Without Changing His Stripes, Justin Wilcox Seeks Fix For Cal Football

The solution, he says, is neither to give players ice or create the `Misery Olympics' in practice

Justin Wilcox / Photo by Jeff Faraudo

The way coach Justin Wilcox sees it, as few as four plays have flipped the script of the Cal football season upside down. It’s not four specific plays as much as it is any of a number of moments in each of four games that could have gone the other way.

Make those plays and, without too much imagination, the Bears win ‘em all.

But the Bears have not made those plays and the result is losses by margins of 5, 1, 2 and 1 point, adding up to an 0-4 start in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

It’s Wilcox’s job to figure this out, and he is sacrificing everything, including rest, to find the answers.

“To be honest, after the game — Saturday night, Sunday — I hardly sleep at all,” he said.

The Bears’ most recent disappointment was a 24-23 home defeat to North Carolina State after Cal led 23-10 in the fourth quarter. They’ve all been the same; they’ve all been different.

Wilcox refuses to abandon his general approach to coaching the team, to alter his coaching personality. But he’s also not stupid. He gets it that there have to be changes. 

“So, spending a lot of time thinking about that: What are we emphasizing? How are we talking to the guys? How are we teaching the guys? Where is the disconnect from knowing what to do, then doing that in a critical moment?”

He ponders whether the problem relates to conditioning, confidence, scheme. And the coaches have made adjustments in practice, tweaks to the scheme, changes in personnel groupings on both sides of the line of scrimmage and fostered competition at certain positions.

Wilcox puts a priority on keeping the team’s energy high and as much as possible helping players avoid the burden of negativity. He understands it’s human nature to find comfort when things aren’t going well.

“Comfort right now would be distancing yourself from the team and maybe finding some safe harbor somewhere and listening to somebody,” he said.“Because, obviously, there’s plenty of negativity available. Just like if we had made four plays throughout the season there would be so much praise. Both those things can become toxic, if you allow them.”

So how to avoid that? It starts with communication, Wilcox said, and includes holding players accountable.

He dismisses the notion that making things fun in practice is a remedy. 

“And you give ‘em ice cream and you give ‘em sweatsuits,” he said of ideas he doesn’t believe address the issue. “What’s fun is winning. Winning is fun. We’re not here to beat ‘em down — nobody’s doing that. 

“We all have to look at ourselves and try to do better. We’re not in the Misery Olympics. We need to find ways to help them so they can play at their best when their best is needed. It’s a really fine line.”

The Bears will walk that line again Saturday at home against Oregon State. They hope the path leads to a victory. Then maybe some ice cream.