Cal Defensive Backs Coach Al Simmons Released
by Avinash Kunnath on Jan 4, 2011 9:53 AM PST
in California Golden Bears Football
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In a somewhat surprising move, California Golden Bears defensive backs coach Al Simmons has left to pursue other opportunities. C.J. Moncrease tweeted that his coach was fired, but in either case, the result is a vacancy in the defensive coaching position.
Simmons, who was strongly pursued by head coach Jeff Tedford, had a spectacular start at Cal, as Syd'Quan Thompson and Darian Hagan combined to shut down Pac-10 passing offenses, defending 96 passes (breaking up 72 and intercepting the other 24), tops in the country. However, after 2008, those figures dropped to 58 and 56 the next two years--still effective, but the interception totals dropped precipitously (only 20 combined picks those two years). It's possible defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast was displeased by the lack of turnovers forced by his defense (Cal only intercepted nine passes this year, 88th in the country).
In addition, the constant personnel shuffling--Marcus Ezeff starting despite missing practice time for classes, Chris Conte not finding his proper role until this season, Josh Hill struggling to find his role, Sean Cattouse regressing in his fundamentals despite having good individual talent, Bryant Nnbauife just struggling, Marc Anthony having trouble in run support--might have finally worn down Tedford. Finally, the fact that his pass defense played spectacular football but couldn't close the deal in crucial games, particularly against Arizona and at home versus Washington, while getting utterly routed against pro-style offenses like the Furd, USC and Oregon State must have been frustrating to deal with.
There is speculation that Ashley Ambrose (Colorado secondary coach) will take over the vacated spot, but CGB cannot confirm nor deny this information at this time. Once we know more, we'll inform you of the latest details. We wish Coach Simmons the best on his future endeavors.
Just a note: Avery Walls has already faxed in his LOI, and Tedford probably informed Walls that this decision was coming, so I very much doubt this will have any impact on his commitance to Cal.
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Losing Simmons as a recruiter hurts a bit, but if the reports about Ambrose are true then I’m happy. Ambrose has a lot of street cred as an NFL player, and he’s on his way up as a coach, having just recently been promoted from WR coach to secondary coach at the start of the 2010 season.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Ambrose
Drinking the Kool-Aid. Pumping the sunshine. Livin' the dream. Go Bears!
This from BI’s resident NorCal Buff fan…..who usually knows what is going on in Boulder most of the time…
Ambrose is a much better hire than Kiesau for you guys. Our starting corners were very good this year, and we were mostly killed by injuries in the secondary including a ton of nickel backs and a starting S. He got to learn under Greg Brown who has been awesome at developing DBs and he also showed signs of being a good recruiter (hampered by Hawkins’ lame duck status and overall suckitude). He was the one member of our staff who was not retained who I wish we had.
Ashley Ambrose officially DB coach
by Redonkulous Bear on Jan 4, 2011 12:44 PM PST reply actions 2 recs
We don’t have a “like” button so I rec’d instead!
Drinking the Kool-Aid. Pumping the sunshine. Livin' the dream. Go Bears!
by dballisloose on Jan 4, 2011 12:57 PM PST up reply actions
“I’m excited about the opportunity to work with Jeff Tedford and his staff,” said Ambrose. “He’s a proven coach with a winning program and a great staff that knows how to recruit and coach. I’m going to focus on discipline and doing everything I can to help our student-athletes graduate from school, experience success on the football field at Cal, and teach them what it takes to be able to have the opportunity to fulfill their dreams of playing at the next level.”
I like this…I hope he can be the coach that can keep the team from 42-0 first halves. No matter what, all fans want is their team to “show up” and play hard. If they’re not as good and lose, fine. But at least they gave it their all. Coming from a guy with a playing career like Ambrose, that’s got to be fairly effective.
"We lose to Stanford in many sports, but if you want to make a Cal team quit, bring a weapon."
--Coach Clark
The 42-0 half was a result of our passing game. I recall a lot of 3 and outs and we were down like 21-0 or something going into the half. And then we threw two interceptions and they scored twice within the 2 minute mark. I think I’m a TD short, maybe we were down 28-0 before that? Point being, we had no offense whatsoever and were putting our defense in REALLY bad position and THEN shot ourselves in the feet if we hadn’t done so already. I almost don’t want to put any blame on the defense although I know that they do have some fault in the matter.
