I'm just not sure how much interest I will have anymore in college football after this season. After finally getting to the point of a meaningful championship playoff structure with any team with any small bit of rationale to claim being the best team, the entire stability of teams collapses in terms of both players and coaches....how meaningful post season games are in terms of claims and final rankings is very questionable. There are a lot of ways to spend the finite time we have and post-season college football has become a circus. Perhaps if players were "employees" with contracts and had to perform post season or lose substantial NIL dollars under those contracts that might be one way to address this situation. But it just makes it virtually the same as being pro, and I don't follow pro. Additionally, the entire way the initial push for NIL was stated was the players were being taken advantage of by rich athletic departments. But now it's just "you all need to donate even more than you ever have." The only thing that might get my interest renewed would be if the top 32 football teams over the past decade or something like that split off and dominated all players able to be drafted pro, the rest of collegiate football returned to players with substantial interest in getting a degree, buying season tickets and donating $250, $500 or $1000 a year was sufficient for the regular supportive fan not sitting on a pile of Bitcoin or Apple or Tesla stock. The question does have to be asked for each team and its fan base: how many millions more are needed each year in donations to compete with the top 32 teams? And even beyond that: what does it mean to play for four schools in five years? Assuming you did earn a degree after all of that, to which school are you loyal and how can you build any kind of record of accomplishment in the school record books and be recognized as a "great"? It will be interesting to see what happens to fans across the 100+ football schools as this circus continues and the dollars demanded continue to sky rocket.
As somebody who went down to the bowl game and has been to almost every home game, bowl game and many away games in my past 33 years of fandom, this is a new low.
I know that we get blown out of games. I know that we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I know that we come out lackluster against mediocre teams and find a way to lose or barely win. All of that I know.
But I cannot accept not trying, and that's what I saw on Wednesday. Sure you lost a bunch of players. Sure we're down to our fourth string quarterback. Sure the process is broken and everything is weird and wrong and bad. But you still try to put the best product out on the field and try to win the damn game. To do otherwise is a slap in the face of every fan and every player that has worn the Blue and Gold.
This sentiment could be applied to a lot of programs. It's a systemic problem that's going to have to be addressed if the industry is going to expect not only continued, but ever more support in various forms.
No one likes to lose, and its on the various programs to put a competent program on the field. But its also true that often you lose because your team is just not good in some ways. That's a problem, but no where near the problem of obvious lack of putting your best effort forth, even if it won't be good enough some days.
"If you had told me after the 2023 Independence Bowl about all the malarky and tomfoolery that Cal would get up to in 2024 just for the year to end the exact same way at 6-7, I wouldn’t have believed you."
Bill Parcells: "you are what yoru record says you are." And Justin is below a .500 head coach. Even if Fernando returned next year, at best we'd be looking at 7 wins. For example, with a better kicker, we could have had 2-3 more wins this year, and we actually had a better kicker last year who would have loved to return and start this year, but JW made the coaching decision to let him go (to UCLA).
When you have in aggregate "6-7" personnel, you usually get 6-7, with 7-6 & 5-7 the most likely alternatives. While the personnel turns over, it hasn't changed much in nature in years. Get some linemen or get ready for more 6-7 seasons.
It must be so hard to write and report on the Cal football program - I feel for the WFC team! As a '79 grad I have seen so much Good, Bad and Ugly (mostly Ugly) from Cal football that it was hard to expect a Tedford-like resurgence for Oski's boys in 2024. But this year was particularly painful, with a massive opportunity to beat a bunch of weak teams and to dominate a new conference. Sadly, JW's coaching would not allow this, and the Golden Bear could not overcome its own futility - the Miami game literally ripped my heart out. Sadly, the team looked especially unready from the start of the Syracuse game forward. And now losing Nando, more portal churn coming, and a total retreading of unemployed coaches does not bode well for 2025, with a best guess of 3-1 in non-conference, 2-6 in conference, and no irrelevant bowl game. The Ugly will continue in 2025. Still, GO BEARS FOREVER.
Yet somehow there remain folks seemingly unaware of the changing landscape of NCAAFB that defend Justin Wilcox and condescendingly deride those critical of a coach with a .348 winning percentage against conference foes over 8 meager seasons. Baffling.
I have zero faith in Justin Wilcox to win 9, but maybe the additions of keen offensive minds like Harsin, Rolovich and especially Famika Anae bring about just enough change….fingers crossed.
I'm grateful for this and hoping for more post-mortem analysis to help process and purge. I suppose in the end we end up at the beginning, which is the recognition of deep mediocrity in every facet of Cal football under Wilcox. I believe the new offensive coaches are upgrades, and defensive coaching seems fine as usual under Wilcox, but the whole ecosystem of Cal football will find a way to remain mediocre, winning a few, losing many that are close, and wishing for something that will not happen.
