Cal Football Blog

2013 Cal Football Post-Spring Two-Deep

No clear Starting QB yet. I guess we’ll have to wait til the Spring Game.

As many of you guys know, I tried to have a live twitter feed of last Friday’s practice. I’ll definitely try to attend more to keep you up to date, just follow me here https://twitter.com/calfootballblog.

Practice Under the LIghts

After three practices, we can already see the changes that Coach Dykes have implemented with the program. Many have observed that the practices are faster, the players are consistently practicing with high energy, and the staff is feeding into that energy as well. Though I’m not too sure how people are saying that we are practicing faster. In terms of the speed of movement, it’s actually not too different from the Tedford years (I would know because I’ve actually attended them). However, there are more reps per minute per player. For example, the quarterbacks who are not in during a play will take shadow reps (imitating snap count, reads, and throws) while one of the quarterbacks is under center. Players do run to each drill instead of gingerly jogging like they did before thanks to coaches constantly yelling at the players to move faster. One thing I have noticed that contribute to the increased number of reps during practice is that the coaches won’t exactly go on long talks with players while on the field. It seems like they have reserved most of the coach talk to the position meetings and the video room.

Technically every position is up for battle since there is a completely new staff. However, I will look into who will be our next quarterback. We all know how important this position is in terms of leadership and how quickly the offense can adapt to what is now called the Bear Raid. So who has been the top three quarterbacks in the first three practices. Here is my observation and ranking.

3. Austin Hinder

In terms of reps, he has a gotten his fair share of plays under center with the first team. His feet moves well, which really helps his escape-ability. Also, even though he is on the move he still has a good touch on the ball. Some issues he has right now is that he needs to gain a little more strength and weight. He also needs to make better decisions overall but that might come once he reps all the plays over and over again with different looks from the defense. I would say at this point, Hinder is a solid backup quarterback.

2. Jared Goff

I am really surprised with this pick. I would have thought Bridgeford would be the one of the top contenders for the starting spot or even the backup. However, Goff has been quite impressive for someone who just came into the program only a few weeks ago after graduating high school. He still needs to learn the speed of the game at the college level and to have a better relationship with his receivers because there have been times where he is literally a split second off with his receivers. Other than that he has good mobility and a pretty good release and touch on the ball. I think most people can see that he has a lot of potential and with the number of team reps Franklin and Dykes has been giving him, the coaches seem to think the same. He’ll most likely take a redshirt this season.

1. Zach Kline

We all knew he was a great recruit and a great high school quarterback. So for most people this doesn’t come as a surprise. Kline has received the most number of team reps throughout the week especially with the first team. I also don’t remember Kline throwing any interceptions even though he has had so man reps. He’s making good decisions but at the same time takes some risky decisions because he trusts his arm. Speaking of his arm, he throws one hell of a bullet. Sometimes his throws are so hard receivers have a hard time getting clean catches on the ball; however, those balls gets past the defenders and to his receivers before the defender can react. I wouldn’t say he has better mobility than Hinder but it’s fairly good (He’s no Nate Longshore, so that’s good). This kid is poised and ready to take on not only the role as quarterback but also the role as one of the leaders of the team. So far Kline has a fair lead on the quarterbacks and he is my pick to be named starting quarterback after the Spring Game.

Still, don’t count out either Kyle Boehm or Allan Bridgeford. There is still plenty of football left this spring. I would highly recommend all of you to attend Saturday’s scrimmage to see for yourself who will win this QB competition.

And so the coaching pretty much official, former Louisiana Tech Head Coach is now coming to Cal with his high powered offense.

Here’s the quick gist Jeff Faraudo:

Dykes, 43, operates a wide-open passing attack that produced 51.5 points per game and was second nationally with 577.9 total yards.

The Bulldogs were 9-3 this season, but they were left out of a bowl game after briefly stalling after an offer from the Independence Bowl.

Dykes has a three-year record of 22-15 at the Ruston, La., school.

He was earning $760,000 per year with Louisiana Tech, barely one-third of what Cal paid Jeff Tedford, who was fired on Nov. 20 after 11 seasons.

Dykes is the son of longtime Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes. His resume includes a stint as offensive coordinator at Pac-12 rival Arizona.

He started off in Texas Tech learning under former Texas Tech Head Coach and current Washington State Head Coach Mike Leach. He was an excellent recruiter there and even won an All-American Football Foundation’s Mike Campbell Top Assistant Award at Texas Tech. He’s also not new to the Pac-10/12 atmosphere. After Texas Tech, he transformed Arizona’s offense from 16.6 points and 252.8 yards per game to 36.6 points and 402.4 yards per game and also helped develop Nick Foles. Sure he loves passing the ball but he is surprisingly balanced with his system with 227.17 rushing/game with La Tech this past year.

