Quite frankly last night Tosh and RR (whom I'm most disappointed in) dealt Cal a mortal blow and the future looks bleak. You can call it 10 on the Richter scale or the death of Cal football whatever you like. The death certificate will certified and official when we are relegated to the PAC12/G6. The only hope is until it's official it hasn't actually happened yet. My existential dread as a Cal fan is at an all-time high and like others have said I just don't know where we go from here.
I was all in on Tosh. I bought the hype. I loved reading about him flying to Hawaii to secure JKS. Tosh was a Golden Bear returning to the lair to bring the Bears back into the national picture. I'll own all of that.
Now though it is clear that the hype was nothing more than morning dew on the grass. By the time the sun came up (the horrific season we are seeing) the hype was gone. It has become clear this was a terrible hire. We are left with nothing but loathing and sorrow
Consider, we have one of the most sought after QBs in the country and Tosh is treating him like he is a JV player trying to play with the Varsity. Let's speak the truth out loud: Tosh is a man child. He's all talk, no walk.
I was born in 1958. Six weeks after I arrived in this world Joe Kapp led the Bears to the Rose Bowl. They lost but I dealt with it pretty well for an infant. My dad was an old Blue. I knew all of the words to all of the CAL fight songs by the time I was 5 years old. My favorite Cal player in the 60's was Dave Penhall. Then Vince Ferragamo came along, hit Steve Sweeney in the end zone in a driving rain storm to beat furd and I was hooked for life. I was there with my dad on November 20, 1982. After furd made that field goal my dad made me stand for the kickoff. To this day I am glad he did because I witnessed the greatest college football play in history.
So, I'm all in for the University of California Golden Bears. I will love them forever but the Bears are at a crossroads. Tosh is overmatched. He's been outcoached in every game, including the wins. He's incapable of learning on the job. If the Bears want to be relevant again they need to bring in a coach with a record of winning at every level. The rah rah stuff is meaningless. Saban could care less about all of that when he was coaching. He was all in on the all X's and O's and Jimmy's and Joe's. We have the Jimmy's and Joe's but the X's and O's are horrific. The Bears look lost and confused.
The time for bold, drastic action has arrived. This season is lost. Say aloha to Tosh and spend the next three months finding a coach who can coach and bring him to Berkeley to return us to the glory years of the early aughts, the '90s and the '50s and before.
In hindsight I think they accidentally made the right move starting JB. There was no way we were winning that game when the defense gave up 41, doesn’t matter who we put at qb. I don’t think JKS would’ve out scored them especially since we were missing Adam, Ian, and the perrys. At least now JKS gets another week to recover and practice with the new OC and SMU will have less tape on how he plays in the new system.
In real time though that decision made for an ass game
Serious question - Lupoi signed a term sheet for a 5-year deal, but he doesn't have a finalized contract yet (because the wheels of the UC bureaucracy move very slowly), so does this factor into a potential dismissal negotiation? Yeah, I know it would be a shitty thing to do morally and professionally, and could blacklist Cal for a future quality hire, but I'm just curious what the fanbase thinks.
FWIW-and I’m not saying either yay or nay-but it might involve Immediate asset protection/contractual freeze to contain liability and halt any further capital bleed. Halt contract ratification with an immediate administrative hold utilizing the pending status to pause execution. Instruct University counsel/outside to leverage non performance loopholes. Audit all operational metrics/build a documented metric of failure to meet implied milestones, program mismanagement & asset devaluation (mismanagement of the starting QB/etc). Mitigate buyout risk via administrative delay. Appoint special counsel and boutique search firms-retain specialized sports litigation attorneys who specialize in high-stakes collegiate sports turnarounds, coaching terminations, and contract loophole optimization. Next phase would involve a Sovereign Oversight Board, etc.
Maybe Lupoi is getting back at Cal for hanging him out to dry for fake injury gate. As the kids say, I'm officially disengaging for my mental health. Thank god for 3 road games and a bye.
Lupoi’s decision to not start JKS after he successfully was ready to come back from a cheap shot injury will prove to be the nail in the coffin of Cal football, not just in 2026 but for at least 2 years to come. The players have lost confidence in his fairness and judgment. Who is the next talented starter he’s going to throw under the bus? Get ready for a massive transfer of players. And zero wins the rest of the season. It’s shockingly disappointing, but maybe it should not have been. This is Cal football ever since Tedford was wrongfully fired ( by the same biased, unthinking AD who cut 5 sports directly contrary to the written recommendation of a “blue ribbon” Committee appointed to investigate how to best close the financial burden created by said same AD, said Committee recommending that no sport be “cut” unless and until all non revenue sports be given the opportunity to under raise for their sports). This current situation is the result of an accumulation of bad, emotional decisions made by those in charge of the athletic/football programs (football being the only sport that brings in the money to support all other sports)…starting with Sandi Barber: who buried Cal athletics in a massive 500+ million dollar hole before she quit and moved on to Penn State: after their football coach scandal). The entire athletic department continues to be the victim of her incompetence. Our current Chancellor is fighting to resurrect from the almost dead the long term damage caused by Sandi Barber. Its a massive and thankless job.
