Out of towner subjecting myself to Berkeley gameday today. Any tailgates worth stopping by before?

Found an interesting article on the financial cost of firing Wilcox


Raises good points about potential overall cost to firing Wilcox.

We may be stuck with Wilcox unfortunately

Awake at 0430. Shower, shave. Cal gear on. Game ready. Go Bears!!

OK, we're still working toward hiring someone in Berkeley for hoops coverage, but I'm optimistic we'll be good there. Meanwhile, I am going to Pac-12 basketball media day next Wednesday. I've never actually gone to the basketball one, so I'm looking forward to that. I should get time with Mark Fox aside from the general session. And then Cal is going to set me up with some phone interviews with guys who aren't at media day, so I'll ramp up a bunch of preseason content from there and then ideally segue into having a person on the ground there to lead our coverage.

Today, Jesse has a preview piece coming in, I am about to write up the Isaiah Kema interview ahead of his weekend visit, I will have the full visitor list and I'm working to transfer the Guess the Score standings into a post on the board so everybody can see where they're at now. Get those picks in for this week in the meantime! We'll also pay out the Jaydn Ott vs. Colorado winner tonight.

I flew east for USC's bye week to see my dad and he had a bunch of stuff planned yesterday and this morning, so I'm settling in the rest of the day for work. I'll also be locked in for the game again tomorrow!

Someone on TOS pulled these exact quotes but it’s telling —

"Cal's recruiting outlook has become even bleaker in the 2023 cycle. As it stands, the Golden Bears have just seven commitments with only two ranked inside the top 1,000 nationally. In the league, their class is ranked only ahead of Arizona State, which has fired its coach.

"It's not for a lack of activity," Huffman said. "They've had a number of top recruits come visit. They're just not closing, and I think the killer part for them is it's a super strong year in Northern California. And two of their seven commits are from NorCal but for as good as the NorCal has been this year, they've been so close on so many guys yet haven't been able to close the deal whether it's been (wide receiver) Rashid Williams going to Washington, (quarterback) Luke Duncan going to UCLA. They were in it down to the end for (top-100 quarterback) Jaden Rashada. They've just not been able to close the local kids. That's the killer part for them. They're getting down into the top three or top four, but they're not just not ending up as the top one."

So much for giving Wilcox an extension helping with recruiting…

Just caught over on the W4C board that Cal didn’t travel to Boulder until 20 hours before game time?

Is that honestly enough time for a team to get acclimated to an 5,318-foot elevation?

I’ve come to expect Wilcox teams to travel poorly, but what factors come into play over *when* the team leaves for a road game? (I doubt it may not have made a difference with the outcome, but then again, with this current group of coaches, it may have made some difference…)

An actual piece of good news, IMO:

Chancellor Christ has initiated a task force to look at the University's branding problem between "Cal" and "UC Berkeley". Highlights the misalignment, poor marketing and confusion caused by mixing the two brands. I think she's well aware that the Athletic piece only helps drive engagement if people equate it properly with the University. Below is a tweet that contains the actual memorandum she sent out.

My vote would be to do what schools like Texas and Wisconsin do. Rebrand us to be simply "The University of California" in all things. Add in the ", Berkeley" for formal documents and on advertisements without expressly saying it, similar to how the University of Texas does when you see an ad on TV it will say "Austin" underneath. Wisconsin does something similar with "Madison". If we are The University of California there isn't any confusion with any of the other campuses as they all explicitly go by their location moniker (LA, SD, Davis, SB, etc). This would allow "Cal" to become synonymous with the University as a shorthand for California as opposed to a completely separate name from Berkeley.

If we become the UC Berkeley Golden Bears, I'll jump off a bridge.

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largely comprised of folks that did not receive their university education from Cal. I can understand the benefit of having outside perspectives in a leadership environment but I wonder what types of positive outcomes we could begin to experience if at least some of our senior leadership actually received a degree from Cal. When looking at the senior leadership of some of our peer academic institutions, I have noticed that the Presidents of Harvard, Columbia and Dartmouth all have degrees from their institutions. Who can be a better advocate for our university and lead us to new academic and athletic heights than some of our very own alums? The folks in our leadership might be fine people but it just doesn't appear that they have any vested interested in taking Cal to the next level. In some publications, U.C.L.A. has caught up to us as arguably the top public school in the nation. While U.C.L.A is a fine institution with a storied sports tradition, it should never catch up to us ever!!! Something somewhere needs to change. How people at the top are recruited and subsequently hired to how the university reaches out to alumni. As great as we have been and as storied as our academic and social history is..it just feels as if we could do so much more with the right leadership at the helm.

