Cal getting ready to face old foe with same old excuses

November 26, 1:16 PMCal Bears ExaminerRob Calonge

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(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

A week from this Saturday, the California Golden Bears will be finishing their regular season at home against the worst team in Div I football, otherwise known as the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision).

(Note to regular readers: Now you know why I still call it Div I.)

Anyhow, the Washington Huskies will come to town and along with them will be the future ex-coach of the Huskies, Tyrone Willingham.

One thing Willingham has always been able to do is lead teams to beating Cal.  He proved that last year when the Huskies crushed the Bears 37-23 up in Seattle last year.  Except he hasn't been all that consistent in doing so.

When he was the head coach at Stanford, he went 0-1 against then Cal head coach, Keith Gilbertson (20-26 overall Cal record), 1-0 against Steve Mariucci (6-6), and 2-3 when facing Tom Holmoe (12-43).  Wait a minute!  One-fourth of Holmoe's wins came at the hands of the great Tyrone Willingham?!?  How could that be?  Willingham is supposed to be this super-duper coach that was given a raw deal by the racists at Notre Dame!  He's the example that ESPN normally holds up to tell us how remarkably racist the NCAA is for not hiring black men in the role as head football coaches?

Whether there should be more head coaches of color leading Div I football teams is not the issue, and definitely not an issue that I'm going to talk about in this space today.  The point that I'm trying to make is that for one of the most recognizable football coaches on the planet, (arguably more recognizable than coach Tedford), he isn't very good.

Consider his record.  Nobody is going to dispute the wonderful job that he did while head coach at Stanford.  His 44-36-1 record (.549 winning percentage) for the Cardinal from 1995 to 2001 ranks as the best record by a Stanford head coach since Bill Walsh's first stint in 1977-78.  From there, his career goes downhill.  Was it the adulation or the adornement that was bestowed upon him that caused his coaching abilities to erode?  Hard to tell, but if you look at what he's done since, it may lead you to think that way.

In 2002, He took over Notre Dame, who had just come off of five years of Bob Davie and the embarrassement of hiring George O'Leary, who had lied on his application.  O'Leary never coached a game, but Davie compiled a 35-25 record for a .583 winning percentage.  Willingham was let go after three seasons, and outlets such as ESPN make sure to let us all know that it was an injustice due to his race, but was it?  While at Notre Dame, Willingham went 21-15 with mostly Bob Davie players which is a .568 winning percentage.  Interesting...that's a little more than a percentage point less than Davie.  By the way, the talk of firing Willingham's replacement, Charlie Weiss, has already begun and his winning percentage is .583 (28-20), just like Davie's.

On to his current job at Washington.  First, it's important to note that Willingham came into a school that wasn't doing very good with former Cal Bears coach, Keith Gilbertson, at the helm.  Prior to Gilbertson, the Huskies were pretty good.  They would be on the level of what Cal or Oregon is today.  UCLA head coach Rick Neuheisal coached the Huskies from 1999-2002 and amassed a record of 35-16 (.686 winning percentage).  When Neuheisal was fired for a petty office pool violation, Gilbertson took over the steady decline of the program going 7-16 (.304 win percentage) during his stay as head coach.  Willingham, prior to coming to Berkeley for another loss, has a record of 11-36, or a .234 winning percentage.

So what does Willingham have to say about this record?

Obviously, if you're the head coach at this time, you take responsibility for what is going on -- but, it should also be noted, the day that I arrived, what the state of the program was.

* Mental note - Um...it was better.

That's a problem that I have with Willingham and the Tyrone-apologists.  He was good at Stanford.  No, scratch that, he was great at Stanford, the best the school has seen in 30 years, but he's made the past two programs that he's coached at worse.  He's turned into the Dennis Erickson of college football, still getting jobs from the job he did years ago somewhere else.

Here's another poignant quote from a man that's obviously filled with delusions of grandeur, when asked about his time as Husky head coach:

Only time tells that. That's the only thing you measure by is time. Hopefully there are some things in place that in time will show themselves better than written.

I'm sure that Bears Backers hope that what's already written will continue to show in the future up north.  Washington is a school with great facilities and the ability to be a powerhouse in the Pac-10, but it's been so long that people have forgotten how great the football program once was.

Getting back to Willingham.  His inability to be accountable for such a sorry excuse of a job up in Washington is disheartening.  While I haven't been his greatest fan, I always thought that he carried himself with poise and dignity.  Unfortunately, his taking shots at a school and a program that has paid him well for little in return is not carrying himself at a standard befitting of the sort of respect I once had for him.

Can he salvage his career?  Sure!  This is America, for God's sakes!  We are the land of the free, home of the brave, and the everlasting well of second chances...err, uh, even if you're already on your fourth.  There's an instution at the Football Bowl Subdivision level that has probably bought into the ESPN hype, and thinks that Willingham was probably just not given a fair opportunity because of the color of his skin.

There's probably more than a few institutions that would love to give Willingham a chance to rekindle the magic he made in Palo Alto and figure that they couldn't do worse than what they already have.  Willingham probably isn't the worst coach in Div I, right?  He can't be, with all that name recognition.

Speaking of which, there's bound to be quite a bit more publicity for a school that decides to hire him and who wouldn't want that?  Besides Washington, Notre Dame, and Stanford of course.

Let me leave on a quote from Willingham when asked why he continues to reference the Huskies program prior to his arrival:

Is it not a fact?

Sure Tyrone, it's a fact.