Golden Nuggets: Bye Week (Old) Blues

Football

• Nam’s weekly novel is about the trajectory of Justin Wilcox’s tenure.

There comes a time in every single coach’s tenure where the fans begin to tip from one side to the other, regardless of how successful. But I suppose you should first hear it in Bum Phillips’ natural cadence, rather than mine: “There’s two kinds of coaches, them that’s fired and them that’s gonna be fired.”

I don’t believe Coach Wilcox is in headed to the first group yet – nor should he be, for some of the reasons outlined above -- but those are only my beliefs alone as your columnist. I’d be willfully ignorant if I didn’t also acknowledge that between the last two weeks, and the general trajectory to his track record so far, there are those who have seen enough to begin fleeing, many of whom read this very column and frequent our boards.

As a result, these next two months feel particularly pivotal in Wilcox’s future, who will need to stem some rising discontentment in the fanbase one way or another, especially now that it is overwhelmingly possible that these Bears could miss a bowl game in year 3, and it’s not like Saturday gave any more confidence that December football is a sure thing. Worse still, they could also conceivably lose out, sliding into the offseason at 4-8, rudderless even before facing down the reality of rebuilding the offense again.

• Emily Ohman writes about the difficulties of getting to six wins now.
• Lorenzo J. Reyna breaks down all the causes of Cal’s offensive woes.

Men’s Basketball

• A quick rundown of the new Men’s Basketball team with their exhibition game happening tonight at Haas.
• A new look Bears with a new coach are ready to make their debut.