Done ranting..... for now.

Cal is making a push for AJ Newberry, a three-star Colorado commit. As you'll see when the database update posts this morning (yes, this morning -- I had a cross country flight last night to visit my dad in Delaware so I'm wrapping up in next couple hours), he is the main focus at this point at RB.

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As you'll see, there are a limited number of active 2023 targets. Expect Cal to be aggressive in the transfer portal. For the 2023 guys still in play, Matt and I will make a fresh sweep through for updates from them over the next week. As I mentioned in the other thread, I'm expecting to talk to AJ Newberry tonight.

Also, all of our videos/highlight packages with the commits are archived in here as well:


Any questions, let me know!

Anyone else almost forget Cal plays another game this weekend? Yeah, me neither 🤣

UW does a lot of really fun stuff on offense, should be a cool one to watch against Sirmon’s defense

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Making a new thread for it here

11:30 am Justin Wilcox
Noon Peter Sirmon
12:15 pm Bill Musgrave

Love Chase for his Big Game wins and wins over SC, UW and Oregon but his limitations kept us from ever really turning the corner. Too many panic dump offs and short, safe completions. Gotta be able to make your reads and go through your progressions to run a Musgrave O effectively. Plummer seems to be composed in the pocket, with the ability to read D's that Chase didn't have and make throws to all levels. Last year's WR group was solid but not a corps to strike fear into defenses. JMS, Mavin and JHunt can take it to the house at any time. The TEs were workmanlike but didn't create mismatches on D. Love JT and Keleki. Lots of mismatch opportunities. RBs were all productive last year but no one to take it to the house. Ott's that guy. Love Craig and Daltoso for gutting it out and playing through their injuries when they could but a healthy Coleman is a big upgrade and a healthier Rohme than last season hopefully will be better on his side, too. I think we're fine in the middle and like having Session, Swinney and Vatikani ready to play when needed.

Let's see how the O does vs. UCD. They're one of those scrappy FCS teams that have too often hung around too late into the game for comfort. Let's dominate and make a statement.

1) We have little ability to improve our talent gap. Frankly, not sure a new coach would solve that, but Wilcox’s preferred style requires high end athletes. As much as I may hate it, a more gimmicky style like the one Dykes employed has a better chance of pulling off good years once in a while.

2) We have a coaching gap. Wilcox is not in position to make the hires that move the needle. Up and coming coaches won’t join a languishing and likely sinking ship. We can bitch and moan about Musgrave and McClure…but Wilcox can’t lure replacements that make a difference.

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Will be able to finish the database update today. Was trying to check on a couple last things and was traveling back from Utah yesterday.

I know it won’t happen, so this is a bucket list kind of thing, but he is simply the most boring football coach in the NCAAs. Mediocre non-attacking defense and a predictable, mind-blowingly, snooze-fest incompetent offense. I am so tired of this reign, especially watching other teams with superior talent and more exciting teams, like today. Washington State outrecruits us, outcoaches us, and outplays us, while we painfully and boringly limp to another 5-7 type of season adding to the others in Wilcox’s tenure. Sad.

This HAS to be Wilcox final year. Enough.

Been like 6 hours since we shit ourselves against Panhandle State

I mean a man can dream right?😬😬😬

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Here are the postgame press conference videos with Justin Wilcox and Jackson Sirmon after today's 20-13 loss to Colorado.

Not sure about others, but I stopped watching at half and probably won’t watch a full game again the rest of the year. Actually switched to the Ole Miss Auburn game - after a great time in Oxford when we played them, I’m a huge fan of Ole Miss now. Also started rooting for UCLA over the last few years. And of course rooting for whoever is playing USC or Stanford. Curious what other teams people here follow?

After 25+ years of Cal fandom and discusssion with my friends and family, I am today decommiting from Cal fandom.

Will consider all offers. New top 10 to drop by end of month.

#respectmydecision #AGTG