Cal Football: Justin Wilcox's Post-Thanksgiving Menu Heavy With Recruiting

Wilcox is hiring two new assistants while trying to solidify and add to his roster.

Recruiting is a 24/7 job right now for Cal coach Justin Wilcox.

It starts at home, “recruiting” his own top players, making sure none of them are inclined to enter the heavy traffic of the transfer portal. 

The Bears, who finished a third straight losing season with a 4-8 record, cannot afford to lose the likes of running back Jaydn Ott, Jeremiah Hawkins or J.Michael Sturdivant.

Next he will address those players who were seniors this season but can opt to stay one more year, courtesy of the Covid exemption given to all athletes who participated during the 2020-21 academic year. In Cal’s case, that includes quarterback Jack Plummer and linebacker Jackson Sirmon, among many others.

Wilcox needs to add to his roster, both through traditional recruiting of high school prospects but, more than ever, by securing experienced players through the transfer portal. He has promised the Bears will be aggressive in their efforts to maximize benefits of the portal.

And, of course, he is in the process of identifying and hiring a new offensive coordinator and offensive line coach. Expect this bit of recruiting to be completed by sometime next week, possibly sooner.

There are a lot of moving parts right now with the Bears, who have missed out on playing in a bowl game for the third straight season.

Retaining and adding talent — both among players and staff — will be critical for the Bears, who closed their season Saturday with a 35-28 loss to UCLA.

“We all just need to expect more from ourselves. Coaches, players, program. Everybody. And be just a little bit better in everything that we do,” Wilcox said afterward.

“We have adjustments we have to make as a football team and I think everybody can improve and be better. I love the guys on the team — they give us great effort. We have to play a little bit better more often.”

Over the past two seasons, the Bears have lost five times by margins of 15 points or more. They also were beaten 10 times in games decided by 7 points or fewer.

Imagine if the Bears could have flipped those 10 one-score outcomes. Suddenly, records of 5-7 and 4-8 the past two years become 10-2 and 9-3.

Of course, that isn’t realistic because no one wins all the close ones. But the point is clear: Cal doesn’t have to make a huge leap to become substantially better.

Pac-12 Network analyst Yogi Roth believes in the Bears, despite the fact they under-achieved based on his expectations for this season.

“I thought they were going to be right around 8-4,” Roth told me last week. “I thought this was a really special year of them.”

The chronic shortcomings of the offense were at the root of most of Cal’s problems. While five Pac-12 teams rank among the 10 highest-scoring offenses in the country, the Bears check in at 95th, failing for the fifth straight season to even score 24 points a game.

That’s where the new OC comes in, and Roth believes Wilcox is positioned to make a killing with this hire.

“They’re going to hire somebody who’s going to make legit noise in this league,” Roth said. “I think it’s going to be a really exciting brand of ball.”

That was not the case under Bill Musgrave, whose career was largely spent coaching in the NFL. Roth said Musgrave’s offense is from another era.

“You’ve got to score four touchdowns in a game to really have a chance to make noise. They haven’t been able to do it,” said Roth, who played wide receiver at Pitt two decades ago. “College football’s changed and they run an offense I grew up in. Nothing seemed to come easy.”

The new guy will need a personnel upgrade, certainly on the O-line, which allowed quarterback Jack Plummer to be sacked 31 times this season (although not by UCLA in the finale). Whether Plummer sticks around may be impacted by who is handed the keys to the offense.

Either way, Wilcox talked last week about being more aggressive in pursuing talent in the transfer portal.

“We don’t want to become a portal-only recruiting outfit,” Wilcox said. “But I do think it’s something we need to to try to take advantage of and we think we have a lot to offer a guy that’s coming out of the portal.”

Cal's traditional recruiting this fall has not gone well. The Bears have just seven commitments, having lost several who flipped to other schools, and their class is rated 11th among Pac-12 schools (ahead of only Colorado) and 100th nationally by Rivals.com.

Six Pac-12 teams — including USC, Oregon and Washington — found their starting quarterbacks this season via transfer, a trend Roth refers to as “portal-palooza.”

He believes Cal will do a good job retaining players and adding talent. “I think you might be surprised by the transfers they bring in.”

Cal’s defense, which has been mostly elite under Wilcox, slipped some this season, ranking seventh in the Pac-12 in points allowed at 27.8 per game. Injuries on the line and in the secondary impacted that, but Roth believes the Bears’ defense is better than its numbers.

“When I talk to other coaches, a lot of them say Cal is the most well-coached defense in the league or in the conversation for it,” Roth said. “If you’re not scoring, it impacts so much of the game.”

Wilcox said this a year ago, but he reiterated that he is confident the Bears can be a very good team.

“College football is changing. We have to change and adjust with it,” he said. “But we can still stay true to Cal and who we want to be in doing so.”

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Cal statistical milestones

Here are some season-ending statistical notes on the Bears:

— Senior quarterback Jack Plummer passed for 3,095 yards, sixth-most all-time at Cal (behind three seasons by Jared Goff and one each by Davis Webb and Pat Barnes). His 21 touchdown passes this season are tied for eighth-most in Cal history.

— Senior Jamieson Sheahan averaged 45.3 yards per punt this season on 64 punts for 2897 yards (45.265 yds) this year, third-best in program history. He had 20 kicks of at least 50 year and 20 that were downed inside the 20-yard line. His final career average of 43.6 yards is also third on the al-time list.

— Junior Jeremiah Hunter (60 catches, 965 yards, 5 touchdowns) and redshirt freshman J.Michael Sturdivant (65 catches, 755 yards, 7 TDs) became the first Cal tandem to each make 60-plus receptions in the same season since 2013, when Bryce Treggs had 77 and Chris Harper 70.

— Running back Jaydn Ott set Cal freshman records for most rushing yards (897) and all-purpose yards (1,218). He also totaled 11 touchdowns rushing and receiving, most ever by a Cal freshman. Ott ranks fourth in the Pac-12 in all-purpose yards (101.5 per game).

— Sophomore linebacker Oluwafemi Oladejo’s 17 tackles against UCLA on Saturday were the most by a Cal player since Evan Weaver had 22 at Utah in 2019.

— Redshirt senior safety Daniel Scott finished his career having played 49 games and totaling 207 tackles. He had 85 tackles this season.

Cover photo of Justin Wilcox by John Hefti, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo