Virtually precisely six years after Cal fired him as its head coach, Sonny Dykes is the mastermind behind the most important Cinderella story in faculty soccer’s fashionable period.
Unranked to start out the season and picked to complete seventh within the Huge 12, TCU has shocked the nation with a transfer-laden roster, a penchant for comebacks and a model of the Air Raid offense. Lastly, after a decade wherein he led 4 FBS applications, Dykes seems to have discovered a long-term house.
As Dykes’ No. 3 Horned Frogs hope to drag off their greatest upset but within the nationwide championship recreation Monday towards top-ranked Georgia at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood (Los Angeles County), few can blame Cal followers for rolling their eyes. Dykes is loads deserving. However lower than a month after they witnessed rival Stanford tab former Cal quarterback Troy Taylor as its head coach, Previous Blues should now watch a person who spent a lot of his Berkeley tenure attempting to commerce up get all the pieces he ever wished.
Dykes, along with his nation twang, deep ties to Texas and nil earlier expertise on the West Coast, had at all times been an odd match with the Bears. Nonetheless, some would possibly surprise: If a coach who wanted solely a 12 months to rework TCU from a 5-7 disappointment right into a 13-1 juggernaut could not return Cal to glory, who on the market can?
The Bears have not critically contended for a convention title because the mid-2000s and have not performed in a Rose Bowl since 1959. Now that NIL, early enrollees and the switch portal dominate the school soccer panorama, Cal is barely a more durable place to educate.
As Jeff Tedford’s 2012 firing after an 11-year run that included a program-record 5 bowl wins and ugly educational scores illustrated, this is not a faculty snug decreasing its admissions requirements within the identify of on-field success. It additionally would not have the pedigree and model recognition of another academically rigorous universities like Notre Dame and Stanford.
As an alternative of bemoaning what may have been had they saved Dykes, Cal decision-makers ought to use his latest rise as a chance to re-evaluate the way it can jolt this system out of its slumber: Can it grow to be extra lively within the NIL house? Maybe it might bolster recruiting by altering its pitch?
The largest query is whether or not the Bears want a training change. Dykes’ successor, Justin Wilcox, has began to listen to “scorching seat” chatter after a 3rd straight shedding season. However with a cash-strapped athletic division’s different income generator, males’s basketball, piling up losses in entrance of sparse crowds, Cal may not be capable of afford firing Wilcox—whose contract runs via 2027—even when his struggles proceed.
Such is the grim state of Bears sports activities: Change tends to return late, if in any respect. And Dykes’ dismissal was no exception. Colleges usually hearth coaches instantly after the season ends, however Cal waited six weeks to let him go.
Quien:
TCU (13-1) vs. Georgia (14-0)
When:
4:30 p.m. Monday
The place:
SoFi Stadium in Inglewood (Los Angeles County)
TV:
ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews
Radio:
1050; 104.5 and 680 be a part of at 6 pm
The transfer got here as a shock to Dykes, who reportedly arrived at that ultimate assembly with then-athletic director Mike Williams anticipating to debate defensive-coordinator candidates. It wasn’t a lot the 19-30 report in 4 seasons or porous defenses that compelled Cal to maneuver on from Dykes. Season-ticket renewals had plummeted greater than 30% in a 12 months, exacerbating the Bears’ already tenuous funds.
Then there was Dykes’ curiosity in different jobs. Inside the earlier three years, he had interviewed for head-coaching vacancies at Houston, Missouri, South Carolina, Virginia and Baylor. That extensively reported assembly with Baylor in December 2016 bolstered what many at Cal lengthy suspected: Dykes had by no means totally acclimated to the Berkeley expertise.
A number of experiences urged that the Bears waited one other month to half with him as a result of they have been looking for a cause to fireside him with trigger. However after they could not discover one, they determined that paying Dykes’ $5.9 million buyout was higher than protecting a coach who wasn’t dedicated to Cal.
Requested throughout a information convention whether or not Dykes’ interviews at different universities factored into his firing, Williams stated, “It is a part of the general analysis. We need to guarantee that we’ve a coach who desires to be right here.”
In Wilcox, the Bears have the anti-Dykes: a West Coast man with a historical past of sturdy protection, weak offense and, maybe principally notably, loyalty to Cal. In December 2021, after the Bears completed 5-7, many have been surprised when Wilcox’s identify surfaced within the head-coaching search at his alma mater, Oregon.
Much more startling, although, was Wilcox’s resolution to not pursue the opening and as a substitute signal a contract extension with Cal. Within the college-football hierarchy, the Geese are thought-about a significantly better job: They’ve superior donor assist, services and employees salaries.
It is honest to query whether or not Wilcox regrets that call. After reaching two bowl video games and posting a 20-18 report over his first three years, he has gone bowl-less with a 10-18 mark in his previous three.
Final season, even Cal’s protection—a constant constructive to that time in Wilcox’s tenure—underwhelmed. Extra vulnerable to the massive play than traditional, the Bears ranked ninth within the Pac-12 in yards allowed per recreation, together with final in passing yards allowed.
Mix that with a scoring offense that completed exterior the FBS’ prime 95 for the fifth consecutive 12 months, and it is no shock Cal went 4-8. New offensive coordinator Jake Spavital — the OC beneath Dykes in 2016 earlier than stops at West Virginia (OC) and Texas State (head coach) — hopes to resuscitate the Bears’ assault with most of the similar Air Raid ideas which might be Dykes’ hallmark.
For that to work, Cal should land an acceptable alternative for quarterback Jack Plummer (now at Louisville) within the switch portal and overhaul a battered offensive line. The issue is that the Bears are usually not TCU. After leaving SMU for its native rival in November 2021, Dykes mined the switch portal for 13 gamers who would plug roster holes, present depth and carry the Horned Frogs to new heights.
On their option to a national-championship showdown towards Georgia, they overcame double-digit, second-half deficits in six video games, blew out Oklahoma in October, escaped with a seven-point win over Texas in November, and outdueled Michigan in final week’s semifinal. After being named AP Coach of the Yr in December, Dykes stated, “I have been 1-11 (in 2013 at Cal), and I have been fired. … I am at all times grateful for these unhealthy instances as a result of it actually, actually does make you recognize the great instances extra.”
Amid all of the plaudits, Dykes certainly acknowledges that the blueprint behind TCU’s fast rebuild would not be doable at an establishment like Cal. No faculty with a 14.4% acceptance price will enable such liberal use of the switch portal. Looking back, Cal’s limitations—not its geography, not its politics—might need been the most important cause Dykes acquired antsy there.
Requested just lately by Sports activities Illustrated about his time in Berkeley, he stated, “Most likely higher if I do not say a lot about that. It is only a exhausting place. I took a step on the market with out understanding what I used to be stepping into.”
Wilcox, an assistant coach beneath Tedford within the early 2000s, had a greater grasp of Cal’s challenges when he took the job six years in the past. However that hasn’t prevented him from working, which underscores a harsh actuality: It may not matter who coaches the Bears if the administration cannot adapt.
Connor Letourneau is a San Francisco Chronicle employees author. E-mail: cletourneau@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @Con_Chron