Cal’s Justin Wilcox Responds to Why He Turned Down Oregon Offer

Bears head coach says he has four years left on his current Cal contract

Cal coach Justin Wilcox provided few details on why he turned down an offer to be Oregon's head coach when asked about it Wednesday. Instead he diverted the conversation to the opportunities available to him at Cal.

"If we continue along this path, we can do some great things here," he said, "and things that haven't been done before."

That alludes to a possible berth to the Rose Bowl, because Cal has not played in the Rose Bowl game since the 1958 season.

It's not surprising that Wilcox was unwilling to get into the specifics about his choice to stay at Cal, although it remains intriguing that he turned down a Friday offer to be the Ducks head coach and another last-ditch offer the next morning to be Oregon's head coach.

Wilcox simply said he enjoys being at Cal, and talked about the opportunities with the Golden Bears.

"We feel like we have unfinished business here," he said Wednesday, "We are very optimistic about our future. Obviously the past season we had five games where one play could have made a huge difference. If we can find those margins in our offseason and how we coach and how we play, we feel like we can do some special things here."

Wilcox reportedly is engaged in discussions about a contract extension at Cal. He said he has four years remaining on his current Cal contract, which would take him through the 2025 season. That's two years more than was previously believed to be the case. And he hopes to continue to get the support from Cal that he has experienced so far.

He believes that could take Cal to the elite position that Oregon occupies now.

"They're the reigning Pac-12 North champions and that's where we want to get to," he said. "If we continue with increased support, which we've gotten from [athletic director] Jim Knowlton and our chancellor [Carol Christ], if we continue along this path, we can do some great things here and things that haven't been done before."

Wilcox has a lot on his plate at the moment. Besides finishing off Cal's 2022 recruiting class, which included 11 signed players as of Wednesday evening, he is trying to attract a quality quarterback through the transfer portal to replace Chase Garbers, who this week declared for the NFL draft.

Somewhere on that to-do list is finding a replacement for special-teams coach Charlie Ragle, who accepted an offer to become Idaho State's head coach. Ragle was the last remaining member of Wilcox's original coaching staff at Cal.

Wilcox said he is not sure whether he will hire a new special-teams coordinator or shift responsibilities, adding the special-teams coaching chores to a member of the current staff and hiring another defensive assistant.

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Cover photo of Justin Wilcox by Stan Szeto, USA TODAY Sports

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