On Justin Wilcox: Staying In Berkeley and Keeping to the Plan

Cal still has their coach.

With the move of Willie Taggart to Florida State from Oregon, speculation immediately started around Cal head coach Justin Wilcox. Why not? Wilcox grew up just north of Eugene, played for the Ducks, his father and brother both played for the Ducks, and is respected in the coaching community for what he's done at Cal so far.

But he's not done in Berkeley. That was something made more apparent this morning. Interim head coach Mario Cristobal had the interim tag taken off, a good move for the Ducks as they try to keep a top 10 recruiting class together, but even better news came for Cal fans, from Sports Illustrated's Bruce Feldman and Cal alum/NFL Network Host Mike Silver.

Wilcox was called by Oregon's search firm, and turned down an interview before the process started heating up, as sources have confirmed. He has unfinished business at Cal, a place that gave him his first position coaching job back in 2003, then his first head coaching job this past year. He was far from a lock for the Oregon job had he decided to interview, but declining to even interview shows the kind of integrity and dedication to a plan that Wilcox has.

In my dealings with Wilcox this year, he's had a plan for everything. A plan to hire assistants with a careful eye for how they would fit together. A plan to fix the tackling, which paid dividends early. A plan for how the defense would transition from a 4-3 to a 3-4 effectively.

Even in recruiting he has a plan, and that's to recruit size and length up front to build a base, something they've done particularly well in the current class, as they're sitting in the top 25 in recruiting by Rivals team rankings at the moment. Wilcox has been the guy to extend the offer to the vast majority of the class for the most part, with many recruits noting that he talked to them for a good 15-20 minutes before extending the offer, mostly talking about their aspirations and likes outside of football. These are his guys, they know it, and staying in Berkeley reinforces that.

The plan requires Wilcox to stay in Berkeley, and he did it in a way that sends the best message to his players, to his recruits, and to the fanbase. 'Finish what you start,' is a common ethos in football, and with a coach that's bought in, it's that much easier to get players to buy in, to get fans to buy in, and to get recruits to buy in.

It's likely that Wilcox gets an extension from Cal in the very near future, to bolster the assistant salary pool with a modest bump for himself, but this wasn't a situation of leverage through agents, like it has been in the past. Most of what Wilcox has done has run counter to what Sonny Dykes did in Berkeley. Sending a clear signal that he's here to stay might be the biggest example yet.

There's still a ways to go. Cal won five games this year, and they have to continue to grow on both sides of the ball. The Bears return 17 starters in 2018, which should make that growth possible. You still have to have a great product to bring in recruits, fans, and donors, but it's looking more and more like Cal has the right guy to lead the ship in that direction.