After another atrocious offensive performance, Muscrave and McClure were fired on Sunday. And the tone of people’s emotions seem to be best summed up as “finally”.

But I actually think this is just the tip of the spear of the problems at Cal. What’s going on with this sub-mediocre defense? How is that possible with a Wilcox coached team? Something deeper is at play than just “our offense sucks.” Ever since the pandemic started, the Bears haven’t had the passion and will to win that defined the early Wilcox era. Whatever is going wrong can’t be simplified to “we need a new offense.” It’s starting to feel more like what Jason Mendoza summed up in The Good Place: “All we need is a new offensive, a new defense and some rule changes.”

Sorry for the lack of writing recently. But I haven’t felt like complaining lately. It’s not reached the point for me where it would be cathartic. Nevertheless, here’s my analysis of the current state of affairs:

The wheels are coming off the bus. There’s no way to sugar coat it. Don’t be deluded about another game (USC) that if you look at it from just the right angle “the Bears made a game of it”.

No

They

DIDN’T!!!!!

You tell me a scenario where that game turns out the Bears way? That it was close was a sign of USC not putting the Bears away like they should have, like a mouse cat playing with a half-dead mouse.

The thing not enough people are talking about his how bad the defense is. Two teams in a row have put up over 40 points and it makes the 3rd team in a row (after UW woke up from their 1st half stupor) that could march down the field at will.

That the offense is showing *minor* signs of life is of little comfort when the backbone of the team (the defense) is remarkably quickly collapsing.

I firmly believe the only possible win left is the Big Game. It’s starting to feel like 1999 again.