Entering what certainly has the feel of a pivotal season for Cal head coach Justin Wilcox, the significant shakeup of his coaching staff continues.
ESPN's Pete Thamel reported Tuesday that Bears defensive coordinator Peter Sirmon is leaving to become the linebackers coach for the New Orleans Saints.
While staff turnover isn't necessarily surprising as Wilcox's Bears finished with a losing record (6-7, with a loss in the LA Bowl) for the fifth straight season. Wilcox has posted just two winning records in his eight seasons at the helm (7-6 in 2018 and 8-5 in 2019).
Sirmon is one of the more surprising departures, though, as he and Wilcox played together at Oregon in the late 1990s, were on staff together at Tennessee in 2010-11 and also at USC in 2014-15 (with Wilcox as the defensive coordinator and Sirmon coaching the linebackers) before reuniting at Cal in 2018, when Sirmon came aboard as associate head coach and inside linebackers coach before being elevated to co-defensive coordinator in 2019 and DC the next year.
Sirmon and Wilcox also had one of their better defenses this past season, finishing ranked 36th nationally in both total defense (337.5 yards per game) and scoring defense (22.3 points per game). Those were the lowest totals of Sirmon's four seasons as sole defensive coordinator (with the scoring mark tying the Bears' 2021 total).
Here's how the Bears finished defensively each of those years:
2020: 38th in total defense (367.0), 48th in scoring defense (26.5)
2021: 48th in total defense (366.3), T-32nd in scoring defense (22.3)
2022: 111th in total defense (429.1), 79th in scoring defense (27.8)
2023: 105th in total defense (414.1) T-114th in scoring defense (32.8)
2024: 36th in total defense (337.5), 36th in scoring defense (22.3)
Perhaps, the move shouldn't have been a total surprise as Cal just promoted Mike Bruno from defensive analyst to inside linebackers coach a few days ago, while the linebackers had been Sirmon's unit throughout his tenure.
All told, the Bears now have just four assistant coaches left from the 2024 staff -- tight ends coach Mike Saffell, defensive line coach Andrew Browning, outside linebackers coach Vic So'oto and defensive backs coach Terrence Brown.
Gone are fellow DBs coach Tre Watson (replaced by Allen Brown), offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Mike Bloesch (replaced by Bryan Harsin as OC and Famika Anae as OL coach), RBs coach Aristotle Thompson (replaced by Julian Griffin), wide receivers coach Burl Toler III (replaced by Kyle Cefalo) and now Sirmon.
Cal also brought in former Washington State head coach Nick Rolovich as a senior offensive assistant -- a title that seems to bely the significance of his role in the program.
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