Can Cal, Justin Wilcox recapture the good times as CFB continues to change?
Justin Wilcox leans forward in his chair to answer the question. He leans forward because he’s certain he knows the answer, because he’s been asked just so many times by now. Cal’s head football coach takes no time to deliver his response.
“If you win, they’ll come,” Wilcox said in a recent video interview with The Athletic. “If you win, they’ll come.”
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Then Wilcox shrugs, because that’s it, really. He’s not wrong. It’s the Occam’s razor principle: The simplest solution is often preferred to untangling a series of quandaries. It’s not specific to his program — it’s relatable to every sports organization, from the youth level to collegiate to professional. Provide your fan base and your community something that stirs that unique level of excitement and, suddenly, you’re cooking with gas.
Wilcox, who is entering his seventh season, knows that if this project reaches the desired next level — if Cal can contend for conference titles again — these interviews he fields won’t be about needing to make upgrades on the margins. They won’t be about what went wrong in tough one-score losses at Notre Dame and USC and at home to Washington and UCLA, as was the case in 2022 when the Bears finished 4-8 overall and 2-7 in Pac-12 play. The record includes a seven-point overtime loss at Colorado, which went 1-11 a season ago.
Wilcox has talked of a different style of play and a lot of new faces in 2023, leaning on the transfer portal to improve a defense that rated No. 93 nationally in yards per play and an offense that ranked No. 96 in scoring. He hired offensive coordinator Jake Spavital, whose offense clicked during his previous stint in Berkeley.
Making plays in the portal 🔀
— Cal Football (@CalFootball) June 10, 2023
“There needs to be expectations, and those expectations are to win,” Wilcox said. “It should be that way. As much as you can feel that potentially from people outside the building, fans or media, I totally understand it. If that is ever greater than the own expectations you have for yourself, you should probably leave and just do something else.”
A year and a half ago, in Dec. 2021, Wilcox reportedly declined the opportunity to coach at his alma mater, Oregon, where he was a defensive back from 1996-1999. Wilcox signed a six-year extension to stay at Cal, worth a reported $28.5 million. During his tenure, the Golden Bears have gone 30–36 and made two bowl appearances in 7-6 and 8-5 seasons in 2018 and 2019 but haven’t had a winning record since.
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“That last little bit is the toughest hill to climb,” Wilcox said.
Climbing that hill in Berkeley is perhaps unlike any other climb across the landscape of Power 5 football.
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In Year 1 of Jeff Tedford’s successful reign as head coach at Cal in 2002, when the Bears were barreling toward their first winning season in a decade, spectators began writing letters to Tedford and the athletic department. Some were thrilled, some weren’t.
“We would get letters about how we’re unhappy that we used to lay out on the benches (during games) and get a sun tan, and now there’s no more room,” Tedford said in a recent interview. “I got one envelope, and it had this big-ass splinter, and they said they pulled their splinter out of their butt on those old bleachers.”
Fair or not, the measuring stick at Cal will always be the Tedford era, during which from 2002 to 2012, the Bears had nine winning seasons, eight bowl appearances and future NFL superstars like Aaron Rodgers, Marshawn Lynch, DeSean Jackson and others. Wilcox was the linebackers coach from 2003 to 2005. He had a front-row seat for Rodgers going against his talented Cal defense, saw Lynch attend a summertime Cal football camp where he railroaded over would-be tacklers even as a teenager barely old enough to drive.
Sonny Dykes, who led TCU to the national title game last season, followed Tedford, going 19-30 in four years that included the college career of quarterback Jared Goff, the eventual No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft.
Talent, of course, matters as always. According to 247Sports’ recruiting rankings, Cal has been hovering in the 30 to 50 ranking nationally the past few years. That’s not unlike a program like Utah, which has been in that same realm, too, but has risen up the Pac-12 ranks and has won two consecutive conference titles. Cal, though, hasn’t had a winning record in Pac-12 play since going 5-4 in 2009. Since 2017, the highest Cal has had players drafted is the third round. In the last three NFL Drafts, a total of four Bears have been selected.
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“When Cal wins, it’s a very attractive school for kids that fit the bill,” said former Cal running back Shane Vereen. “When Cal’s not winning, it’s not as attractive. That’s just the facts. The way to combat all of that, especially with NIL (name, image and likeness) is when Cal wins, more money is donated. If we can put together multiple winning years and start showing progress, then you can start being an attractive landing spot again.”
Vereen, who went on to win a Super Bowl with the New England Patriots in 2015, said that star power matters, too. He remembers his recruiting trip to Berkeley. It was Oct. 7, 2006, one of many big DeSean Jackson games, including a touchdown reception and a highlight-reel punt return for a touchdown. No. 15 Cal beat No. 11 Oregon 45-24.
“That stadium was rocking. Everything was. The campus, the city … it was a contagious feeling and an emotion,” Vereen said.
Product on the field can change the overall perception of a program in one fall season. Wilcox knows it. It’s up to him and his staff to create their own golden era. All you have to do is get rolling.
“It’s up to us to create that environment,” he said. “Will it ever be like that again? I don’t know.”
The Sather Gate, a landmark piece of the UC Berkeley campus built in 1910, serves as an end of the road of sorts from campus life. Keep walking south and you’ll end up on Telegraph Avenue, one of the most historic streets in America. For decades, it was the epicenter of education, activism, counterculture, of anti-war protests, where the hippie movement was once in full swing. It’s still home to an eclectic mix of mom-and-pop stores selling everything from bongs to books and brand-name footwear.