Expand the playoff to 16, get rid of conference championship games, and get rid of the rest of the bowls. Moving the transfer window to January will help also.
Maybe the ESPN bloat bowls can outright pay players to not sit out with a bonus? Or giving seniors an allotment of all-expenses-paid trip packages to give family one last experience? It won't be enough to offset NFL money but it may pencil out for some.
I know there are many reasons these things won't happen, but the current bowl system was optimized for a different era. I am not someone who whines about NIL era or hates change generally, but the adaptation process is excruciating to watch. And some adaptations are personal, like I didn't go through the effort to rearrange my work schedule nor spend money to travel to an exhibition game.
I'm of the opposite view. Get rid of the playoffs, go back to the traditional bowls, conferences and rivalries. College football was infinitely better in 'the old days' and made a helluva lot more sense. (The old codger has spoken.)
We won't be able to put the genie back in the bottle, and as a borderline P4/P5 team we are in the precarious position of pining for the old days (not that we were good then either but at least we were stable). But those days won't come back - it's time to adapt or die, and thus far our choice appears to be die.
Agreed. The good old days are gone forever and now it's a matter of adjusting to the new landscape, although I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years it all comes tumbling down like a house of cards.
The good old days weren't so good either (players not getting living expense stipends, or movement), which is why it changed. More universities have been slow to adapt than have adapted, and in more ways than just FB, and that, unfortunately, is the bigger problem.
"Maybe the ESPN bloat bowls can outright pay players to not sit out with a bonus?"
This is the solution, and its already being done, sort of.
Most of these neutral site basketball events are made for hotels and casinos and tv filler events, which is what bowl games always have been, and a growing number of them pay NIL to the participants, and more to the winners.
If basketball promoters can do it, so can football game promoters.
OK...a few more cents worth. I attended the LA Bowl and had a blast! We had Elon drive us up from San Diego in my son's Tesla, ate at a killer BBQ joynt in the neighborhood, had great seats and were surrounded by thousands of Cal fans who cheered like hell all the way through. I was honored to sit next to a multigenerational cal football fan and member of the alumni band. His parents graduated in the 30's and his dad played in the band. His Daughter, another cal grad was there as well. We cheered the band, we sang the songs, we relived our youth and that of our children now grown (that son with the Tesla charged the field as a kid and helped bring down the goal posts). So yes, fuck, we continue to lose games and the world changes, and things are not the way they used to be, or could be now. But damn, it was great to sing those songs, chant those cheers and be there with my extended Cal family. Go Bears Forever!
That is exactly how to view it. He’s got his best collection of coaches. Maybe get a special teams coach? Now it’s up to the portal, which Cal has navigated pretty well. I’ll do my part with a NIL donation.
Hopefully we’ll have a decent two years, which I think is the current contract length. Then hopefully a better regime will come along.
Could Tedford recruit "10-3" personnel in today's environment? Could anyone Cal could actually get (Urban Meyer or Pete Carrol isn't coming to Strawberry canyon) do materially better than Wilcox at it? That seems to be the crux of the issue.
Tedford is the only one to consistently elevate Cal by a substantial amount, and it could even be argued that the same ceiling issue even brought Tedford crashing down.
Sonny won some games, but no one will argue he fielded a "10-3" defense at any point.
My suspicion is after a couple more years, Wilcox gets replaced, and 2-4 years later we will still be reading frustrated posts when a 6-7 roster goes 5-7 or 7-6. Or posts pining for that.
I'll donate to the NIL once a few more portal recruits are in hand and we can see the lay of the land. I have to admit that this new era is hard to get used to and the value of a Cal degree has to be weighed against NIL monies. College football is big business now and not viewing it like a business is foolhardy. Hopefully the acumen of Chancellor Lyons will lead to a new path for Cal football.
Who knew that all those years getting dominated by USC (yes, with an occasional upset) would be the best we ever had it? I'm really down in the dumps right now over the current state of affairs.
I'm just not sure how much interest I will have anymore in college football after this season. After finally getting to the point of a meaningful championship playoff structure with any team with any small bit of rationale to claim being the best team, the entire stability of teams collapses in terms of both players and coaches....how meaningful post season games are in terms of claims and final rankings is very questionable. There are a lot of ways to spend the finite time we have and post-season college football has become a circus. Perhaps if players were "employees" with contracts and had to perform post season or lose substantial NIL dollars under those contracts that might be one way to address this situation. But it just makes it virtually the same as being pro, and I don't follow pro. Additionally, the entire way the initial push for NIL was stated was the players were being taken advantage of by rich athletic departments. But now it's just "you all need to donate even more than you ever have." The only thing that might get my interest renewed would be if the top 32 football teams over the past decade or something like that split off and dominated all players able to be drafted pro, the rest of collegiate football returned to players with substantial interest in getting a degree, buying season tickets and donating $250, $500 or $1000 a year was sufficient for the regular supportive fan not sitting on a pile of Bitcoin or Apple or Tesla stock. The question does have to be asked for each team and its fan base: how many millions more are needed each year in donations to compete with the top 32 teams? And even beyond that: what does it mean to play for four schools in five years? Assuming you did earn a degree after all of that, to which school are you loyal and how can you build any kind of record of accomplishment in the school record books and be recognized as a "great"? It will be interesting to see what happens to fans across the 100+ football schools as this circus continues and the dollars demanded continue to sky rocket.
