On Sunday morning, news came out that Marques Tuiasosopo would be leaving his post as Cal's tight end coach to take the offensive coordinator job at Rice. Tuiasosopo had a noted interest in wanting to call plays, and with a former Pac-12 coach (Stanford's Mike Bloomgren) at the Texas school, there was a fit.

Now, Justin Wilcox has to deal with what he has called 'a good problem to have,' in other teams wanting to take guys for promotions. He'll have a spot to fill, with multiple ways to do it, but this does continue a trend of Cal assistants being bumped up under Wilcox.

Over the first four years of Wilcox's tenure, eight coaches have left the Bears' staff. The next jobs are as follows:

Promotions (either to a higher title or higher level of football) - 5

Jerry Azzinaro - Cal's defensive line coach in 2017 got the title of defensive coordinator at UCLA in addition to DL responsibilities, and he's held the DC title ever since

Gerald Alexander - Cal's defensive backs coach from 2017 to 2019 took the Miami Dolphins secondary coach job in January of 2020, and turned the Dolphins secondary into one of the top groups in the NFL.

Beau Baldwin - Baldwin was Cal's offensive coordinator from 2017-19, and took the job at Cal Poly in December of 2019. Admittedly, Baldwin was a successful head coach at Eastern Washington prior to his time at Cal, so this may not be as big of a bump up as some of the other names on this list.

Nick Edwards - Edwards went with Baldwin to Cal Poly, after serving as Cal's wide receivers coach from 2017-18 and running backs coach in 2019, and is coaching wide receivers while serving as the offensive coordinator in San Luis Obispo. Cal Poly plays their first game under Baldwin and Edwards February 27th against UC Davis.

Marques Tuiasosopo - Tuiasosopo coached both QBs and TEs for Cal over the last four seasons, and will be heading to Rice as the offensive coordinator.

Parallel Moves - 2

Tony Tuioti - Tuioti took the OLB job on Wilcox's initial staff, got moved to coaching defensive line in 2018, then took the DL job at Nebraska in 2019 (with a rise in pay)

Tim DeRuyter - This one is debatable, as DeRuyter went from a co-DC title in 2020 to a DC title at Oregon in 2021, after serving as Cal's DC from 2017 to 2019

Retirement - 1

Steve Greatwood - Cal's OL coach from 2017-19, Greatwood has retired to grill, fish, and enjoy the wilderness back home in Oregon.

This is the kind of program Wilcox has set out to have, a program that develops people. That usually refers to the players, but it's an important piece with the coaches as well. New outside linebackers coach Keith Heyward noted that the growth potential from taking the position was why he decided to make the move down to Berkeley from Oregon.

Now comes the next part, hiring a replacement for Tuiasosopo. There's a handful of avenues Cal can go down in replacing him, with targeting another TE coach or moving Charlie Ragle back to working with tight ends (a position he worked with originally at Cal in addition to his ST duties) and hiring another coach to work elsewhere on the team. The second scenario seems less likely to happen at the moment.

As far as names, that's something to look for in the coming days, but Wilcox tends to go in a variety of ways with making hires:

Coaches he has worked with:

Marcel Yates, Keith Heyward, Peter Sirmon and Aristotle Thompson were on the same staff as Wilcox various stops, while Wilcox played with Sirmon at Oregon

Coaches who have played on teams he coached:

Burl Toler and Andrew Browning were both on Cal and Boise State teams Wilcox coached, though not with his specific position group

Coaches with a personal tie:

Bill Musgrave had known the Wilcox family since he played at Oregon, leading to the connection between the two.

Coaches with a tie to Northern California:

Angus McClure, a native of San Rafael, was someone who had crossed paths with Wilcox at previous stops and had strong ties to the Bay Area

Coaches with Pac-12/West Coast experience or a tie to Dirk Koetter

Charlie Ragle had been at Arizona prior to coming to Cal, as Ragle and Wilcox had a degree of separation in their coaching careers (with Dirk Koetter being a common link between the two).

With spring ball looming, expect a hire to be made soon.