Saw this on BI and thought it needed to be talked about here too. In his press conference this week Dykes was asked about the setup where Cal plays the LA schools each week. Here are the questions and the answers from Dykes (in red, as they deserve to be).
I want to talk about the "tradition" element that Dykes took a shot at. The tradition part is that these are our school's rival schools. It's about Cal, Sonny, not just about football. It expresses itself in football as a rivalry between the schools' teams, a rivalry we maintain by playing each other every year. Now by long standing practice, our annual match has become a tradition that's important to the fans and alumni of all four schools. It is for the sake of the rivalries that all four schools demanded that this tradition continue, and it is why games against Stanford, USC and UCLA have always drawn larger crowds at Memorial Stadium since I have been alive and probably for much longer.
It is important to us that this rivalry be honored with an annual game regardless of whether or not the game is held on Saturday at 12:30. The idea that changing the day or even more absurdly the time of day these games are held negates the status of these games as traditions of Cal football is false. Cal-Stanford remains the Big Game even if kickoff is Wednesday morning at 4:00 AM. The time of day or even day of the week is negotiable; the status of these as traditional rivalry games is not. That's not to say that the date and time of the matches could not be traditions in themselves; traditionally, Cal and Stanford played the Big Game the Saturday before Thanksgiving. We have been forced to sacrifice this tradition on occasion to satisfy the TV powers whose money now keeps our bloated athletic department alive, but sacrificing this relatively small element of the tradition does not negate the traditional rivalry between Cal and Stanford, and hence the reason we require an annual game against them, USC and UCLA.
The real issue for Dykes is that he has been under fire for failing to deliver even a single win in 9 tries against our rivals. It shouldn't be surprising to see him want to worm out of playing one or more of them each year. It would be much easier for him to not face the indignity of getting spanked by each of our rivals every year. But Cal football does not exist to make life easy for Sonny Dykes, though he can be forgiven for being under the mistaken contrary impression, since the athletic administration rewarded him with an extension, a raise and an increased buyout for winning 38% of our football games.
Dykes should be fired. He is a poor excuse for a Pac-12 head coach, and he doesn't belong at Cal at any rate.
Here's the link to the audio from the press conference:
http://static.pac-12.com.s3.amazonaws.com/sports/football/teleconferences/160913 CAL.mp3
I want to talk about the "tradition" element that Dykes took a shot at. The tradition part is that these are our school's rival schools. It's about Cal, Sonny, not just about football. It expresses itself in football as a rivalry between the schools' teams, a rivalry we maintain by playing each other every year. Now by long standing practice, our annual match has become a tradition that's important to the fans and alumni of all four schools. It is for the sake of the rivalries that all four schools demanded that this tradition continue, and it is why games against Stanford, USC and UCLA have always drawn larger crowds at Memorial Stadium since I have been alive and probably for much longer.
It is important to us that this rivalry be honored with an annual game regardless of whether or not the game is held on Saturday at 12:30. The idea that changing the day or even more absurdly the time of day these games are held negates the status of these games as traditions of Cal football is false. Cal-Stanford remains the Big Game even if kickoff is Wednesday morning at 4:00 AM. The time of day or even day of the week is negotiable; the status of these as traditional rivalry games is not. That's not to say that the date and time of the matches could not be traditions in themselves; traditionally, Cal and Stanford played the Big Game the Saturday before Thanksgiving. We have been forced to sacrifice this tradition on occasion to satisfy the TV powers whose money now keeps our bloated athletic department alive, but sacrificing this relatively small element of the tradition does not negate the traditional rivalry between Cal and Stanford, and hence the reason we require an annual game against them, USC and UCLA.
The real issue for Dykes is that he has been under fire for failing to deliver even a single win in 9 tries against our rivals. It shouldn't be surprising to see him want to worm out of playing one or more of them each year. It would be much easier for him to not face the indignity of getting spanked by each of our rivals every year. But Cal football does not exist to make life easy for Sonny Dykes, though he can be forgiven for being under the mistaken contrary impression, since the athletic administration rewarded him with an extension, a raise and an increased buyout for winning 38% of our football games.
Dykes should be fired. He is a poor excuse for a Pac-12 head coach, and he doesn't belong at Cal at any rate.
Here's the link to the audio from the press conference:
http://static.pac-12.com.s3.amazonaws.com/sports/football/teleconferences/160913 CAL.mp3