Well said.
For a lot, it will probably look a lot more like the MAC & C-USA, and FCS.
Cal is like a box of chocolates.
Good stuff TD!
As somebody who went down to the bowl game and has been to almost every home game, bowl game and many away games in my past 33 years of fandom, this is a new low.
I know that we get blown out of games. I know that we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I know that we come out lackluster against mediocre teams and find a way to lose or barely win. All of that I know.
But I cannot accept not trying, and that's what I saw on Wednesday. Sure you lost a bunch of players. Sure we're down to our fourth string quarterback. Sure the process is broken and everything is weird and wrong and bad. But you still try to put the best product out on the field and try to win the damn game. To do otherwise is a slap in the face of every fan and every player that has worn the Blue and Gold.
This is a new low.
This sentiment could be applied to a lot of programs. It's a systemic problem that's going to have to be addressed if the industry is going to expect not only continued, but ever more support in various forms.
No one likes to lose, and its on the various programs to put a competent program on the field. But its also true that often you lose because your team is just not good in some ways. That's a problem, but no where near the problem of obvious lack of putting your best effort forth, even if it won't be good enough some days.
well done, TC.
"If you had told me after the 2023 Independence Bowl about all the malarky and tomfoolery that Cal would get up to in 2024 just for the year to end the exact same way at 6-7, I wouldn’t have believed you."
Bill Parcells: "you are what yoru record says you are." And Justin is below a .500 head coach. Even if Fernando returned next year, at best we'd be looking at 7 wins. For example, with a better kicker, we could have had 2-3 more wins this year, and we actually had a better kicker last year who would have loved to return and start this year, but JW made the coaching decision to let him go (to UCLA).
When you have in aggregate "6-7" personnel, you usually get 6-7, with 7-6 & 5-7 the most likely alternatives. While the personnel turns over, it hasn't changed much in nature in years. Get some linemen or get ready for more 6-7 seasons.
It must be so hard to write and report on the Cal football program - I feel for the WFC team! As a '79 grad I have seen so much Good, Bad and Ugly (mostly Ugly) from Cal football that it was hard to expect a Tedford-like resurgence for Oski's boys in 2024. But this year was particularly painful, with a massive opportunity to beat a bunch of weak teams and to dominate a new conference. Sadly, JW's coaching would not allow this, and the Golden Bear could not overcome its own futility - the Miami game literally ripped my heart out. Sadly, the team looked especially unready from the start of the Syracuse game forward. And now losing Nando, more portal churn coming, and a total retreading of unemployed coaches does not bode well for 2025, with a best guess of 3-1 in non-conference, 2-6 in conference, and no irrelevant bowl game. The Ugly will continue in 2025. Still, GO BEARS FOREVER.
Justin Wilcox vs. FBS teams with a winning record that season:
2017: 1-5
2018: 2-4
2019: 1-4
2020: 1-1
2021: 1-4
2022: 0-7
2023: 1-6
2024: 0-5
LAST 3 SEASONS: 1-18
WHEN WILL ADMIN WAKE UP! WILCOX IS RUINING THIS PROGRAM!
Yet somehow there remain folks seemingly unaware of the changing landscape of NCAAFB that defend Justin Wilcox and condescendingly deride those critical of a coach with a .348 winning percentage against conference foes over 8 meager seasons. Baffling.
This is not a matter of the admin being asleep at the wheel. We literally do not have the finances to fire Wilcox right now.
That said, fire Knowlton.
Donors would pony up for the buyout, not Cal.
They’re not going to do that just to have dope Jim Knowlton make the hire.
Once Knowlton is gone, which is rumored to be in the works, Wilcox’s days in Berkeley are numbered, barring a massive turnaround like a 9-win season.
An eight win season is not a massive turnaround. That's in the noise - a kick or two, a stop or two.
A massive turn around is 10 wins.
I meant 9. Typo.
Fair enough, I'll compromise at 9 :-)
I have zero faith in Justin Wilcox to win 9, but maybe the additions of keen offensive minds like Harsin, Rolovich and especially Famika Anae bring about just enough change….fingers crossed.
disagree. An 8 win season would be HUGE for JW. (And extension for Life)
30 minutes of football w my boys!