Personally...
.. I thought we gave up too many big plays in the secondary. Part of it may have been due to the lack of depth and part of it may be due to the quality of other teams (eg. Barkley-Woods). It seemed like our dbacks were getting beat now and then. It wasn’t as bad as the other faults we had on our team (inconsistency on offense) and I think, as a whole, our defense played well.
Maybe it wasn’t a fire. Perhaps Simmons is moving on because Pendergast had such a great year that the position is locked in for him and Simmons doesn’t see upside staying at Cal? Maybe Pendergast/Simmons wasn’t working out? Anything in the rumor mill?
I think we gave up more big plays in the secondary this year because we played more man coverage and guys were getting beat. In previous years, we’ve played tons of zone forcing the offense to go underneath our coverage when passing. This limited huge ridiculous 40+ yard gains.
www.californiagoldenblogs.com
by HydroTech on Jan 4, 2011 1:24 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
on the flipside, I think we would have lost by a gazillion to Oregon with the underneath-forcing zone coverages. That loss and the Arizona/UDub games held the opponents to 16 or less points. I think if Clancy prepared for Nevada again, Cal would have a different outcome than that loss. So that leaves us with Stanfurd, USC, and Oregon St as bad defensive games. I didn’t feel like downfield passing was a problem against Stanfurd or Nevada. Luck and Kaeppernick moved the ball, sure, but those guys are also great QB’s who did a lot of damage with their legs. I missed the road games vs USC and Oregon St, but I imagine downfield passing was more of a problem with USC than Oregon St.
That’s a long way of saying, did our passing defense cost us that many games? Was it really this bad:
think we gave up more big plays in the secondary this year because we played more man coverage and guys were getting beat.
?
"We lose to Stanford in many sports, but if you want to make a Cal team quit, bring a weapon."
--Coach Clark
The only one I can really think of is the end of the Arizona game. In the Furd game the only long bomb I can remember Luck completing was right into double coverage that our guys managed to not break up somehow. So, like, one pass.
It’s a nice place for people to go watch your stupid [2010 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants].
Exactly. And that long bomb to Criner, who had a heckuva season, was with Hagan in one on one coverage. Hagan, if I recall, was in a good position to make a play, but Criner won that battle. It happens in football. Even with that, we held Arizona to only 10 points on the road.
I think this aggressive/man coverage football will only work that much better with some of these fantastic defensive recruits that are coming in. Sure we’ll get burnt on occasion, and on any given year we can run into a tough draw like Nevada.
If the offense was as good as the defense, this team would have been 9-3 at least, and perhaps even 10-2 with losses to Furd and USC.
"We lose to Stanford in many sports, but if you want to make a Cal team quit, bring a weapon."
--Coach Clark
I'm beginning to worry about our O-Line Coach (lack thereof)
We just waiting for the Raiders to fire Tom Cable or something? How likely is it that Coach M returns if Cable is gone?
The other day I said I was waiting for Cal to hire an assistant coach who’s either an up and comer and/or a damn good football coach at a successful school. Is Ambrose this guy? My vote is yes, but I’d like to hear the thoughts of CGBers.
"We lose to Stanford in many sports, but if you want to make a Cal team quit, bring a weapon."
--Coach Clark
I would love to agree, but we need to wait and see. I’m optimistically excited though
no cal bear? no care
by EchoOfSilence on Jan 4, 2011 3:35 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
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| Fresno St. | Sat 09/03 | W 36 - 21 |
@
Colorado
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Sat 09/10 | W 36 - 33 |
| Presbyterian | Sat 09/17 | W 63 - 12 |
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@
Washington
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Sat 09/24 | L 23 - 31 |
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@
Oregon
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Thu 10/06 | L 15 - 43 |
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USC
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Thu 10/13 | L 9 - 30 |
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Utah
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Sat 10/22 | W 34 - 10 |
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UCLA
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Sat 10/29 | L 14 - 31 |
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Washington St.
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Sat 11/05 | W 30 - 7 |
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Oregon St.
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Sat 11/12 | W 23 - 6 |
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Stanford
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Sat 11/19 | L 28 - 31 |
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Arizona St.
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Fri 11/25 | W 47 - 38 |
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Texas
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Wed 12/28 | L 10 - 21 |