However, there are some big cons. He had a defense that allowed 38.5 pts/game (they only won games because they scored 51.5 pts/game). They also had one of the most penalties/game in the nation (only Washington, Cal and UCLA had more) with 8.2/game, now imagine that team playing with Pac-12 refs. Also, Dykes was not able to beat any big name teams this past year, as he lost to Texas A&M, Utah St, and San Jose St.

The biggest question now is who is going to be part of his staff? Who will be the defensive coordinator (Lot’s of people are saying DeWayne Walker)? If Dykes can haul in a great crew of assistants like Jim Mora did over at UCLA, next season will be very fruitful for Cal, if not very entertaining.

AND THE NEWS HAS BROKEN! Jeff Tedford has been let go.

BERKELEY - Jeff Tedford, who has overseen the Golden Bear football program for the past 11 seasons, has been relieved of his duties as head football coach at the University of California, Director of Athletics Sandy Barbour announced Tuesday.

“This was an extraordinarily difficult decision, one that required a thorough and thoughtful analysis of a complex set of factors,” Barbour said. “Ultimately, I believed that we needed a change in direction to get our program back on the right track. Cal football is integral to our department and our university, and its influence can be felt well beyond the walls of Memorial Stadium. The program clearly serves as an important part of the connective tissue that binds our community together, and it is imperative that Cal football be recognized as a leader in competitive success, academic achievement and community engagement.

 

Jeff Tedford 2002-2012. Head Coach of California Football Team.

THE RISE

For many fans, the decision to let go of Tedford has been a long time coming, but for others they cling on to those wonder years. The years that brought Cal out of the dark ages, brought us Aaron Rodgers, 3 more bowls games than all the years between our last Rose Bowl appearance to 2002, and even a Co-Pac 10 Championship. So long, to the man with the most wins in Cal history with 82. He brought light to many current NFL players (40+ players) who could not be where they are at without him. Oh and did I mention all those Big Game wins that we pretty much never had a chance before Tedford?

He has always been considered a caring man. He took care of as many players as he could and brought a family atmosphere to those who didn’t have one. He found one of the greatest football players ever in Aaron Rodgers, while recruiting a TE at the same community college. He developed Kyle Boller and even Nate Longshore (before he broke his ankle); everyone called him the Quarterback Guru. Cal was even #2 in the nation in 2007. However, his momentous ship hit an iceberg.

THE FALL

After the 2007 debacle against Oregon State, the Cal team wasn’t the same. 2007-2009, Cal was ranked at least once but never fulfilled its potential. Tedford had lost many of his former assistant coaches and he started to bring in offensive coordinator after offensive coordinator. However, nothing worked for him. From 2008-2012, he went on to take the team to two bowl games, but did not win either. Throughout that bad run from ’08-’12 he kept changing things around like assistant coaches, administrative workers, and even practice times. He just failed to realize that he needed to change to a game that changed beyond him.

The biggest blow, of course, was the year 2012. He lost his best recruiter and Defensive Line coach Tosh Lupoi to Washington. Though it could be easily argued that Lupoi backstabbed all of us including Tedford, it was crazy how players were dedicated to a single assistant coach and not a program. He was about to pull in a top 10 recruiting class, but that immediately fell apart with the departure of Lupoi. Lupoi took the money and many have said he disliked Tedford for throwing him under the bus for Injury-Gate.

In the fall, Tedford welcomed back Cal fans to Memorial Stadium with a shocking loss to Nevada and then fell apart to end the season at 3-9. The painful decline of Cal football could not continue while other teams like UCLA, Oregon State, ASU, Arizona, and of course of rival Stanfurd was thriving. Athletic Director Sandy Barbour had to do something and she did. She relieved Tedford of his head coaching duties November 20, 2012.

But we will never forget his legacy. His major turn around of the program and the high expectations he brought forth. Unfortunately, these high expectations were a major factor to his release.

Let’s thank Tedford for everything he has done for us and what his legacy will mean for the future of Cal Football. Go Bears.

According to the latest Vegas odds, Cal is a 4 point favorite against Washington. That’s quite a head scratcher considering that Cal just got destroyed over at Utah while Washington upset a 7th ranked Oregon State. The reasoning behind these Vegas odds are that Cal has been able to put up points at home while Washington has struggled mightily on the road.

Even with those Vegas odds, both ESPN analysts have Cal losing and even local writer Jon Wilner has Cal going down against the Huskies.  On top of all this, Washington is coming in with some momentum against a huge win against Oregon State.  Oh and did I mention that Keenan Allen (who accounts for 33% of our offense) is out for the season, along with DE Mustafa Jalil and OG Dominic Galas?

It’s not looking so bright out here in Berkeley and we are pretty much depleted of any sunshine pumpers. A loss at home against those damn Huskies will be another step towards firing Tedford. However, if we can somehow pull out our big guns **cough** Bigelow **cough** and play some solid defense, you just never know what may happen for the Cal Bears.