as conference realignment occurs. It is such poor performance at the worst possible time. It’s going to lock in our low tier status for decades. I cannot conceive of a reason why he doesn’t deserve to be fired immediately. It is a joke.
Worse he's hurting long-term revenue by not creating memorable experiences that get students to commit dollars down the road. We're losing a generation of potential donors and season ticket holders, who will have zero positive association with Cal fandom.
I was probably the only alum who was indifferent to the possibility of JW moving North. To me, he just never passed the eye test. (Never a winning conference record. Cheez-it Bowl.)
We got enough pieces on the field to win games. Hopefully, they don't head to the portal after the season. Troy Taylor....guess what, they won again!
Random observation, but I missed most of the Sonny Dykes era, and I’m watching some of these games for the first time. Tonight’s selection is the 2016 Texas game. For as ugly as our team has played this year, a Sonny Dykes defense is truly a dumpster fire to behold. I’m into the second quarter and I can’t believe they end up winning this game.
I remember those days...
Its just interesting. I remember getting frustrated about the Gregory Bend But Don’t Break philosophy when Tedford was here. Davis Webb throwing bombs all over the field is definitely more interesting to watch than what we’re watching now, but it seems like the Dykes offense with Art Kauffman defense basically gives the same results we have now, only the games are 5 hours long and come down to who has the ball last or the defense getting a lucky pick or the opposing team making a mistake at a critical time. Why in God’s name can’t we have have both things at the same time?
Hire Bryan Harsin for OC.
Harsin coached with Wilcox at Boise State 2001–2002 and 2006–2009. Harsin is a QB coach at heart, has won championships, was a poor fit at Auburn, and I'm sure has buyout language that makes the financials work.
Harsin for OC.
I think he was OC at Boise State when Wilcox was DC in late 2000s.
Our coaching staff is generally made up of Oregon/Washington/Boise State ties.
Thanks Nick. Yet another rough article to write, and read.
More Monkey Facts! ... please ...
The Pygmy Marmoset is the smallest monkey.
Agreed!
Gimme!!!
"Unless something unexpectedly changes about this team, the rest of the season is about adding insult to injury." Yep. Appreciate your efforts despite the pain of doing so.
TIL new world monkeys have prehensile tails while old world monkeys have regular ol' useless tails
Happy to teach you something new!
I learned that in anthro class at Cal! I always thought New World Monkeys would be a good band name.
I have little doubt Wilcox will start Plummer in the USC game as long as he came make it to the huddle. Aside from that, I am now convinced that Wilcox is mirroring Holmoe into coaching oblivion. .
I found it insightful to look at Holmoe's second to last season at Cal when his team finished 3-8. Like Wilcox, the team played a lot very close games that year. You can easily make the argument that 2000 team was far more exciting than this version. Cal beat No 13 UCLA that year and lost to No. 6 Oregon 25-17 in the second to last game of the season. The Bears scored 46, 24, 28, 32, 17 and 30 points in their last six games, not one of them a blow-out. (Just a fact check, but Cal has scored 9, 13, 21 and 24 points in its last four losses.)
I think the bottom falls out on programs when the players don't see any forward thinking vision or ability to make paradigm shifts when things are not working. We know there was some talent on that 1-10 2001 team because Tedford instantly turned them into winners the next season. Same situation now. Wilcox will have new coaches, but won't change anything because he is innately afraid of change.
Exactly.
Even worse, Knowlton inexcusably committed us to Wilcox with that baffling extension 7 months ago…there’s no Tedford on the horizon. Plus, with the ease of the transfer portal now as opposed to ‘01, this team could get absolutely gutted. We’ll see if the players are as loyal to Wilcox as he is to them.
Coupled with the current recruiting struggles, our beloved program is literally on the precipice of utter collapse.
What can save it? We need it!
Exactly.
And 10 years ago, it’s in no way as big a concern…1st year starters like them would be back. Nowadays, though, with the NIL and portal, it’s naive to think they’re a lock to be back.
I’m hopeful but by no means confident.
