Here's what I just wrote to my brother, who lives in Seattle and is a long-time bears fan, and was worried about Dykes' ability to recruit 4-5 star player. I can remember a game in the late 50's when my brother got rolled up the Cal rooting section.
Okay. Here goes. Could be a long one.
"Watched the entire SJS-Louisiana Tech game and liked what I saw on both sides of the ball from San Jose State. MacIntyre's offense is well conceived and is close to the type of offense I'd like to see at Cal. It is balanced with a lot of plays with the QB under center. On the other hand Dykes failed his audition and he should be immediately taken off the coaching list. I still favor people like John Gruden, Herm Edwards, Ron Rivera, and Greg Roman."
Right now Dykes is running unfavorably in the poll at Cal Bears Scout with 26 in favor and 50 against the hiring.
I don't think comparing the type of recruits he got there can be compared to what he can get at Cal. Louisiana Tech is a mid major and plays in a 23,000 seat stadium in the WAC. That does not even come close to comparing to Cal and the Pac 12. he will probably be able to recruit. That's not my concern at this moment.
My concern is what I saw in the game I watched against SJS, he is not a charismatic coach, he runs a gimmick offense, he has no defense.
What he did against SJS was not consistent with what he did all year where he did have a balanced offense and did have a running back who gained 1,200 yards. He only lost to Texas A&M by 2 points. But what I saw in the SJS game was very disturbing. He did not run the ball and when he did SJS stuffed it, and they had less than 60 yds. rushing. He threw over 60 times in that game.
Look, I'm not a traditionalist and I understand that college football is all about scoring a lot of points. I love watching Oregon play. But saying all of that, I'm convinced that the best offense for college is a good mix of the T-formation and the spread. I like what the Redskins and 49ers are doing on offense. In college, I think the type of offense that USC or Alabama runs is more in line with what I'd like to see Cal do. I think these gimmick offenses have a real weakness when they run into a very good defensive team, for instance Stanford against Oregon this year. A real strength of the T-formation is being able to run play action passes when you are deep in the red zone.
From what I'm hearing, Dykes is coming with his offensive coordinator, running back coach, and wide receiver coach. this means that Ron Gould, who has been at Cal for 16 years will be gone. Despite the fact that Tedford was considered a quarterback guru, it was Gould who sent a whole slew of running backs to the NFL, and he was retained after Tedford was let go in hopes he would remain he running back coach.s I think we've seen the last Cal running back in the NFL for some time to come. Dykes is not bringing a top notch staff. It is a WAC level coaching staff, and unless he brings in some super high powered defensive coordinator, we can expect the Bears to give up a lot of points.
I think that the Cal AD has middle of the road expectations from its football team, wants a coach it can control, not a charismatic coach, does not want to pay an arm and a leg for a nationally ranked coach, and will be happy going to some irrelevant bowl game every year.
So, I'm against this hire. I know that my youngest son is intrigued by bringing in someone who runs this type of offense, and it will probably attract some good high school players who like it too. Obviously the proof is in the pudding, so it will be what he does on the field that will count, not what we think now. My expectations are very high. I wont' accept anything less than the Rose Bowl. Tedford's best year was 2004 with a 10-1 regular season record and a loss to USC in a game Cal should have won. The only reason we did not go to the Rose Bowl was because Tedford let Mack Brown out media him. This is the standard I'm setting for Dykes. Tedford took over a one win team and won 7 games his first year in 2002 and was named Pac 10 coach of the year. Two years later they should have gone to the Rose Bowl. If Dykes does not match that, then he is clearly a down grade over Tedford, which I think is the case. Despite all my rants the past 3 years about Tedford, he did one hell of a job at bringing Cal football back to national prominence.
So to end, here's what I posted last night at Cal Bears Scout. "Obviously, Cal has decided that doing slightly better than mediocrity is acceptable. As a long-time Cal fan, I'm extremely disappointed. Sonny Dykes is not an upgrade over Tedford. He (Tedford) must be laughing all the way to the bank as he deposits his buy out."