In 2008, a group of protestors lived in hammocks and constructed platforms in a massive oak grove where the then-new $125 million Cal athletics facility was to be built. They were there for more than a year and went by names like Running Wolf and Dumpster Muffin. They were, Tedford estimated, about 50 feet from his old office. He heard their bongo drums and chants every day.
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Selling Berkeley to a teenager and their parents is obviously far different from, say, selling Norman or Starkville or even Corvallis.
“I remember one of my first days was walking down Telegraph Avenue and I was like, ‘What is going on here? This is bananas. Where am I?’” said former Cal linebacker Mike Mohamed, who played in the NFL from 2011 to 2015.
Wilcox has a motto: “It’s come as you are. We take all types. It’s A-Z here. We’re not looking for people to come in and create robots. We have such a diverse team. They come from all different places and different interests but have a common goal on the football field. We want that.
“There’s going to be exposure. They’re going to meet a lot of different people. They will have exchanges with people they have a lot in common with and a bunch where they don’t. That’s how the real world works. You’ve got to learn how to navigate it. I think this is a place that teaches guys how to navigate and how to get along.”
Mohamed, now an investment banking vice president based in New York City, said a school like Cal can return to consistent winning ways in the sometimes arduous landscape of managing top-tier talent and demanding academics.
“Now with NIL, I guess theoretically the school with the largest donor base with the largest checkbooks could build a great team,” Mohamed said. “Does the Cal alumni base want to do that? I don’t know.
“That’s obviously a problem for a place like Cal where there’s an academic level of excellence that needs to be upheld. Football isn’t the No. 1 thing there. It’s a world-class academic institution. Having a great football team is a privilege not a right. For other some schools? Football is the thing.”
In 2022, Lynch and Jackson partnered with former Cal athletes like Layshia Clarendon, Ryan Murphy and Valiere Arioto to form the California Legends NIL Collective. The Collective partnered with Lynch’s Beastmode Marketing agency.
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“Those at Cal, who went to Cal, who played at Cal, who coached at Cal understand how good this program can be,” Vereen said when asked how his alma mater can compete in the NIL era. “In the simplest of answers: Win. Win.”
Higher admission standards were put into place in the early 2010s across the UC system, but that has since eased a bit. And under Wilcox, the Bears have had standout years in the classroom. Last year the football program posted an 86 percent graduation rate, a program record and the fourth straight year in which the program set a new mark for itself. Last fall, Cal athletics had 90 student-athletes make the academic honor roll, including 24 football players.
“Some kids are smart enough to come and play football here even if they didn’t have a 4.0,” Wilcox said.
Vereen said he believes there are enough talented players who still fit the Cal blueprint.
“Academics shouldn’t be an excuse,” he said. “The guys you do get are talented and intelligent enough to be extremely good football players. Yes, it’s a hurdle, but it’s not an excuse.”
Those old rotted wooden bleachers are long gone, thanks in large part to the estimated $321 million renovation to Cal Memorial Stadium finished in 2012. Wilcox, whose contract goes through the 2027 season, receives no splinters in envelopes. The stadium also sits atop a piece of the 74-mile-long Hayward Fault line. On the field there’s a literal zagging marker conveying the line. It might be hard to make out, but it’s there in the north end zone.
College football has had its fair share of significant seismic activity in the past few years with stunning conference realignment moves like Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC and USC and UCLA bound for the Big Ten. The NIL era plus the transfer portal taking off has made the sport look unrecognizable from what it was just a decade ago.
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“You hear about (realignment) as small talk from friends or family, but in the walls of the facility, we don’t talk about it,” Wilcox said.
But the Pac-12 faces an uncertain future as it awaits a new media rights deal. A wrinkle in UCLA leaving the league is that it will have to pay Cal up to a $10 million annual subsidy for lost revenue when the Bruins leave next season. The Los Angeles Times reported last December that it’s been called the “Berkeley Tax.”
This fall will mark 20 years since Rodgers’ first year as Cal’s starting quarterback. It’s been 17 years since Lynch commandeered a golf cart as No. 11 Cal beat Washington after Lynch rushed for 150 yards and two touchdowns. That was two weeks after Vereen’s visit when Jackson’s punt return against Oregon was the lead highlight on “SportsCenter” that night.
“Those were good times. We had some good days, man,” Tedford said. “When the crowd got going. That was something.”
Berkeley isn’t a football town. It’s just Berkeley. But if given a team to rally behind, the fan base, student body and community will come watch. As Wilcox said, that last climb to consistent relevancy is the steepest, most taxing part.
“I’d love to see us get back to that at some point,” Mohamed said. “That’s pretty exciting to think about.”
Editor’s note: This is part of a series of stories examining the 2023 college football season’s most intriguing programs. Which teams are primed to break out? Struggling to find consistency? What’s gone right — or wrong — and what comes next? More recent stories in this series:
• What’s holding Texas A&M back? Six theories about college football’s would-be elites
• What will Navy be after Ken Niumatalolo? New coach, new approach, ‘no excuses’
• After Oklahoma State’s roller-coaster 2022, Mike Gundy ‘ain’t gonna get surprised again’
• How Luke Fickell is changing Wisconsin football: Will Chris McIntosh’s bold move pay off?
• Can Bret Bielema lead Illinois out of its 30-year slumber?
• Can Mel Tucker, Michigan State find an identity amid transfer portal highs, lows?
• Will Syracuse football ever reclaim glory? Former players reminisce, and answer is unclear
(Top illustration: Sean Reilly for The Athletic; Photos: Thearon W. Henderson, David Madison Getty Images, Digital First Media Group / Bay Area News via Getty Images)