It's like Tedford's insistence that a hobbled Longshore (hurt in the final minutes of the epic win in Autzen) was somehow better than Kevin Riley as the team collapsed in 2007.
While it's easy to dismiss Riley's performance that year because of the brain fart in the final seconds against Oregon State, people forget that without Riley, the team would have never been in the position to tie or win the game in the final minutes in the first place. At least Tedford finally realized the futility of trying to play Nate through that injury and let Riley lead the team back to the win over Air Force in the bowl game that post-season--but we had to watch that terrible tailspin that could have been avoided if Coach had simply overcome his risk-aversion (and maybe misplaced anger over the OSU loss) to playing a youngster.
I'm guessing that Wilcox is terrified to start Millner over Plummer because of some perceived second-guessing if Millner plays badly, for very similar reasons. Which means a winnable game like Big Game now becomes, like in 2007, less so.
I have to confess that I didn't have the resilience to watch the end of the Oregon game, so missed Milner's cameo. Having watched Milner in various scrimmages and practices, he doesn't seem to me like he's a short-term answer and maybe not a long-term one either. For all of Plummer's short-comings, until last game, he's doesn't make many bad turnovers. He takes a lot of hits and doesn't fumble, and he doesn't throw a lot of INTs considering the pressure he is constantly facing. You'd look at our pts. per game average and assume we turn the ball over a lot and we really don't. With a young QB and all of that pressure, you can assume the turnovers will go up, up, up. My guess is that Wilcox will wait until we're bowl ineligible or Plummer gets injured that he fully commits to Milner. Also, Plummer still has a year of eligibility for COVID I think if he wants it, so not sure how/if that plays into it.
And I'm not advocating this for Wilcox. This is just where I suspect his mindset is. Problem is Plummer already looks resigned from the abuse he's taken combined with the poor results. You really need some energy in that position if you're gonna salvage anything of this season.
Everything in Wilcox's history and nature says that if he chooses to, Jack Plummer is Cal's 2023 starting QB.
But I don't get the feeling Plummer's gonna want to stick around for another year of this.
Guess I can’t blame him - I don’t want to stick around for another year of this ;-)
But grew up a Bear and it’s in my blood…like a sickness.
Millner is going to have numerous spurts where he looks clueless. And also hopefully some stretches where he proves his 4-star rating coming out of high school. Whether it's Millner or Plummer, Cal is very likely going to lose at least four out of its last five games. So play Millner now and give us at least a little hope and excitement for next year. In all fairness, it would also give Plummer some time to think about his next transfer portal destination for his last season of eligibility at a school with hopefully a better O line.
The concern is that Wilcox remains stubbornly committed to a below-average P5 QB in Jack Plummer, while a potentially better player in Kai Millner flees through the transfer portal.
Gone are the days where younger kids will wait their turn, and I have zero confidence in this coaching staff's ability to identify and play the better player.
Let's be honest here......Cal has zero chance of making a bowl game this year. The next two games are on the road at SC and OSU, and both of those schools have higher aspirations than losing to Cal at home. I'f I'm Wilcox, I pull Plummer aside and tell him Millner is starting those two games, if anything to see if Millner is one of those dudes who may not look great in practice but takes it to another level when it counts. It would also give Plummer a chance to heal up. I then declare a 1-game open competition in practice to see who starts the Stanford game, the only winnable game left on the schedule. Of course Wilcox will do none of those things.
Agree on everything, especially that Wilcox will do none of those things.
Honestly, given the relatively strength of the the P12, this team's chances of making a bowl game realistically hit zero after the loss in Boulder. The math didn't work.
