A new era in Cal football really has begun.
For months, the talk has been about how open new Cal coach Sonny Dykes is. How he’s committed to transparency. How he wants to instill a sense of community in the team. How he wants to revitalize academics.
My response?
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Well, I’m ready to make it official. I see it, and I believe it.
It starts with the fall practices that are currently under way. They’re unbelievably open. Not only is every single one of them scheduled to be open to the public, but the amount of access could not be greater. The media is allowed to take videos and photos during nearly all of practice, save for certain short periods when nothing is allowed to be filmed. In all, something like half an hour of every practice — each of which is two and a half hours long — is closed. The rest is all fair game.
That’s amazing. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the most open program in the Pac-12.
And even during that closed period, people are still allowed to be in the stands. We are still allowed to watch and write what we see.
I’ve been skeptical for months that Dykes’ rhetoric of openness and values was all talk. Call me a pessimist, but I think that wins on the field can mask any deficiencies in other areas. And I figured that Dykes knew that too — and that once the season came closer, wins would be the only thing that would matter to him, with all those other values he proclaimed in the fall taking a hit.
Boy, was I wrong.
I’m ready to drink the Kool-Aid. This open access thing is the real deal. The team really feels like a community. And the academics really do seem to be a priority.
And that openness isn’t even close to the only thing that makes this team a new era for Cal. Let’s just go down the list: new coach, new quarterback, new uniforms. Heck, the university even has a new chancellor. And the team is the second-youngest team out of 126 Division 1 FBS programs.
When you really think about it, there hasn’t been as much excitement surrounding the team since at least 2009, when Jahvid Best had Bear fans thinking the team could make a deep bowl run (spoiler alert — that team finished unranked).
But the excitement now is completely different. Cal fans don’t think the team can make a deep run next season or even the season after that. It’s possible — after all, Jeff Tedford took a 1-10 team and went 7-5 in his first year as coach — but it’s not likely.
The excitement now is based around long-term optimism.
The fact is, no one knows just how good or bad this team could be. With a new system on both sides of the ball and so many new players, this team could lose all but one game (sorry, Portland State). Or this could be the year Cal finally knocks off USC for the first time since 2003. No one knows.
This is the most up-in-the-air team in the entire Pac-12. There’s an expectation that teams like Oregon and Stanford will be good next year. There’s an expectation that teams like Washington State and Colorado will continue their mediocrity. But with Cal, it could go either way. No team has more question marks than the Bears do.
Combine all those on-the-field questions with the change in off-the-field culture, and there’s reason for excitement from fans. We don’t know which direction the ball is moving in yet, but we know for sure that it is moving. And for a program that’s felt like it’s been held stagnant for years, that’s a huge refresher.
Contact Riley McAtee at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @riley_mcatee