I'm an admitted Sunshine Pumper.  I still believe that Coach Tedford is the best thing that has happened to Cal football in the modern era, and arguably in the entire history of Cal football.  I am happy with the quality of student-athlete he consistently brings in and with the success he has brought to the program.  I am excited about the SAHPC and the upgrades to Memorial - accomplishments that were brought about almost solely by the success of the football program under Tedford.  It seems unlikely that the upgrades would be funded or approved without a football team that wins, achieves academically, and stays out of trouble.  I can tell you honestly that I would not support the football program financially if we recruited a bunch of bad kids just to have a great football team - I love being one of the best academic institutions in the world that happens to have a darn good foot ball team.  

So I'm bummed that there will be a bunch more posts about how Tedford must go, how Cal deserves better, how he has had his chance and now we have to move in a different direction.  I still believe that Tedford deserves more time, but that he is definitely on a shorter leash and must fix some of the glaring problems that we all can see.  If we don't fix the problems with the O-line, then it doesn't matter if we have the best QB in the college game at Cal.  Nor will we be able to keep recruiting awesome RB's like Vereen, Lynch, Forsett, etc. if they get punished in the backfield more often than not. 

I think that one of the recent problems is with discontinuity of our coaches, so while I would prefer to keep most of them on to give them time to implement their schemes, particularly Pendergast, I do think we need to make some changes.  And I would not be opposed to have Tedford take back the OC reins.

But as I was reading what others have posted about how Tedford has had his chance and it is time to move on, I starting to question why I felt so strongly about keeping him at Cal.  Bottom line, I think he is a perfect fit for my perception of how Cal football fits into the scheme of UC Berkeley.  In other words, I am satisfied with his level of success on the field with excellent kids that don't get into (much) trouble.  And I'm a bit afraid that a new head coach will not have equal or better success in all of those areas.  

So is it worth it to make a change?  I don't know.  The financial side of this puzzle is one that will not be getting better any time soon for the University, California, or the country, so it is probably unlikely that we could budget for a big-name coach to follow Tedford and pay him at scale.  So we would probably look to an up-and-comer at a mid-level football program - pretty much a roll of the dice.  But that might be a good gamble to some.

I'll root on the Bears no matter what, and I still hold out hope that we'll get to a Rose Bowl someday somehow.  GO BEARS!!!