Yes, let's head back to the glory days of the Holmoe-led Bears (3-8, 5-6, 4-7, 3-8, 1-10). Like Wilcox, Holmoe was defensive minded and always put good defenses on the field which kept us close in games, but he was also completely out of his depth as a HC, trying to learn on the job, and plus had the benefit of some left-over Mariucci recruits at a time when the talent level in the PAC was more evenly distributed. And don't forget, Tedford was run out of town partially because he stuck with his underperforming favorites too long also. Post Holmoe & Tedford, Cal increased the academic requirements for athletes, shrinking our pool of potential recruits even further. Wilcox, on the other hand, is a fully competent HC and has been attempting to build a long-term winning team the only way one can be built at Cal - defense first, then bring along the offense. His plan hasn't worked out because it's tougher to recruit to Cal than probably any other BCS school, and his choice of Musgrave doesn't excite enough top-talent offensive highschoolers to want to come & run a solid, 1990's style NFL offense. Since 1960, Cal has had winning seasons about 1/3 of the time. If we end up with a losing season, Wilcox will be exactly at 1/3. What were you expecting? Who could do better?
I can think of a whole busload of them. Let's start with that former Cal QB who has won everywhere he has been and currently has the number two FCS team in the nation at a commuter school that never before had a winning tradition. As for the tough academic requirements, is this the same university that is eliminating the requirement to use ACT and SAT test scores for admissions starting in 2023?
Yes, bringing in Troy Taylor will solve all of our problems. Every stellar athlete will want to come to Cal & easily gain admission, the faculty and administration will all of a sudden fully support athletics, the crushing stadium debt will be forgiven, and the stands will be full for every FCS home game. And yes, since getting rid of the ACT & SAT, Cal has gone from one of the toughest schools in the country to gain admission to the easiest. Now, where's the button for that sarcasm font?
Actually, I don't think Cal will remain one of the toughest schools in the country to gain admission with their new woke policies. Goodbye test scores, hello grade inflation. Just sayin.
The word woke has been weaponized, so instead of using it, I'll just say that I agree with you that it's a big problem that schools have become places where certain voices, whether it's a controversial speaker, or a comedian who might offend can no longer speak. But, since only a tiny percentage of school life really involves those unfortunate changes, and doing well in classes in your chosen field of study dwarfs everything else, I don't see it as an impediment to the school still being selective in admissions. And as the dad of two high school juniors who are in the process, it's painfully obvious that getting into Cal would be a major achievement.
As an aside, I'm not sure what grade inflation you're talking about - I am very aware of it as almost a public school policy during the pandemic, but we're finding out that high school grades have returned to the real world this year, and it's proving a shock to our kids.
I wish your kids well and hope they actually get into Cal to follow in their dad's footsteps. I bet you have had them to a ton of games to allow them to soak up the experience. There is honestly nothing better than a pre-game tailgate and a day at Memorial. We may disagree on a lot of things, but I know we do not disagree on that.
That triple OT UCLA game in 2000 was my favorite Cal game experience. I picked up Boller on my shoulders! (He was very sweaty)
"To the extent that this season isn’t already over, the only two things Cal fans can realistically get excited about is 1) seeing younger players get an opportunity to develop and 2) maybe beating Stanford."
#2 is never a maybe
Sure, you always want to beat your rival, though I think you could make the argument that unlike past dark periods, current fan apathy surrounding the program would make a win over Stanford kind of ho-hum for a majority of the fan base.
Personally, while I’d love to beat Stanford, it won’t suddenly make things lollipops and Rainbow Brite in Cal fandom…we can all agree major systemic issues remain, from Wilcox on down. Who knows, you’d like to think the program doesn’t need to hit rock f-ing bottom for meaningful change (even beyond simply replacing Musgrave and Angus) to take place, but maybe it does.
Then again, I do despise Stanfurd….
There was no fight from the team or the coaches. When there was 7 and a half minutes left in the game after scoring- when down a few possessions, we should’ve tried an on side kick to try to gain more momentum and go out with a fight. Instead, we got a bad low hanging kick and a defense that couldn’t stop Oregon on 3rd and long which lead to another duck td. This team is poorly coached. Coaching to win is not in their motto. They are not coaching a game- they are coaching scrimmage.
If you check out the Oregon personnel on the field when Milner was in you'd see that there were few backups in for the Ducks. Nix never came out nor did most of the D players. He performed MUCH better under duress than Plummer. He is quicker to make decisions and he is MOBILE. Every winning college team has MOBILE QB's.