98 yards to the parking lot
I'm grateful for this and hoping for more post-mortem analysis to help process and purge. I suppose in the end we end up at the beginning, which is the recognition of deep mediocrity in every facet of Cal football under Wilcox. I believe the new offensive coaches are upgrades, and defensive coaching seems fine as usual under Wilcox, but the whole ecosystem of Cal football will find a way to remain mediocre, winning a few, losing many that are close, and wishing for something that will not happen.
Expand the playoff to 16, get rid of conference championship games, and get rid of the rest of the bowls. Moving the transfer window to January will help also.
Maybe the ESPN bloat bowls can outright pay players to not sit out with a bonus? Or giving seniors an allotment of all-expenses-paid trip packages to give family one last experience? It won't be enough to offset NFL money but it may pencil out for some.
I know there are many reasons these things won't happen, but the current bowl system was optimized for a different era. I am not someone who whines about NIL era or hates change generally, but the adaptation process is excruciating to watch. And some adaptations are personal, like I didn't go through the effort to rearrange my work schedule nor spend money to travel to an exhibition game.
I'm of the opposite view. Get rid of the playoffs, go back to the traditional bowls, conferences and rivalries. College football was infinitely better in 'the old days' and made a helluva lot more sense. (The old codger has spoken.)
We won't be able to put the genie back in the bottle, and as a borderline P4/P5 team we are in the precarious position of pining for the old days (not that we were good then either but at least we were stable). But those days won't come back - it's time to adapt or die, and thus far our choice appears to be die.
Agreed. The good old days are gone forever and now it's a matter of adjusting to the new landscape, although I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years it all comes tumbling down like a house of cards.
The good old days weren't so good either (players not getting living expense stipends, or movement), which is why it changed. More universities have been slow to adapt than have adapted, and in more ways than just FB, and that, unfortunately, is the bigger problem.
It's all about SEC and B!G anyway, so why should we be concerned about who ESPN and the SEC anoints Champion?
"Maybe the ESPN bloat bowls can outright pay players to not sit out with a bonus?"
This is the solution, and its already being done, sort of.
Most of these neutral site basketball events are made for hotels and casinos and tv filler events, which is what bowl games always have been, and a growing number of them pay NIL to the participants, and more to the winners.
If basketball promoters can do it, so can football game promoters.
Fire Jim Knowlton.
OK...a few more cents worth. I attended the LA Bowl and had a blast! We had Elon drive us up from San Diego in my son's Tesla, ate at a killer BBQ joynt in the neighborhood, had great seats and were surrounded by thousands of Cal fans who cheered like hell all the way through. I was honored to sit next to a multigenerational cal football fan and member of the alumni band. His parents graduated in the 30's and his dad played in the band. His Daughter, another cal grad was there as well. We cheered the band, we sang the songs, we relived our youth and that of our children now grown (that son with the Tesla charged the field as a kid and helped bring down the goal posts). So yes, fuck, we continue to lose games and the world changes, and things are not the way they used to be, or could be now. But damn, it was great to sing those songs, chant those cheers and be there with my extended Cal family. Go Bears Forever!
Burl Toler to UCLA.
Good for him.
Justin Wilcox’s Last Stand
That is exactly how to view it. He’s got his best collection of coaches. Maybe get a special teams coach? Now it’s up to the portal, which Cal has navigated pretty well. I’ll do my part with a NIL donation.
Hopefully we’ll have a decent two years, which I think is the current contract length. Then hopefully a better regime will come along.
Could Tedford recruit "10-3" personnel in today's environment? Could anyone Cal could actually get (Urban Meyer or Pete Carrol isn't coming to Strawberry canyon) do materially better than Wilcox at it? That seems to be the crux of the issue.
Tedford is the only one to consistently elevate Cal by a substantial amount, and it could even be argued that the same ceiling issue even brought Tedford crashing down.
Sonny won some games, but no one will argue he fielded a "10-3" defense at any point.
My suspicion is after a couple more years, Wilcox gets replaced, and 2-4 years later we will still be reading frustrated posts when a 6-7 roster goes 5-7 or 7-6. Or posts pining for that.
No to Pete Carroll after the scam he pulled at USC. He ran to the NFL, leaving his players & team to face the repercussions of his actions while HC.
I'll donate to the NIL once a few more portal recruits are in hand and we can see the lay of the land. I have to admit that this new era is hard to get used to and the value of a Cal degree has to be weighed against NIL monies. College football is big business now and not viewing it like a business is foolhardy. Hopefully the acumen of Chancellor Lyons will lead to a new path for Cal football.
Chicken or egg problem. Without NIL $s can't recruit portal recruits.
"the fun of being a Cal fan"??? I am not having any fun. :(
Who knew that all those years getting dominated by USC (yes, with an occasional upset) would be the best we ever had it? I'm really down in the dumps right now over the current state of affairs.