More gloom up in Strawberry Canyon - Printable Version

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Re: More gloom up in Strawberry Canyon - OutsiderFan - 09-21-2011

I find this thread fascinating.  The bottom line is the guy just isn't a top shelf Head Coach.

He was lucky that he found Aaron Rodgers, and the reality is he did better with Holmoe's recruits than his own.  The beginning of the end of for the UC system's highest paid employee was the 2007 game against Oregon State.  UC East Bay had just knocked off Oregon to claim the #2 ranking, but Nate Longshore sustained a broken ankle that forced him to play RS Frosh Kevin Riley.

the UC system's highest paid employee put the wraps on Riley in the first half, but his special teams and defense were terrible, and the team found itself down by a coupe scores in the second half.  He had no choice but to unleash the first time starting QB.  Kevin Riley delivered.  He led an incredible come back, including converting on a 4th and 18 play that kept UC East Bay in the game.  It was incredible to watch.  The crowd was going nuts, having heard #1 LSU had lost, paving the way for UC East Bay to be ranked #1 if it could complete the comeback against the Beavs.

Then the meltdown happened.  Kevin Riley wasn't told what to do with no timeouts.  the UC system's highest paid employee should have kicked the FG to tie (although with UC East Bay's FG kicking, that was no gimme).  As time ran out, the UC system's highest paid employee threw his headset in disgust, one of the few signs of emotion he has ever shown.  Rather than building off the good Riley showed in that awful loss, the UC system's highest paid employee proceeded to play a Nate Longshore with a broken ankle for several weeks, as UC East Bay dropped a string of games in a row, to end up 3-6 in conference and finished 6-6 in the regular season.

Since then, the UC system's highest paid employee has not been able to develop a QB, gone through several OCs, changed DCs, and ST coaches.  To the extent he played a role in UC East Bay's facility upgrades, given him credit, but he has demonstrated, over and over, on several different fronts that he just is not capable of competing with the best coaches college football has to offer.  He isn't confident, plays scared, and that mentality infects his team whenever it faces adversity.

Since you guys don't follow UC East Bay too closely.  Here's a great example of the UC system's highest paid employee being in over his head.  Following the 2009 season, in which UC East Bay couldn't hold a lead against Utah, the UC system's highest paid employee concluded, correctly, that his team wasn't competitive enough.  But one of his solutions was to have (and I am not making this up) his team do scavenger hunts.  How well did scavenger hunts increase the team's competitiveness?  Enough to go 5-7 with several blowout losses in 2010.

There are more examples I could give as to why the UC system's highest paid employee has reverted to the mean, but this is enough for you to chew on for a while.

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Re: More gloom up in Strawberry Canyon - mark3k - 09-21-2011

Although, at an intellectual level, I try to root for K.a.l. in virtually all games that are not against Stanford, I still loved reading your re-telling of the OSU-Riley story, OutsiderFan.  However, I doubt there are many participants on this board who haven't at least seen that replay once, so you may be selling a few folks short when you assume that none of us know anything about the college football world outside of Stanford (as inferior as it may currently be):

(09-21-2011, 03:39 PM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:Since you guys don't follow UC East Bay too closely.

;D

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Re: More gloom up in Strawberry Canyon - OutsiderFan - 09-21-2011

Aside from the Oregon State meltdown, the greater illustration of what might be hurting Tedford's performance is demonstrated by the scavenger hunts.

I don't think Harbaugh or David Shaw would have Stanford football players do scavenger hunts to increase the team's competitiveness.  The fact that this was considered an answer by Tedford is pretty telling, IMO.

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Re: More gloom up in Strawberry Canyon - Ratmandoo - 09-22-2011

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is Tedford's staff turnover. I'm not 100% sure about this but I think Cal's offensive coordinator left after Aaron Rodger's senior year. Since then, Tedford has gone through at least 3 offensive coordinators. He also stopped coaching the quarterbacks and calling the plays over this time.

Staff turnover seems to be the biggest reason why head coaches "lose" it, especially when the key coordinator leaves. There are a ton of examples:

* Pete Carroll loses / gets rid of Norm Chow in 2005 and that starts USC's downturn
* Bobby Bowden loses his offensive (Mark Richt) and defensive (Chuck Amato) coordinators in the early 2000s
* Urban Meyer loses offensive coordinator Dan Mullen and has a 7-5 final season
* Even when Tedford left Oregon to go to Cal, Mike Bellotti's teams went from two quarterbacks who were drafted in the first round (Joey Harrington and Akili Smith) to a bunch of mediocre years. It all changed when Chip Kelly was hired.

Tedford is a good coach but it's really hard to maintain all your momentum when your top coordinators leave. He got a number of his coordinators back this year and he's gone back to calling the plays and coaching the QBs. I'm hoping that Tedford doesn't get his momentum back and the Cal fans run him off. Tedford is still the best Cal football coach in a very long time. Plus, I don't trust Sandy Barbour to hire a capable replacement if she gets rid of Tedford. 

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