Gophers Open -2.5 vs Cal Bears

[Word]

PJ has his own philosophy (one game championship seasons) that fits his coaching framework and approach with his team. That's fine, it works for him, but if many (or most) other coaches agree that momentum is important, are they wrong? I also don't think that PJ's "0-0 in the Cal season" contradicts or negates that momentum is important for teams and locker rooms. Across all sports, how many seasons have we seen fall apart, stagnate, flatline after a bad stretch of games? Also, you, like always, never even engaged with my argument as to why the Cal game is important. But we can meet up later if you still want to sell me your goalposts

Not part of the argument, but I will offer my 2 cents worth. I've coached sports up to high school level for 25+ years (also have played sports for 40-ish years). I agree with PJ that there really isn't game-to-game momentum and even if there was a slight bit of it, it would be detrimental to think of it as some sort of advantage. I do think there is in-game "momentum" though, but I think momentum isn't really the right word. I'd call it confidence or lack of confidence.

I don't want to dive into the back and forth here, but just giving you my 2 cents worth from my experience as a player and coach.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Not part of the argument, but I will offer my 2 cents worth. I've coached sports up to high school level for 25+ years (also have played sports for 40-ish years). I agree with PJ that there really isn't game-to-game momentum and even if there was a slight bit of it, it would be detrimental to think of it as some sort of advantage. I do think there is in-game "momentum" though, but I think momentum isn't really the right word. I'd call it confidence or lack of confidence.

I don't want to dive into the back and forth here, but just giving you my 2 cents worth from my experience as a player and coach.

Confidence is a good word for what you are describing and what people often refer to as momentum.

 

[MNVCGUY]

He's a great guy, and Cal isn't the easiest job.

Positives:
1 - he immediately fixed a defense that under Dykes was historically bad. As in, giving up over 10 yards/play bad.
2 - he beat USC a couple times, which for a team that hadn't beaten them in 14 years actually brought tears to my eyes
3 - we more or less never get blown out. one of the early signs Tedford was on his way out was when we'd just get lockered in games where we were favored. 40-6 type things despite lots of NFl talent. haven't seen any of that.
4 - he's done an outstanding job fostering team chemistry and recruiting high character guys
5 - related to #4, he's generally handled the portal quite well. even when we lost our entire RB room (plus a TE to Texas, plus our QB, plus our two best WRs) this spring, he managed to scrape together a pretty good class
6 - he, like Dykes and Tedford before him, have been pretty good out of conference

Cons:
1 - He's had some very strange personnel decisions over the years. A mix of leaning too hard on seniors, making bad decisions about scholarships (particularly to kickers). It was very refreshing when he actually picked JKS with a week and change to go before the year, as the prior 3 years or so we'd have a 2- or 3- way QB race that went into the season.
2 - He has a strange fascination with random 2 point conversions which usually backfire. Must be a genetic defect he acquired while at Oregon
3 - His offenses have just been... well, bad. There are issues over how much control he seems willing to give the OC. He is incredibly anti-certain plays which he deems as high risk for turnovers (HB toss plays where art thou?). To some extent it just isn't clear if he knows what it takes to run a top 20 college football offense.
4 - He, like Dykes and (later) Tedford before him, really struggles in conference play. Something abysmal like a 21-44 record IIRC. Some of htat was Berkeley/covid weirdness, some of it stemmed from rosters relatively devoid of talent early in his time. But a lot if it is the team just falling flat in games they should win.

Last year he almost got it but the OL was historically terrible. The amount of skill position talent we lost (from an offense that was middling as it was) is insane... with a decent OL last years' team is a borderline playoff team

Some of the early moves this year are encouraging. Naming JKS starter over an experienced senior (Ohio State transfer Brown) is a good step. Most Cal fans are very happy with the offensive coach hires (Harsin seems pretty good as OC, everyone loves Rolovich even though we're not exactly sure what his job is, and Famika Anae is a straight up beast as an OL coach/recruiter).

I really want him to succeed, but the writing is on the wall that if he doesn't this year its probably over. He might even be okay with that... coaching in berkeley for a decade can take a lot out of a man

There a lot of similarities between Minnesota and Cal in terms of the jobs and their place in the colege football landscape.

 

[STPGopher]

cant we take some time to enjoy our championship in the Northwestern State championship season before we look ahead to the Cal Bears championship season?

Unless your suiting up to play against California Berkeley, take all the time you want/ need.

 

[66stang408]

There a lot of similarities between Minnesota and Cal in terms of the jobs and their place in the colege football landscape.

Agreed. The tone on this forum (I'd call it relatively quiet confidence tempered by experience) very much mirrors the cal board these days

 

[T4K]

What are your thoughts on coach Wilcox? I have to imagine his seat is warming up after getting a pretty long leash for a P4 coach especially after a fairly short leash with Dykes who followed the legendary run by Tedford. Obviously Cal has gone through an interesting time with moving to the ACC. Curious what the vibe is with the fan base and you personally.

Cal fans almost universally like Wilcox as a person and root for him to win. Most (but amazingly not all) fans are fed up with the losing. Big donors in the know - probably the people that matter for this question - seem to truly believe his lack of winning is about the university's administration undermining football, not Wilcox. The stuff you may have read in the papers about the donor class revolting is all in this space. We (myself a minor donor) were absolutely fed up with the administration - starting with the prior chancellor then the AD then key direct hires within the AD, who at best were indifferent to football but often actively worked against football - and said enough. The administration stuff has begun to change - the old AD is gone, Ron Rivera is the football GM and tangible on the ground differences are happening. Some donors believe in Wilcox enough that they expect these changes alone will result in more Ws. I'm more pessimistic...winning coaches find a way to win, losing coaches find a way to lose. Wilcox is in the latter category.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Cal fans almost universally like Wilcox as a person and root for him to win. Most (but amazingly not all) fans are fed up with the losing. Big donors in the know - probably the people that matter for this question - seem to truly believe his lack of winning is about the university's administration undermining football, not Wilcox. The stuff you may have read in the papers about the donor class revolting is all in this space. We (myself a minor donor) were absolutely fed up with the administration - starting with the prior chancellor then the AD then key direct hires within the AD, who at best were indifferent to football but often actively worked against football - and said enough. The administration stuff has begun to change - the old AD is gone, Ron Rivera is the football GM and tangible on the ground differences are happening. Some donors believe in Wilcox enough that they expect these changes alone will result in more Ws. I'm more pessimistic...winning coaches find a way to win, losing coaches find a way to lose. Wilcox is in the latter category.

You could take all the stuff you put there...substitute Minnesota for Cal and you could have found a posts just like it all over this board not all that long ago.

Things have gotten a lot better under Fleck....there are still concerns about the Universities support for the football program but far less than there used to be.

Feel like our schools were separated at birth or something