Posts Tagged ‘jeff tedford’

After 11 seasons and an 82-57 record as the head coach at Cal, Jeff Tedford was fired on Tuesday morning. The Golden Bears concluded their 2012 season with a 62-14 loss to Oregon State on Saturday, dropping their record to 3-9. With nearly a dozen years on the job, Tedford was the longest continuously-tenured head coach in the Pac-12 and leaves the program in undeniably better shape than he found it. 

Tedford, who inherited a team that went 1-10 the year before his arrival, led Cal to heights previously unseen, including two 10-win seasons, a share of the 2006 Pac-10 title and one top 10 finish. Tedford's tenure as a head coach and quarterback guru peaked in 2004, when junior college product-turned first round NFL draft pick Aaron Rodgers led the Bears to a 10-2 record, a No. 9 finish and within a hair of beating eventual national champion USC. 

After appearing in seven consecutive bowl games from 2003-09, this season marks the second time in three seasons that Cal will miss a bowl game. The Bears haven't finished a season ranked in the final AP top 25 since 2006. Tedford's position of expertise, quarterback, slipped noticeably this season as the Bears ranked 10th in the Pac-12 in passing yardage and passing efficiency. 

The firing comes just months after Cal AD Sandy Barbour gave Tedford a ringing endorsement. 

"Jeff Tedford is not on the hot seat. We want to win and we will win with Jeff Tedford...Anybody who wants to talk about Jeff Tedford being on the hot seat, I challenge them to go and look at his body of work, look at what he has done with facilities that would be poor high school facilities. Jeff Tedford has worked miracles at Cal. He's an icon as far as I'm concerned." 

The exact amount of Tedford's buyout is unknown, but Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury - News estimates it to be around $7 million. 

The Tedford era met an unceremonious end as Cal ended the 2012 season on a five-game losing streak in which the Bears were beaten by an average score of 42-14 and the newly-renovated Memorial Stadium sat mostly empty for a nationally televised Friday night game with Washington.

In the official statement delivered by the university, Barbour had this to say: "This was an extraordinarily difficult decision, one that required a thorough and thoughtful analysis of a complex set of factors," she said. "Ultimately, I believed that we needed a change in direction to get our program back on the right track."

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Below is a statement from Jeff Tedford:

“I want to thank the University of California for the opportunity to be a part of this great university and community. I am so grateful to all of the coaches, players and support staff for playing such a vital role in making Cal Football relevant while enjoying winning seasons nine of 11 years. All involved can feel a great sense of pride with their sacrifice, contributions and commitment that have made it possible to have the winningest tenure in Cal Football history. We all can be very proud of helping to build a renovated Memorial Stadium that will have a positive impact on many athletes, fans and staff members for years to come. I will never forget the most gratifying part of these last 11 years, and that has been the relationships with the players I have had the special opportunity to watch grow academically, physically, socially and spiritually. To watch this process and be a part of their growth and development has been a blessing. The Tedford family is blessed to have built so many great relationships and create memories that will last a lifetime. I am most proud that through the sacrifices we have made over the last 11 years, my wife and two sons are the foundation and joy of my life. We wish the university much success – Go Bears!”

Tedford is a good man. 

Jon Wilner, the respected writer from the San Jose Mercury-News, recently detailed the situation facing Cal head coach Jeff Tedford and the future of Cal athletics. In his 12th year as Cal's head coach, Tedford is 82-55, but a 21-13 loss to Washington on Friday dropped the Golden Bears to 3-7 this season, clinching an early hibernation for the Bears for the second time in three years. 

If a decision is indeed made to make a coaching change, Wilner thinks it would start with athletics director Sandy Barbour. Any change would likely start with her and run through UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. It is unclear exactly how the dynamics of their relationship works and how a final call would be made, but any movement likely begins and ends with those two. 