Tedford -- and I can't believe we're still doing this -- was NOT wrongfully fired. Under him our Graduation Success Rate fell to 44%, as reported in 2013, the worst among major-conference football programs nationally, based on players who entered between 2003 and 2006. For an institution like California that alone is a fireable offense. On top of that his last team was a disaster finishing 3-9 and he'd lost the locker room. Yes, Tedford revived Cal football, yet by the end of his tenure, the university had one of the poorest football graduation records in the country. That matters and if you don't think so you're supporting the wrong institution.
It was very obvious that Tedford was burned out by the end of his tenure. Everything about the program was slipping, and then he had to quit his next job due to health issues. We don't need to go all the way back there to call it a mistake; the mistakes were made with the next hires and in how the program was managed going forward.
Tedford had lost control of the program. Players weren’t going to class, there were multiple guys with literal 0.0 GPAs, and the on field results had dropped off.
I don't think this can be blamed all on the coaching. We still don't have the caliber of players to compete at a high level. Our offensive line is still the dame horrible offensive line we had last year. They can't open holes for the run. So the opposing team knows we have to pass. Against VAtech the line did a halfways decent job of pass protecting. Against Wake the QB had no time to pass. We could not throw long to stretch out the defense because there was no time for receivers to get open long. Our defensive line is decent against the run but we still don't have the players to rush the quarterback. Lopez had all the time in the world to find his receivers. We had the same problems under Wilcox. We never had a decent offensive line. In all the years Wilcox was there we never put one in the NFL that I can remember. Once we can run block, it will open all sorts of possibilities. Give the coaches a break.
We had largely the same offensive line last year under Wilcox and (presumably) worse receivers. And yet that offense was better than this. The coaching matters.
What he said! I live in the DMV and had planned trips to see the Bears at NC State and UVA. Before last night I took UVA off my calendar and at this point not sure I want to go to Raleigh. There are way better things to do with a weekend.
Some people take or awarded jobs that they're not suited for. Wilcox was never good enough to be a head coach at California (at least not a successful one) and he was kept around for nine mostly mediocre years. The program can't afford to let Lupoi stick around for a third that long if he's not up to the job. Does anyone have hope that Lupoi can turn it around? If not, how soon can we realistically cut ties with him and what will it cost? In other words, is there, at this point, any reason for hope? Cause I can't see it.
The first half of your statement is inaccurate. Wilcox demonstrated what could have been a new birth for Cal football... until a world-wide Pandemic broke the program, in part because of restrictions that were outside the University's control. The 2019 season saw us end it 8-5, tied for second in the Northern division of the Pac 12, and with a convincing win in our bowl game against Illinois. Going 1-3 in a truncated season because of Covid killed us, and we never recovered.
Did you see Cal football the last few years? Was that very consistent mediocrity, that failure to ever notch a winning conference record, that horrible performance in the last Big Game, all due to Covid? Does Wilcox bear no responsibility? Five years later was it really covid that left the program in the doldrums. This is some serious revisionism of guy who's overall record was 48-55.
Oski, as RayOLite pointed out, Cal football was on the upswing leaving 2019 with a very good group of returnees set for the 2020 season.
When you are a crap program (like Cal), breaking out of the doldrums is all about the momentum.
Instead we get a called off, then called on season where the most notoriety for Cal was this that Berkeley was the only town that had its own infectious disease department and the unfriendly football program standards that came with it.
After that, there was no getting the mojo back.
Part of that was on Wilcox, part of that was on the leaderlessness of Cal, part of that was...the way the ball bounces.
Wilcox left the Cal program in a better place than where he found it. Will Rivera/Lupoi be able to say the same thing?
Quite frankly last night Tosh and RR (whom I'm most disappointed in) dealt Cal a mortal blow and the future looks bleak. You can call it 10 on the Richter scale or the death of Cal football whatever you like. The death certificate will certified and official when we are relegated to the PAC12/G6. The only hope is until it's official it hasn't actually happened yet. My existential dread as a Cal fan is at an all-time high and like others have said I just don't know where we go from here.
I was all in on Tosh. I bought the hype. I loved reading about him flying to Hawaii to secure JKS. Tosh was a Golden Bear returning to the lair to bring the Bears back into the national picture. I'll own all of that.
