There’s work to do, whoever’s coach
The news from Cal is that there is no news, as Jeff Tedford remained the head coach Sunday while he and athletic director Sandy Barbour met to discuss the sorry state of the program.
Following Saturday night’s 62-14 loss at Oregon State that ended Cal’s season at 3-9, Tedford said he did not know if he would return in 2013. Barbour said only that she planned to meet with the embattled coach Sunday, with no timetable for an announcement either way.
“Jeff and I will get together tomorrow (Sunday) to see what the solutions are,’’ Barbour said. “We’re going to start the conversation about how we get better. We’ll go from there. … It’s a football-program analysis — how do we get better?
“Football is really important to Cal. There are a whole myriad of things that are impacted by that.’’
Such as continuing to sell club seats as part of the Endowment Seating Program that will help to pay for the $321 million refurbishment of Memorial Stadium, to name one of those myriad things.
As of Sept. 30, Cal reports that 1,858 club seats had been sold toward a goal of 2,902, representing $150 million, of which the university has collected $43 million as people make payments on their seating plans.
It’s a simple equation: The better the team performs, the more desirable those seats are. The converse is true as well.
“My job is to develop players,’’ Tedford said. “We have work to do. We’ll go back to work tomorrow (Sunday) and get ready to keep going. … It’s obvious we have work to do.’’
Tedford, 82-57 in 11 years in Berkeley, lately has very little to offer in support of his returning as Cal’s head coach other than a number of promising players returning next season.
His record in conference games the past three years is 9-18. He had losing records in two of the past three seasons, and 3-9 is the worst mark of his career. He absorbed epic defeats in the last two games of the season to Oregon (59-17) and Oregon State (62-14) in what are the biggest back-to-back defeats in the 118-year history of Cal football.
“Not very good,’’ is how he characterized the season. “It’s not something we’re used to.’’
Early in his tenure in Berkeley, Tedford campaigned for improved football facilities at Cal, saying it was essential in order to be competitive in the conference. He had his worst conference record this season at 2-7.
Tedford said he did not feel additional pressure to win now that he has the type of facilities he long had wanted.
“This was the first season … we’ve been in the new facilities,’’ he said. “Now that it’s there, you’re able to recruit to it. I don’t feel pressure because of the facilities. I always feel an obligation to make sure we perform.’’
After trailing Oregon State 35-7 at halftime, the Bears appeared to give up in the second half as the Beavers scored four more touchdowns. In particular, the will to stop an opposing ball carrier was completely lacking on touchdown runs of 47 and 17 yards by Oregon State’s Terron Ward, an Antioch native who attended De La Salle.
“We’ve got a lot of guys banged up,’’ Tedford said. “Oregon State was hitting on all cylinders. We had way too many turnovers. I really don’t believe it’s a lack of effort.’’