At this point we need to go with Millner. He re-energized the offense and did it with some of our back-ups in there such as Justin Richard Baker who looked quite fast. If the Ducks had back-ups in there well then so did we. Millner was also able to connect a few times with the TE Latu, whom Plummer either misses or throws over his head. He also appears to have a sort of moxie and was enjoying being in the game. And the fact is, anyway Cal for the most part cannot win without a mobile QB. How many games did we win when Chase scrambled - USC, Stanford, Washington, etc. Without that those games would have been losses and Wilcox would no longer be here.
I agree with this. With this o-line, Plummer's injury, I think Kai needs to start the rest of the way.
I agree except for Latu. He usually drops the pass from Plummer, even when the ball is thrown on his numbers.
I am from Chicago originally and was watching Bears-Cowboys. It struck me that the Bears have the same issue Cal does (atrocious O line) and deal with that by having Fields scramble, not just on broken plays but also a number of designed runs. Can you imagine a designed Plummer run, especially now that he is hurt? There is zero reason for a defense to waste any brain cells worrying about such a thing.
I love me some Chicago, O.O...not gonna lie.
Agree 💯
Are you talking to me? If so, I am a retired high school head coach and a college LB coach. I think I know a little about the intricacies of football.
Now is the time to develop that depth that has so badly been missing this year. Get the young guys in so there’s hope of a decent 2-deep next year. At least that’s the only interesting thing left for this season.
btw: Carol Folt personally hates big time sports. (She just smartly recognizes the reality.)
The money is too good to pass up. USC only funds 21 varsity sports. They have rich alumni, who love to give back (Trojan Family). I have no doubt that 'SC is one of those 15-20 athletic programs that actually makes money, and returns some back to teh academic side of the Uni.
But note, to be in that position, one needs a will to win (of the revenue sports). Cal demonstrates the opposite.
Folt: ' just keep your noses clean and pay all the bills, and I'll stay out of your way.'
You could argue we are now really seeing the results of Nicolas Dirks’ incompetence in 2014…handing the keys to the Department over to a corporate finance guy with hardly any college athletics administration experience beyond volunteering for a task force? Maybe this is the logical result of such a move.
Or, Dirks was a pure academic guy could not care one iota about sports.
Respectfully, OCB, completely disagree. Carol Christ is more like the academic that doesn’t care about sports.
Dirks faced crisis after crisis, which eventually led to his resignation. He was a disaster. Hiring someone from Corporate America with no tangible experience in an Athletic Department is just another example of the havoc he wrought in his tenure.
I think we agree, Jimmy. Mike Williams was a terrible. (I would have thought a guy with a business background would know better than give a no-cut contract to an unproven employee like Jones.)
But my speculation was perhaps Dirks didn't care about P5 sports and just hired someone available (Williams) so Dirks could spend his time doing other things.
At least the current Chancellor attends a few games.
And Wilcox over committed to Plummer.
And Plummer over-committed to deep throws
And those deep throws over committed to incompletions
Soooo many of these throws have no chance of being completed. None.
Half of his passes are thrown in desperation.
Plummer bears responsibility for some of that.
I say all
I have no personal animus against him, I’m sure he is a nice guy and all, but Knowlton above all others should be fired. He’s overseen our football and men’s basketball programs (the two primary revenue generators for the athletic department) fall into sorry states of decrepitude at the same time, hurting not just our present day revenue but our bargaining position as conference realignment occurs. It is such poor performance at the worst possible time. It’s going to lock in our low tier status for decades. I cannot conceive of a reason why he doesn’t deserve to be fired immediately. It is a joke.
Worse he's hurting long-term revenue by not creating memorable experiences that get students to commit dollars down the road. We're losing a generation of potential donors and season ticket holders, who will have zero positive association with Cal fandom.
Carol extended him.....
I was probably the only alum who was indifferent to the possibility of JW moving North. To me, he just never passed the eye test. (Never a winning conference record. Cheez-it Bowl.)