I had to take a break from Cal football for a few days to save my sanity. I actually only heard the first half over radio because my son had a soccer game. I figured it was a slower start than expected but the bears would come strong in the 2nd half. Missed the 2nd half but came back later to check the score. Once I saw it and started hearing what happened, I just bothered not to find out the details because it's a script I've been familiar with.
Some time during Sunday when I was smoking some ribs, my mind was wandering about the state of Cal football, Wilcox and the program. For some reason, this has shades of 2010/2011. I can just close my eyes now and remember the posts by DrunkOski about how it was time to fire Tedford.
It was Tedford's 9th season (compared to Wilcox's 8th, currently). I think it was the 2010 season when Tedford said something along the lines of being "6 points away from being 8-4." It was really the beginning of the end.
We would bring in the Greensboro crew: Maynard, a Pitt transfer who had a weak arm; Keenan Allen, his brother who's huge catch radius was necessary for the weak passes, and their cousin Maurice Harris who was a good receiver. We also had Brendan Bigelow who was decent but never quite the RB we hoped for. Michalczik rejoined the program in 2011 so people were excited that it might bring back the glory days of Cal football. It was also the time of Pendergast who started out strong in 2010 and decent in 2011 but things just got worse. By 2012, Tedford's last year, the state of the program was at an all time low and the team gave up on him.
Anyway, it doesn't feel like Wilcox's last year -- obviously there are the contractual issues. But it does really feel like this is the beginning of the end. To lose 4 games back-to-back so closely, is just a massive blow. And despite some real positives on this team (Mendoza, Endries, Nohl Williams, Uluave, Teddye, Nyziah, and so on) the teams has holes elsewhere which just ends up looking like poor coaching. Tedford started resorting to blaming players in the end ("all about players executing") -- I don't think Wilcox will go there. Like Tedford, the assistant coaches kept changing but the trend over time was that things kept getting worse.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was the penultimate year or 2nd to last year for Wilcox.
Some time during Sunday when I was smoking some ribs, my mind was wandering about the state of Cal football, Wilcox and the program. For some reason, this has shades of 2010/2011. I can just close my eyes now and remember the posts by DrunkOski about how it was time to fire Tedford.
It was Tedford's 9th season (compared to Wilcox's 8th, currently). I think it was the 2010 season when Tedford said something along the lines of being "6 points away from being 8-4." It was really the beginning of the end.
We would bring in the Greensboro crew: Maynard, a Pitt transfer who had a weak arm; Keenan Allen, his brother who's huge catch radius was necessary for the weak passes, and their cousin Maurice Harris who was a good receiver. We also had Brendan Bigelow who was decent but never quite the RB we hoped for. Michalczik rejoined the program in 2011 so people were excited that it might bring back the glory days of Cal football. It was also the time of Pendergast who started out strong in 2010 and decent in 2011 but things just got worse. By 2012, Tedford's last year, the state of the program was at an all time low and the team gave up on him.
Anyway, it doesn't feel like Wilcox's last year -- obviously there are the contractual issues. But it does really feel like this is the beginning of the end. To lose 4 games back-to-back so closely, is just a massive blow. And despite some real positives on this team (Mendoza, Endries, Nohl Williams, Uluave, Teddye, Nyziah, and so on) the teams has holes elsewhere which just ends up looking like poor coaching. Tedford started resorting to blaming players in the end ("all about players executing") -- I don't think Wilcox will go there. Like Tedford, the assistant coaches kept changing but the trend over time was that things kept getting worse.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was the penultimate year or 2nd to last year for Wilcox.
