Cal head coach Justin Wilcox took to his regularly scheduled Zoom session Tuesday morning with a different set of circumstances facing this week. In the wake of cancelations of Cal's planned games with Washington State and Arizona, the Bears' season is over. There's Early Signing Day planned for tomorrow, but otherwise, the Bears are preparing for their offseason plans going forward.

It all started with an abrupt ending to the season, a positive COVID-19 test and resulting contact tracing left the Bears without enough players on the defensive line in order to play.

"Waking up Saturday morning, we were alerted at 7 or so that a player wasn’t feeling well," Wilcox noted,"a player that tested negative twice the day before. They were going to run some tests again Saturday , those tests would come back in the late morning hour. We went about our morning routine, had our grab and go breakfast, and as we prepared to head to the stadium, the test came back positive, that’s when the contact tracing started. Ultimately I was informed of the people who would be contact traced, that happened just before we headed for the stadium, it put us in a position where we would not be able to play."

That player, unnamed as of now, is feeling better per Wilcox. In the wake of the cancelation, the Bears had time to kill before heading back to Berkeley. Many of the Bears had never seen snow, and they turned those last few hours into a pseudo-snow day.

"The initial shock of getting the news, everybody was disappointed and frustrated," Wilcox said, "One of the things that I love about the guys is that (they’ll say) ‘there’s not a lot we can do about that,’ a couple guys walked across the street to a department store there next to the UI (University of Idaho) in Moscow, got a couple sleds. There were a couple of snowball fights, there was a snowman built, a really premium level snowman built in the courtyard there. They made the most of it, and got them some good food to eat, then we went home."

In the aftermath of a 1-3 season, the Cal head coach knows the Bears could have and should have done better, especially considering a handful of routine plays that could have had the Bears sitting at 3-1 instead.

"Our record represents our performance," Wilcox said, "I’m still very optimistic about our team and what we’re capable of doing, but we all own the record."

Despite not rising to the expectations of the preseason, it's still a point of pride for Wilcox and company in how the players managed a season that was extraordinarily challenging.

:The way that the players have managed this season has garnered all of our respect. The way the guys have come out and practiced hard," Wilcox said, "realizing that things are out of our control, the way they’ve come into the stadium, having meetings outside, getting their grab and go food, not being in the locker room, not everybody gets to practice at the same time, for that hand that was dealt, they’ve done a really good job."

Now the focus goes to some of the seniors, who have the option to come back. Of the group, Cal offensive lineman Mike Saffell confirmed to Golden Bear Report that he'll be back for 2021 (finishing up a Data Science masters program) from the Haas School of Business. Wilcox expects they'll know from the group of seniors who will be back by early January.

"They’ve got some decisions that they’re making now, some of them have made their decisions, some have not, based on what their career holds for them," Wilcox said. "We’re helping them with that progress, giving them information to help make their decision, and they’ll decide from there. Early January would be probably most appropriate, a lot of it is going to become clear to them as they take some time and assess their situation."

There was one big question that Wilcox got, one that is going to be asked around the country to every coach in the aftermath of a season, is was it worth it?

"For any and all of us, yes it was," Wilcox said. "Certainly we want to protect people’s health, but if it was deemed healthy by people who would make that decision, then we want to compete, that’s what we do. The players want to play, they want to compete, they want to be a part of a team, they want that engagement as best as we could give it to them in a team like this."

Now there are two pieces to watch moving forward. The first is when Spring ball could start. With the season ending now and where the Bears want to be moving forward, spring ball would likely start in February.

"Ideally for us, we would be in favor of an early spring ball if we could practice with our entire team," Wilcox said, "Our offseason strength and conditioning program is incredibly important to us, we were limited significantly this past offseason, and we are really committed to giving our guys the best chance to physically develop. We are in favor of an early spring ball, that is on the books, but the situation that we have locally could change things."

Before that comes signing day tomorrow. Cal has 18 recruits committed, with one more 2020 greyshirt set to come in (Nate Rutchena), and Wilcox noted they could maybe add one or two more guys depending on how things break.

"Maybe one, maybe two," Wilcox said about potential numbers, "we feel pretty confident where the class is right now and how it adds to the roster, along with what could be coming in the winter."

It has been a challenging year, and while the Cal staff has seen most of the class play in person in some shape or form, how many have developed over the last year without being able to play the sport has made evaluation difficult.

"Really twofold this year," Wilcox said of the challenges, "the challenge of not seeing them in person, which we like to do, whether it’s in a game we go watch or they’re in our camp, it’s a really critical piece of the recruiting process. Unfortunately this year they didn’t play and we didn’t have them in camp, we felt really fortunate to have seen a lot of them a year ago, and I think everybody’s dealing with it, a lot of the high schools haven’t played, so you’re going off junior evals. We’re confident in the recruits that we’re signing given the information that we’ve gotten in the last year."

Wilcox will speak to media at 4:30 PM Wednesday after the Bears get all their LOIs in.