Let the Sonny era begin
(Written by kencraw)
We all got the news last night that Sonny Dykes, current head coach of Louisiana Tech, former OC of Arizona (when their offense was good), has been hired as the Cal head coach.
In a lot of ways this is not at all a surprise. He’s been high on the list for a long time and unlike the others who hadn’t telegraphed interest in Cal, Dykes had both said he was interested and was currently sitting on a not-all-that-lucrative existing contract.
My guess is that Barbour got him for “cheap”, i.e. less than $2M, with a number of performance bonuses built in. I’m also guessing she’s planning on spending the extra cash on a top-notch defensive coordinator of Dykes choosing (rumor is New Mexico State head coach DeWayne Walker) and then also to generally boost the quality/pay of the assitants.
What surprises me is how much negative commentary there is out there about this hire. It seems like a good one to me. Seems to me all he needs to get to the next level is to have a good defense, something hopefully we have the money to hire someone as a DC who will do well for us.
Plus, he has Pac-12 connections (for recruiting) from his time at Arizona.
I think this is a good hire.
December 6th, 2012 at 1:21 pm
I’m seeing a lot of positive commentary ! There will always be naysayers. With a strong DC, this should be a run of exciting times.
December 6th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Agreed. I suppose fans were just hoping for a “home-run” hire, and are still unsure how good Dykes can be. Don’t understand the full out negativity though.
December 6th, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Sonny Dykes was the best available & best fitting prospect. I think he’ll bring a lot to the program.
December 6th, 2012 at 6:52 pm
There is negative commentary about this in the blogosphere because people love to be negative, especially old- and not-so-old blues.
I’m excited to try something new! It’s not like the old way was working out very well for us over the past 50 years or so…
GO BEAR!
December 7th, 2012 at 11:39 am
While I’ve warmed a bit to Sonny, I think it’s totally understandable for Cal fans to be disappointed by the hire. Yes this guy is an offensive innovator of the highest caliber, but that is balanced by some glaring deficiencies on the defensive side of the ball, not to mention the apparent lack of discipline displayed by his LT teams in the form of penalties. And I’m not convinced by his press conference or resume that he’s a guy that will improve our graduation rates in any meaningful way. This all adds up to mediocrity.
Was he the best that Sandy could under the circumstances? Probably. And that’s a disheartening reality check: That despite our improvements as far as our facilities and our early successes under Tedford, this job is not as attractive as we built it up to be. Yes, Dykes could be another Snyder or Phase I Tedford, but we’re still a program that ultimately has to roll the dice and get lucky with a hire, rather than one that’s able to the truly best candidates due to our financial limitations, administrative ambivalence, and wider public perception.
On the encouraging side, this guy seems to be very upfront and self aware about his deficiencies, so he probably wouldn’t run interference with his DC. Further, because we probably got him cheap, combined with lessons (hopefully) learned from the Tosh fiasco, we could end up with a very good DC—at least that’s my hope.
Go Bears!
December 7th, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Who was available out there that you would have wanted. Petersen was the only one that I think most fans wanted. That didn’t happen and we may never find out why.
Bub you put no names out there. Did we really want an unproven assistant? I am sure he came in under $2m but with some very obtainable bonus’s. We do need to open up the purse strings for assistant coach’s as you usually get what you pay for.
The PAC12 is not the WAC and he better be a great recruiter otherwise we will be no better off than we were before,
December 9th, 2012 at 8:37 pm
Yes, would have preferred Petersen, not to mention Strong, Doeren, or MacIntyre-mainly someone whose teams have shown at least some balance on both sides of the football. Again, with the right DC (and, again, yes, looks like they are budgeting for a more competitive get) this may all work out wonderfully, but it’s still risky gamble IMO.