The economics of the situation are complicated like seemingly everything else in that state, Cal athletics is facing budget issues. To make a coaching change, unless Tedford was willing to accept a negotiated buyout, Cal would owe Tedford $6.9 million - the full salary of the remaining three years on his contract. That's just the start, considering the cost to run a search, hire a new coaching staff while also turning over the existing staff.

There is also another dollar figure to consider - $321 million. That's the price Cal paid to renovate Memorial Stadium. To finance the renovation, Cal is asking for 50-year seat license fees. Cal must put fans in seats to make its economics work and, if you watched the Golden Bears' game with Washington on Friday night, you saw that this will be a big hill to climb if things don't improve on the field. Any cost associated with changing the coaching staff must be weighed against the cost of tickets gone unsold.

As Wilner points out, it is possible that Barbour's voice in the process may be minimized due to the contract she approved for Tedford. Wilner wrote a detailed breakdown of Cal's economic conundrum in October. She also could be replacing the person that she referred to in late August as "an icon". Add all three factors together and it's not out of the question that Chancellor Birgeneau takes the decision-making process in another direction. 

The Tedford era began very strongly in Berkeley. He earned Pac-10 Coach of the Year honors in his debut season of 2002 and again in 2004. Tedford led the Golden Bears to 10-win season in 2004, when they famously pushed eventual national champion USC to the brink of an upset, and in 2006, when they shared the Pac-10 title and won the Holiday Bowl. Tedford's tenure peaked in October of the 2007 season, when a 5-0 start rocketed Cal to the No. 2 ranking in both major polls. However, the Bears went 2-6 to finish that season and are 34-35 since earning the No. 2 ranking. 

Another factor not weighing in Tedford's favor is Cal's performance in the NCAA's Graduation Success Rate. According to the figures Wilner provided, Cal's 2002-05 entering classes finished with a 48 percent success rate, the lowest figure in the Pac-12. 

Washington visits California tonight at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Here's what stands out to us gametime approaches. 

- Two-faced Huskies: Washington has been stout at home this season. The undefeated seasons of Stanford and Oregon State came to an end in Seattle. Add in wins over San Diego State and Portland State and the Huskies are 4-1 in their home kennel, with the lone setback coming 24-14 to USC. Going on the road, however, is a completely different story. Washington is 0-3 and has been outscored 145-38 away from home. The competition in the first three games (LSU, Oregon and Arizona) is tougher than what Steve Sarkisian's team will face tonight, but the Huskies haven't beaten anyone away from Seattle in 13 months. 

- In between a rock and a hard place: California enters tonight at 3-6, which means the Golden Bears must win out to avoid missing a bowl game for the second time in three seasons. Nevermind the fact that Jeff Tedford's next two games after tonight come against BCS No. 4 Oregon and BCS No. 11 Oregon State, the Bears will doom themselves to an extra-early hibernation (Cal's regular season ends on Nov. 17) without a win tonight. 

- When the Huskies throw: Washington has struggled to throw the ball this year, standing ahead of only Colorado in the Pac-12 and 109th in the country in passing efficiency. Washington passers throw for a conference-worst 5.73 yards per attempt with a total of eight touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Meanwhile, Cal's defense has picked off eight passes in their last four games.

- The Tosh Bowl: Tonight marks the first time Washington defensive line coach/defensive run game coordinator Tosh Lupoi returns to Berkeley after a dozen years in the Cal program as a player, graduate assistant and defensive line coach. Lupoi has his work cut out for him in retooling a unit that ranks last in the Pac-12 in sacks and tackles for loss.

- Turnovers tell the story: Washington has not lost a game in which it won the turnover battle. Conversely, the Huskies have not won a game in which they did not force more turnovers than their opponent. (LSU and Washington tied the turnover battle, 1-1). On the opposite sideline, USC's win over Cal stands alone as the only time a team that lost more turnovers than it gained managed to win the game in the Golden Bears' nine outings this season. In the 17 combined games of Cal and Washington's season, only one time has a team lose the turnover battle and win the game.