Watching the Bears lose sucks, especially when you pay for a flight down to LA on a Thursday and the game isn't competitive. But it happens sometimes. And when it does the instinct is to highlight all of the things that went wrong and are wrong with your program based on the most recent outcome. The correct approach is to take a holistic view of the entire tenure and take stock. That's why this post comes 3 days after the last game....let's let things simmer.
I'll begin with a preamble - I am not a Sonny Dykes homer. I've met the guy personally a few times and found him to be pleasant. Ditto for the guys on his staff that I've had the chance to speak with. But I would put all of them in the street in an instant if I thought it was the best thing for the Bears.
But fundamentally, I'm opposed to the idea of firing a coach who has shown year over year improvement, and to this point, Dykes has done that. The test goes something like this: What would happen if the 2014 edition of the Cal Bears played the 2015 edition of the Cal Bears tomorrow? The 2015 team would win (or would at least be a significant vegas favorite), and it wouldn't be close. I think we can all agree to that (and if you don't, then disregard the rest of this post....but they would). The same can be said if the 2014 bears played the 2013 bears - another landslide.
Deciding that a coach of a team that is 5-2 during the middle of his 3rd season should be fired because his team played a poor game on a Thursday night against a team that is significantly more talented is reactionary and foolhardy for a few reasons. The biggest one is that building a program takes time. Here are some examples of coaches that a few people on this board would have fired at this point -
1. Nick Saban, who didn't win 9 games until his 5th season at Michigan State
2. Frank Beamer, who didn't win more than 6 games until his 7th (!) season at Virginia Tech
3. Bill Snyder, who had a career record of 18-26 through his first 5 seasons
4. Bruce Snyder, who didn't win 7 games until his 4th season in Berkeley, and didn't go 11-1 until his 5th in Tempe
5. Mack Brown, who went 1-10 in BOTH of his first two seasons at North Carolina before winning 9 games in his 4th season and 10 in his 5th
There are more examples, but the point is that you don't build a program in 2 1/2 years, particularly at a place like Cal that neither has the history nor the pocketbook to attract big time recruits despite recent losing seasons. When you are at a place like Cal and there has been major attrition or a lack of talent for whatever reason (in Snyder's case it was cause we sucked forever, in Dykes's case it was a combination of academic mismanagement, attitude, plain old whiffs on the recruiting trail from a talent standpoint and the fact that our league opponents had greatly improved over the last 5 years) it takes TIME to get to where you want to go. Players have to be recruited and developed, culture has to be rebuilt, you have to learn how to win. Occasionally, you have to compete against teams where the talent delta is still significant.
Now, don't get me wrong - there ARE reasons to fire a coach with a 11-20 record in the middle of his third season. Those reasons include - consistent poor in game management and strategic decisions, a clear lack of talent evaluation skills, consistently recruiting kids that are problems (legal, whatever) or don't meet the criteria of the university (academics) and therefore can't contribute, and a tangible regression in on-field performance. To my eye, Dykes doesn't meet those criteria.
As a quasi game theory/strategy nerd, I (and a few nerd buddies) believe that Dykes is actually an exceptional in-game coach. He consistently makes the right call on 4th downs, he takes aggressive high risk/reward gambles (fakes/onside kicks etc) when appropriate, he uses timeouts well, he plays the points correctly (ie he understands win percentages based on outcome). And please, remember that making the RIGHT CALL doesn't always result in the RIGHT OUTCOME - but that doesn't make the call bad. Making the right call means that, over time, the results will come down in your favor a majority of the time, but never all the time. As to recruiting, so far the results are positive in my opinion, although someone like Marc could probably chime in. I see Dykes recruiting players that fit our (overly difficult, IMO) academic standards who can be developed and be high performers as upper classmen, which in my opinion is the key to any coaches long term success at a place that will never recruit with the SC's of the world. He's recruiting body types who need more development than is ideal, but the potential is there. I will say that I think this is our greatest area of potential improvement - the AD NEEDS to give Dykes the money to go out and hire at least one high level assistant who can recruit in a big way, especially along the offensive and defensive lines. You can have a winning program when you recruit and develop 3 star kids like TCU and Baylor and Oregon and Kansas State and Cal did under Tedford, but to consistently be a 9/10/11 wins a year program our recruiting does need to get marginally better. And I think that at least to this point, the results are overwhelmingly positive when it comes to Dykes recruiting kids who get good grades and stay out of trouble.
I think it's foolish to let Dykes work next year on the last year of his contract because it would kill us in recruiting. My recommendation would be to give him a one or two year extension without increasing the buyout, or even reducing the buyout, and see what happens in year 4. Firing coaches every three years is how a program like Cal turns into Kansas or Purdue. At least at this point, Dykes has shown me that he knows what he's doing. I think we'd all like for the program to get there faster, but I'm not sure that's a realistic outcome. Its important to recognize that suboptimal is not sub-realistic, and that our runway for improvement under Dykes is still relatively long.
Take a breadth, and take a wide view. Things are many times better with our program than they were even last year. We are deeper, more talented on defense and we have a long term pipeline of talent that will play in the program. The fact that 16 of the 24 kids in last year's class are redshirting is a GOOD thing - it means we don't need them yet and they can develop. After playing almost all of our freshmen the last few years, we are going in the right direction towards building a program, which is the type of thing that should show dividends in years 4 and 5. If it doesn't, then lets go find a new man to lead the program.