Now though it is clear that the hype was nothing more than morning dew on the grass. By the time the sun came up (the horrific season we are seeing) the hype was gone. It has become clear this was a terrible hire. We are left with nothing but loathing and sorrow
Consider, we have one of the most sought after QBs in the country and Tosh is treating him like he is a JV player trying to play with the Varsity. Let's speak the truth out loud: Tosh is a man child. He's all talk, no walk.
I was born in 1958. Six weeks after I arrived in this world Joe Kapp led the Bears to the Rose Bowl. They lost but I dealt with it pretty well for an infant. My dad was an old Blue. I knew all of the words to all of the CAL fight songs by the time I was 5 years old. My favorite Cal player in the 60's was Dave Penhall. Then Vince Ferragamo came along, hit Steve Sweeney in the end zone in a driving rain storm to beat furd and I was hooked for life. I was there with my dad on November 20, 1982. After furd made that field goal my dad made me stand for the kickoff. To this day I am glad he did because I witnessed the greatest college football play in history.
So, I'm all in for the University of California Golden Bears. I will love them forever but the Bears are at a crossroads. Tosh is overmatched. He's been outcoached in every game, including the wins. He's incapable of learning on the job. If the Bears want to be relevant again they need to bring in a coach with a record of winning at every level. The rah rah stuff is meaningless. Saban could care less about all of that when he was coaching. He was all in on the all X's and O's and Jimmy's and Joe's. We have the Jimmy's and Joe's but the X's and O's are horrific. The Bears look lost and confused.
The time for bold, drastic action has arrived. This season is lost. Say aloha to Tosh and spend the next three months finding a coach who can coach and bring him to Berkeley to return us to the glory years of the early aughts, the '90s and the '50s and before.
Go Bears.
In hindsight I think they accidentally made the right move starting JB. There was no way we were winning that game when the defense gave up 41, doesn’t matter who we put at qb. I don’t think JKS would’ve out scored them especially since we were missing Adam, Ian, and the perrys. At least now JKS gets another week to recover and practice with the new OC and SMU will have less tape on how he plays in the new system.
In real time though that decision made for an ass game
Serious question - Lupoi signed a term sheet for a 5-year deal, but he doesn't have a finalized contract yet (because the wheels of the UC bureaucracy move very slowly), so does this factor into a potential dismissal negotiation? Yeah, I know it would be a shitty thing to do morally and professionally, and could blacklist Cal for a future quality hire, but I'm just curious what the fanbase thinks.
FWIW-and I’m not saying either yay or nay-but it might involve Immediate asset protection/contractual freeze to contain liability and halt any further capital bleed. Halt contract ratification with an immediate administrative hold utilizing the pending status to pause execution. Instruct University counsel/outside to leverage non performance loopholes. Audit all operational metrics/build a documented metric of failure to meet implied milestones, program mismanagement & asset devaluation (mismanagement of the starting QB/etc). Mitigate buyout risk via administrative delay. Appoint special counsel and boutique search firms-retain specialized sports litigation attorneys who specialize in high-stakes collegiate sports turnarounds, coaching terminations, and contract loophole optimization. Next phase would involve a Sovereign Oversight Board, etc.
Coaching term sheets have some legal enforcement capabilities that would make it very difficult to make such a clean exit.
Are those term sheets signed? I believe you but want to just know because I’d like to be done with him.
^^^^ see above & fwiw I’m just spit balling
Only direction is out
Maybe Lupoi is getting back at Cal for hanging him out to dry for fake injury gate. As the kids say, I'm officially disengaging for my mental health. Thank god for 3 road games and a bye.
Lupoi’s decision to not start JKS after he successfully was ready to come back from a cheap shot injury will prove to be the nail in the coffin of Cal football, not just in 2026 but for at least 2 years to come. The players have lost confidence in his fairness and judgment. Who is the next talented starter he’s going to throw under the bus? Get ready for a massive transfer of players. And zero wins the rest of the season. It’s shockingly disappointing, but maybe it should not have been. This is Cal football ever since Tedford was wrongfully fired ( by the same biased, unthinking AD who cut 5 sports directly contrary to the written recommendation of a “blue ribbon” Committee appointed to investigate how to best close the financial burden created by said same AD, said Committee recommending that no sport be “cut” unless and until all non revenue sports be given the opportunity to under raise for their sports). This current situation is the result of an accumulation of bad, emotional decisions made by those in charge of the athletic/football programs (football being the only sport that brings in the money to support all other sports)…starting with Sandi Barber: who buried Cal athletics in a massive 500+ million dollar hole before she quit and moved on to Penn State: after their football coach scandal). The entire athletic department continues to be the victim of her incompetence. Our current Chancellor is fighting to resurrect from the almost dead the long term damage caused by Sandi Barber. Its a massive and thankless job.
