Justin Wilcox Says Cal Played ‘Very Poorly,’ Calls it ‘Unacceptable’

Cal coach Justin Wilcox’s press conference following Cal’s stunning 34-0 loss to San Diego State Saturday night was filled with words and phrases such as “very, very poor” and “unacceptable” and “you don’t get to just wipe it and forget it.”

Every part of the Bears’ performance – from being overpowered at the line of scrimmage to quarterback play to special-teams’ shortcomings to key penalties to the numerous execution errors – got a mention. And Wilcox never saw it coming after a good week of practice.

Here are a series of quotes from Wilcox after the Bears (3-1) suffered their first shutout loss in six years in a game in which they were two-touchdown favorites:

Wilcox on Cal’s focus for the game:

“If you don’t play this game with the utmost effort, detail it will disrespect you in two seconds. We got to give San Diego State a lot of credit, they played a fantastic game, so we give a lot of credit to those guys. Our level of detail, the fundamentals, I mean, the execution, just, was very, very poor, obviously.”

On whether Cal can just dismiss this showing and move on:

“You don’t get to just wipe it and forget it. You also can’t wallow in your own self-pity. The most important day of the year is going to be Monday, and what everybody looks like walking through that door.”

On Cal practices in the days leading up to the game:

“The practices, the intensity in practice, would never have led me to believe we would play like that. We weren’t perfect in practice . . . We practiced pretty well. That’s why, you know, we have to examine everything, starting with me. Obviously I did a poor job making sure we were ready to play, and then every coach, every player, anybody that anything to do with that game has to look at themselves in the mirror and figure out what they can do better so that never happens again. And again that takes nothing away from San Diego State, give those guys a lot of credit, but that was unacceptable on our part.”

On turning it around:

“There will be a lot of lessons to be learned for Jaron [Keawe Sagapolutlele] and lot of other guys, it’s not just Jaron. It’s the offensive line, the receivers, the pre-snap penalties, the special teams, defensively and tackling. So everybody’s got a lot to learn from this game.

On maintaining Cal’s confidence going forward:

“You don’t gift anyone confidence. You earn confidence through preparation and demonstrated performance. We have shown that we can play much better than that. It’s very disappointing that we didn’t put our best foot forward today. We were well aware of San Diego State coming off a bye, they’re a good football team, they have good players, but for whatever reasons, the individuals, the units and the team collectively did not play our best football tonight and that’s unacceptable.

“But to say, ‘Hey, it’s OK, forget about it,’ we’re not doing that. You don’t get to do that. It’s not part of the deal.”

On what San Diego State did defensively to cause problems:

“We jumped offsides. They beat us up front. We didn’t connect on some throws and some catches, we dropped some footballs. We got pushed out of the pocket sometimes. You name it.”

On how to begin to bounce back:

“You look at the video, that’ll tell the story . . . You got to take your medicine, man, you don’t get to just throw the tape away and forget it.”

On whether this was his worst loss at Cal:

“I don’t know how to rank losses. We played very poorly. You can’t turn the ball over. We gave penalties, drops, missed tackles, special teams. All losses are awful. I don’t know how to rank a loss. They’re all terrible. So, yeah, it sucks.”

On San Diego State controlling the line of scrimmage:

“Yeah, they won the line of scrimmage. They ran it better than we did. The whole game’s a concern. I mean, the way we played, the whole game’s a concern. Give them credit. They did a heck of a job, but there is a lot we need to improve upon. There are a lot of things of concern, one of them being the line of scrimmage.”

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