I'll begin with a preamble - I am not a Sonny Dykes homer. I've met the guy personally a few times and found him to be pleasant. Ditto for the guys on his staff that I've had the chance to speak with. But I would put all of them in the street in an instant if I thought it was the best thing for the Bears.
But fundamentally, I'm opposed to the idea of firing a coach who has shown year over year improvement, and to this point, Dykes has done that. The test goes something like this: What would happen if the 2014 edition of the Cal Bears played the 2015 edition of the Cal Bears tomorrow? The 2015 team would win (or would at least be a significant vegas favorite), and it wouldn't be close. I think we can all agree to that (and if you don't, then disregard the rest of this post....but they would). The same can be said if the 2014 bears played the 2013 bears - another landslide.
Deciding that a coach of a team that is 5-2 during the middle of his 3rd season should be fired because his team played a poor game on a Thursday night against a team that is significantly more talented is reactionary and foolhardy for a few reasons. The biggest one is that building a program takes time. Here are some examples of coaches that a few people on this board would have fired at this point -
1. Nick Saban, who didn't win 9 games until his 5th season at Michigan State
2. Frank Beamer, who didn't win more than 6 games until his 7th (!) season at Virginia Tech
3. Bill Snyder, who had a career record of 18-26 through his first 5 seasons
4. Bruce Snyder, who didn't win 7 games until his 4th season in Berkeley, and didn't go 11-1 until his 5th in Tempe
5. Mack Brown, who went 1-10 in BOTH of his first two seasons at North Carolina before winning 9 games in his 4th season and 10 in his 5th
There are more examples, but the point is that you don't build a program in 2 1/2 years, particularly at a place like Cal that neither has the history nor the pocketbook to attract big time recruits despite recent losing seasons. When you are at a place like Cal and there has been major attrition or a lack of talent for whatever reason (in Snyder's case it was cause we sucked forever, in Dykes's case it was a combination of academic mismanagement, attitude, plain old whiffs on the recruiting trail from a talent standpoint and the fact that our league opponents had greatly improved over the last 5 years) it takes TIME to get to where you want to go. Players have to be recruited and developed, culture has to be rebuilt, you have to learn how to win. Occasionally, you have to compete against teams where the talent delta is still significant.
Now, don't get me wrong - there ARE reasons to fire a coach with a 11-20 record in the middle of his third season. Those reasons include - consistent poor in game management and strategic decisions, a clear lack of talent evaluation skills, consistently recruiting kids that are problems (legal, whatever) or don't meet the criteria of the university (academics) and therefore can't contribute, and a tangible regression in on-field performance. To my eye, Dykes doesn't meet those criteria.
As a quasi game theory/strategy nerd, I (and a few nerd buddies) believe that Dykes is actually an exceptional in-game coach. He consistently makes the right call on 4th downs, he takes aggressive high risk/reward gambles (fakes/onside kicks etc) when appropriate, he uses timeouts well, he plays the points correctly (ie he understands win percentages based on outcome). And please, remember that making the RIGHT CALL doesn't always result in the RIGHT OUTCOME - but that doesn't make the call bad. Making the right call means that, over time, the results will come down in your favor a majority of the time, but never all the time. As to recruiting, so far the results are positive in my opinion, although someone like Marc could probably chime in. I see Dykes recruiting players that fit our (overly difficult, IMO) academic standards who can be developed and be high performers as upper classmen, which in my opinion is the key to any coaches long term success at a place that will never recruit with the SC's of the world. He's recruiting body types who need more development than is ideal, but the potential is there. I will say that I think this is our greatest area of potential improvement - the AD NEEDS to give Dykes the money to go out and hire at least one high level assistant who can recruit in a big way, especially along the offensive and defensive lines. You can have a winning program when you recruit and develop 3 star kids like TCU and Baylor and Oregon and Kansas State and Cal did under Tedford, but to consistently be a 9/10/11 wins a year program our recruiting does need to get marginally better. And I think that at least to this point, the results are overwhelmingly positive when it comes to Dykes recruiting kids who get good grades and stay out of trouble.
I think it's foolish to let Dykes work next year on the last year of his contract because it would kill us in recruiting. My recommendation would be to give him a one or two year extension without increasing the buyout, or even reducing the buyout, and see what happens in year 4. Firing coaches every three years is how a program like Cal turns into Kansas or Purdue. At least at this point, Dykes has shown me that he knows what he's doing. I think we'd all like for the program to get there faster, but I'm not sure that's a realistic outcome. Its important to recognize that suboptimal is not sub-realistic, and that our runway for improvement under Dykes is still relatively long.
Take a breadth, and take a wide view. Things are many times better with our program than they were even last year. We are deeper, more talented on defense and we have a long term pipeline of talent that will play in the program. The fact that 16 of the 24 kids in last year's class are redshirting is a GOOD thing - it means we don't need them yet and they can develop. After playing almost all of our freshmen the last few years, we are going in the right direction towards building a program, which is the type of thing that should show dividends in years 4 and 5. If it doesn't, then lets go find a new man to lead the program.
