Golden Nuggets: "No. 1, We're Going to Play with Good, Sound Technique"

Yesterday Clancy Pendergast had the opportunity to answer some questions from the media for the first time since assuming the role as Cal's new defensive coordinator.

"You definitely have to preach it a lot, talking about creating turnovers, and I've always felt like, the more comfortable your players are, the faster they can play and the more aggressive they'll be.  That's when the turnover become a potential possibility.

"Our goal here will be to keep it very simple to where our guys can play extremely fast and have an opportunity to really make plays."
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Pendergast comes in with no preconceived notions and doesn't intend to simply implement all of the previous schemes.

"I've just really been looking at not so much what's been done in the past," said Pendergast, "but just identifying and evaluating the personnel that's on the team right now and what their strengths and weaknesses are from an ability standpoint and how we and our staff can best utilize their ablilities.
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"We're going to look at our guys and see how they fit," said Pendergast.  "We're going to be multiple with what we do so I don't want to be pigeonholed into having a certain philosophy or a certain style, just based on scheme.

"With the multiple personnel groups you have, you're going to want to have a little bit of both (3-4 and 4-3 defenses)," said Pendergast.  "Against a 2-back offense, you're geared towards a certain element of the 3-4 vs. the 3 wide receiver, one back sets, you'll have to have a little bit more of a 4-3 flavor and you have to be able to handle the adjustments. It really just depends on what you see from the offense."

"Any time you get an opportunity to be a coordinator again is appealing," said Pendergast, so that was obviously a factor in my decision (to come to Cal) "I had a good job that I liked, as well.  But I'm looking forward to this job, too."

One thing the Bears' new coordinator will also need to put on his to-do list is a wardrobe makeover, having spent his last six years coaching in red -a color strictly forbidden in the confines of Memorial Stadium. 

"That's what I've heard," said Pendergast, with a laugh. "I'll just stick with my Cal gear from the hotel to here."

After the jump we have more quotes from Pendergast, Tepper is the center of attention among doctors at the Combine, bball sets up the Pac-10-deciding matchup against ASU, and women's bball wins their 11th of the last 13 with a victory over Arizona.

Cal Football

• SFGate has more on Pendergast and how he'll run the Cal defense.  JO has plenty of quotes from Pendergast that didn't make the print edition of the story.
• During the constant medical evaluations at the Combine, Mike Tepper's story of recovering from a broken leg has become quite popular.  Tepper says he's told the story about 40 times already.