The status of Cal's Saturday night trip to Tempe is still up in the air, due to a whole position group (Cal's defensive line) being in quarantine. There's a chance to play, so the Bears have carried on their regular practice schedule, albeit a bit altered due to their positional issues.
Wilcox is not involved in the conversations with the Berkeley department of Public Health and University/Athletic Department administrators, but they're looking to get more clarity on whether they can get some members of the team out of the quarantine process.
"They told me there's a chance we play," Wilcox said, "I don't know why they've made the decisions they've made, we're trying to get clarity on that. These are not discussions I'm involved in, but if they tell us there's a chance to play, we're going to continue to practice. The only way to look at it is to be optimistic. Until they tell us otherwise, that's what we're doing."
Per Wilcox, there should be an answer on whether the Bears can make their season debut against Arizona State by tomorrow.
"I was told by the university and our athletic administration that we would know something Wednesday," Wilcox noted.
The Cal head coach noted that he isn't involved in the meetings between the athletic department and the city's public health department, but that they're willing to do whatever it takes in order to play.
"The football program will do anything," Wilcox said, "whether it's practice protocol, meeting protocol, whatever we need to do in order to play. The decisions will remain with the athletic administration and the university. We recognize the significance of the virus, this is not us minimizing the risk of the virus, we want to be better so these things don't happen. We don't want to spread it to the community, we want to be good neighbors, we're looking for some feedback on how to do it better. There are guys in quarantine who are not sure why they're in quarantine, we're trying to get them some answers on that. Whatever we can do to help mitigate the spread of the virus, we're all for it."
Other Notes from Wilcox
The players in quarantine, which Wilcox referred to as a 'position group and more' have the ability to condition during their quarantine, but they'll have to work around any conditioning issues depending on who they get back.
"They have an opportunity once a day to do some conditioning work in a supervised manner with nobody around," Wilcox said. "Their conditioning would be taken into account (with any return), the more practices the better."
As for Arizona State, the Cal staff had the time to watch their week two opponents Saturday in their season-opening loss to USC.
On the offense:
"Really impressive group starting with the quarterback, who we know really well. He is a threat throwing the ball, he's a threat running the ball. They've got a good offensive line, and they ran really well last week. They've got some more variations in their offense, shifts and motions, different personnel groupings, they're hard to defend in that way. The tight ends and receivers block downfield, which you see on the tape, they always seem to have some good running backs, and it's no different this year."
On the defense:
"Defensively, they're a really well coached unit, they give you some different looks and some different pressures. I think on paper, you see what they had coming back, they're every bit as good, if not better than what people thought."
