Cal Football--Derailed by Awful Coach Dykes

A moment of silence for die-hard Cal fans.

They're deep in mourning for their football team. After the latest beat-down, by UCLA 37-10 last Saturday, the Bears are dead, six-feet under. They have just one win, over a mediocre small-college team, and no prospects for any more.

A one-win season for Cal? Looks like it. How pitiful. Shades of Tom Holmoe, the bungler who coached Cal to a one-win season in 2001---and then was replaced by Jeff Tedford.

It's a shame no one can indict coach Sonny Dykes for murder. He's killed the program, in just a half season, with his idiotic, all-offense format. He had an accomplice who should be strung up with him. That's AD Sandy Barbour, who hired this boob in the first place. What the hell was she thinking? It was smart to finally fire Tedford, who'd lost it and was making blunder after blunder and had the program pointed in the wrong direction for years.. But to hire somebody worse, some offensive whiz from minor-league Louisiana Tech who clearly has a disdain for defense..His approach may have worked in the WAC, where defense is a dirty word, but it's wrong for the big leagues.

What's really eating away at the mourning Bears' fans is that there's no real hope for things to get better. According to sources close to several Cal players, the team is totally demoralized and down on Dykes. All that buddy-buddy stuff that you see occasionally between Dykes and the players? A public-relations sham, reports one of the sources. A bewildered defensive player told a source that the team has no confidence in the defensive schemes and has little respect for the skills of coordinator Andy Buh, who's clearly in way over his head. Let's not even talk about defensive fundamentals..The way these players tackle is laughable.
      


One clear signal about the quality of a new coach is the progress of stars.Well, Cal's most promising star, RB Brendan Bigelow, has rapidly regressed under Dykes. Predicted to be one of the prime players in the Pac12 this season, Bigelow has turned into a fumbler who runs cautiously and has been demoted to the third team. That explosive power runner with the gaudy yards-per-carry stats? A thing of the past, a victim of the new coaching staff and the dumb Dykes system.

Cal has two big-time players, QB Jared Goff and WR Chris Harper--and not much else. While Tedford did leave the cupboard somewhat bare,. there is some leftover talent. With the right coaching and a system suited to that talent, the team should win at least three or four games and be somewhat respectable-and not, as it is, the laughing stock of the Pac12..

Dykes' excuse for this miserable season, that so many players are injured, doesn't cut it. When the team was healthy, it was terrible.

Cal fans, don't look for help in the next recruiting class. Word travels among high-school players headed to big-time colleges. In California circles, sources report, they're saying don't bother with Cal as long as Dykes is in charge..If you want to be a winner, these players are telling each other, stay out of Berkeley. With this negative feeling out there among recruits, how is Cal going to attract high-quality players?

Right now, Cal has to be among the top 10 worst teams in the major conferences. Who's to blame?
Why is this program-killer still in charge?.

Cal AD Barbour, do Berkeley and the Pac12 a favor, correct your horrible mistake and rid Cal of this incompetent.

Who says you can't can a coach mid-season? USC did it, dumping Lane Kiffin, and is much better for it. And Kiffin, by the way, is twice the coach Dykes is.