Tedford -- and I can't believe we're still doing this -- was NOT wrongfully fired. Under him our Graduation Success Rate fell to 44%, as reported in 2013, the worst among major-conference football programs nationally, based on players who entered between 2003 and 2006. For an institution like California that alone is a fireable offense. On top of that his last team was a disaster finishing 3-9 and he'd lost the locker room. Yes, Tedford revived Cal football, yet by the end of his tenure, the university had one of the poorest football graduation records in the country. That matters and if you don't think so you're supporting the wrong institution.
It was very obvious that Tedford was burned out by the end of his tenure. Everything about the program was slipping, and then he had to quit his next job due to health issues. We don't need to go all the way back there to call it a mistake; the mistakes were made with the next hires and in how the program was managed going forward.
Tedford had lost control of the program. Players weren’t going to class, there were multiple guys with literal 0.0 GPAs, and the on field results had dropped off.
I don't think this can be blamed all on the coaching. We still don't have the caliber of players to compete at a high level. Our offensive line is still the dame horrible offensive line we had last year. They can't open holes for the run. So the opposing team knows we have to pass. Against VAtech the line did a halfways decent job of pass protecting. Against Wake the QB had no time to pass. We could not throw long to stretch out the defense because there was no time for receivers to get open long. Our defensive line is decent against the run but we still don't have the players to rush the quarterback. Lopez had all the time in the world to find his receivers. We had the same problems under Wilcox. We never had a decent offensive line. In all the years Wilcox was there we never put one in the NFL that I can remember. Once we can run block, it will open all sorts of possibilities. Give the coaches a break.
We had largely the same offensive line last year under Wilcox and (presumably) worse receivers. And yet that offense was better than this. The coaching matters.
Patrick Mecari, Baltimore and JVille
Curhan, @ Carolina
Cindric, ex-practice squad.
Saffell, Daltoso, career ending injuries but at least practice squad level if not
Might be missing one or two.
Ok, not the greatest track record 😬
Fire meathead.
I hate him so much.
What he said! I live in the DMV and had planned trips to see the Bears at NC State and UVA. Before last night I took UVA off my calendar and at this point not sure I want to go to Raleigh. There are way better things to do with a weekend.
Some people take or awarded jobs that they're not suited for. Wilcox was never good enough to be a head coach at California (at least not a successful one) and he was kept around for nine mostly mediocre years. The program can't afford to let Lupoi stick around for a third that long if he's not up to the job. Does anyone have hope that Lupoi can turn it around? If not, how soon can we realistically cut ties with him and what will it cost? In other words, is there, at this point, any reason for hope? Cause I can't see it.
The first half of your statement is inaccurate. Wilcox demonstrated what could have been a new birth for Cal football... until a world-wide Pandemic broke the program, in part because of restrictions that were outside the University's control. The 2019 season saw us end it 8-5, tied for second in the Northern division of the Pac 12, and with a convincing win in our bowl game against Illinois. Going 1-3 in a truncated season because of Covid killed us, and we never recovered.
^ 💯
Covid killed the Wilcox years.
Wilcox has more coaching chops in his left pinky fingernail than the current Cal staff put together. Which, unfortunately, is not saying much.
Did you see Cal football the last few years? Was that very consistent mediocrity, that failure to ever notch a winning conference record, that horrible performance in the last Big Game, all due to Covid? Does Wilcox bear no responsibility? Five years later was it really covid that left the program in the doldrums. This is some serious revisionism of guy who's overall record was 48-55.
Oski, as RayOLite pointed out, Cal football was on the upswing leaving 2019 with a very good group of returnees set for the 2020 season.
When you are a crap program (like Cal), breaking out of the doldrums is all about the momentum.
Instead we get a called off, then called on season where the most notoriety for Cal was this that Berkeley was the only town that had its own infectious disease department and the unfriendly football program standards that came with it.
After that, there was no getting the mojo back.
Part of that was on Wilcox, part of that was on the leaderlessness of Cal, part of that was...the way the ball bounces.
Wilcox left the Cal program in a better place than where he found it. Will Rivera/Lupoi be able to say the same thing?
Yeah, I was willing to give Wilcox a mulligan for the COVID years, but he just kept putting out a mediocre product. At a certain point that's on him.
Tosh being bad doesn't mean Wilcox should have stayed.
Third???!!!
He should be fired midseason.
I’ve met him in person and was throughly unimpressed. And that was before we played a single down.
I guess it's easier to pick on an arbitrary number I selected than address my main point.
What an abject bummer. Hindsight being what hindsight is, this all seemed so predictable.