Cal Sports Report

Jeff Tedford Visits Cal Practice; Justin Wilcox Owes His Cal Job to Him

Former Cal coach, who brought Bears to national prominence, spoke to current players Monday
Jake Curtis|
Jeff Tedford Visits Cal Practice; Justin Wilcox Owes His Cal Job to Him
Jeff Tedford Visits Cal Practice; Justin Wilcox Owes His Cal Job to Him

Justin Wilcox said his current status as Cal’s head coach was made possible by former Golden Bears Jeff Tedford, who paid a visit to the Golden Bears practice on Monday.

“The reality is it’s not likely that I would be sitting here in this role if it wasn’t for coach Tedford,” Wilcox said Tuesday.

Tedford, who brought Cal’s football program to national prominence nearly 20 years ago, has had a long relationship with Wilcox.

As starting safety at Oregon, Wilcox played against Fresno State in1997 when Tedford was the Bulldogs offensive coordinator. