Cal opens ACC play for the first time this weekend, and it will begin against the defending conference champions on the road. A matchup against winless Florida State awaits the Bears this week, but head coach Justin Wilcox is not looking down on the Seminoles despite their disastrous start to the 2024 season.

Tuesday, he met with reporters to discuss the upcoming opponent, his thoughts after Cal's third win of the season, the goals for the week and more.

Here is a full transcript of everything Wilcox said ahead of this week's matchup against the Seminoles.

Tobias and Kyion will not play. Littlejohn, doubtful, and everybody else probable.

At some point this season.

Same.

Oh, we do. He was out early in the game.

I think it was better technique. It was not committing penalties. It was breaking a tackle. I think it was a combination of those things where we started being much more productive in the run game.

It was great to see The Jet (Jaivian Thomas) continue to develop. He's done some good things early on this season. Last year, kind of a spot player, but it was great to see him get out a little bit this past week. He had a big run, obviously, against Auburn as well. So, Jet is creating more and more confidence playing in there. We have confidence in him. There's a couple things he has to clean up in protection that showed up, we'll keep working with him on those things. And then, the rest of the room, we really want to continue to develop and see who else can be counted in clutch moments to get us some valuable yards. Kadarius got some more opportunities last game, which was good to see. We still have Cardwell and some other guys in there, Wiley, who we'd like to continue to develop. And then, obviously, we want to get Jaydn back and get him going. I mean, that's primary.

No, we always leave a day early. I think we may have touched on this before, but we leave a day early. Practice on Thursday morning, we're a morning practice outfit anyway, so we practice and we make it a race to see how fast we can get off the ground. So, locker room, busses, take off as fast as possible, get out there. And, our team really enjoys it. We get to spend a lot of time together. They have some time on the plane and on the Friday set aside for some school work. Once a while, there'll have to be a proctored quiz or an exam or something like that, but they do a great job with that. We spend all Friday together. We get some down time. We get some meeting time. They got some academic time. Obviously, we get our walk through. So you get your body clock ready, and our whole group seems to really enjoy it. We get to spend a lot of great time together.

Well, what's your standard? I think I also said that is just enough, good enough? And I would hope not. You want to hold yourself to a standard regardless of when you're playing, who you're playing, what the weather is, what the what the crowd's like, and that you have such high expectations for yourself that you're not concerned. Obviously the other team, sometimes they're gonna be really talented, sometimes a little less talented, but none of that should matter. And our expectations on how we operate, how we perform, should be the same, and we should raise that bar each and every week. What we don't want to be is the yo-yo or riding the roller coaster, where it's up and down. We have won games, but I'm talking about to win consistently and sustain winning, it's gotta be a culture throughout the program that there's an expectation on how we perform, and we gotta live up to that expectation each and every opportunity we get when we go on the field. And so it doesn't mean people aren't investing. It doesn't mean people aren't trying. There's a lot of want to, that's not an issue. We watch the tape or even during the game, it's not a matter of wanting to do well. It's a matter of being able to execute in the moment, do the little things right when it counts the most. I think that's everybody, so we got to continue to work on that. That's how learned behavior, and the good thing is, as you mentioned, we've won games, and we got to continue to raise the level of expectation so we can win more games more consistently.

Well, ton of excitement, and that's a great thing. We want to feed that, and the way we feed that is to keep getting better and keep practicing and identifying the things individually that we can all do a little bit better so we can perform at a higher level each and every time we step on the field. We were talking about this as a team today, it's not like there's one thing that the entire team's gotta do better. The individuals have to own their improvement. So maybe for some guys that's playing with a little better focus, maybe for some guys they gotta play with a little less angst and calm down just a little bit. Some guys, maybe it's a physical thing, it's a technique, or maybe it's eye control, It's individualized, and we gotta, as individuals, own that, and that way the whole group can play better. But the want to is there, the excitement is there. I love the the fans. The student body, came out in force, man, we love them. They were they showed up and showed up big. We just gotta learn. You know what we can do and what we can do so we don't get penalties at our own home stadium.

No, we try to bring great urgency and intensity each and every week. We have, obviously, a ton of respect for Florida State. All you gotta do is turn the video on. I'm sure we'll get to them, but no. We want to bring intensity and urgency each and every time we get out there, because if we don't do that, then we're doing ourselves and the team a disservice. There's only so many chances you get to do this, and thankfully our team recognizes that, and they do a really good job each and every week coming out there with some urgency.

I think they're a very, very talented football team. The games haven't gone their way for one reason or another. We recognize how slim the margins are in playing great football and not great football, and they're a very gifted team. They got really good coaches, and they're a prideful outfit. So, we know what's in store and we'll have to play our best game, and our guys are expecting that. And so what's most important is we have a really good week of practice, because all you have to do is, and I understand, records are the records, but if you sit down in our offices and turn the tape on, you see what you see, and you trust that, and our players do the same thing. So we know how gifted they are and how good of coaches and scheme they got. So we're going to need to go play great football on Saturday.

Well, it would mean we went out and played our best game of the season thus far, and had an opportunity to go 4-0. So, as I mentioned, there's only so many chances you get. It's going to be a great venue, we've never been down there before, again in a different place with some great players and coaches. So it's an unbelievably exciting opportunity.

DJ is a really talented guy. I remember him in high school, even in early years of high school. He's a big, physical guy. He can throw the ball all over the place. He's played a lot of football, and we played him last year. He played an excellent game against us last year, and so we got a ton of respect for him. He can throw it. He's really hard to tackle, because he's so big. So we got a lot of respect for DJ.

I mean, other than that you've seen him and you're aware of his abilities, I guess so. Anytime you've seen somebody once, you kind of have a little bit more of a feel for them. But it's a different system. This is kind of the world we live in now. This is going to happen multiple times throughout the year, where we've played somebody in a different uniform a year ago, but again, he's a talented guy in a good system, and we got a ton of respect for him.

If you would have told me that at that moment when things were up in the air, I would have been just like I am now, high fiving. What a great experience, what an opportunity. It's great being in the ACC and playing some of these teams that we haven't played in either a long time or ever before. So, what an opportunity. Where all this ends up in two, three, five, seven years, I don't know that any of us know. But this year, we got an opportunity to go down there and play against a great team with proud tradition, and we're going to do everything in our power to make the most of it.

Oh geez, I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball. I know that college football and college athletics is in a time of change, and it's going to keep changing. And, how that ends up, I really don't know. I know it all sounds like coach speak, but there's really no other way to approach this than we're in it right now. We're playing Florida State this week, and beyond that if there comes a time where our administration and chancellor, if they have questions for me about things that could come up, I'll give my opinion. But, I don't even spend any mental energy on it right now, because you just have zero control over any of that. I'm sure it's exciting to think and talk about, but there's just so many scenarios. So if you get it all figured out, or you do have that crystal ball, shoot us an email. We're glad to be in the ACC, it's an awesome opportunity, and like I said, we want to make the most of it.

We believe in Ryan. We saw the same thing that you saw. We saw it in spring and then again in fall camp. We just gotta get him into a rhythm, because he does have the talent and the leg to do it. So we gotta get him into a rhythm, and we believe in him. Yeah, that's it.

I'm glad you brought him up, because you're right. Those guys don't get a ton of exposure, and sometimes don't show up as much statistically, even if they're playing well. Aidan's doing a heck of a job. We are thrilled that Aidan's on our team. He, first of all, as a human being, as a person, as a worker, as a teammate, has been incredible. And then he's producing. He's a hard guy to move. He's big. He's got a big, thick lower half. He is tough to move, and he's been productive. Sometimes those guys that have that body type can just take up a block, but sometimes it's hard for them to be productive getting off a block. And so we're always looking for the guys that you want to see that production, that when the double team comes off, can they get back in their gap and actually make a tackle, as opposed to just holding the double team? And he's been able to do that. Now we got to continue to do it week in and week out. This week it's going to be against some elite-level talent, and so it'll be a great challenge for him. We're really pleased with Aidan as a player and and as I mentioned before, as a human being, as a member of our team.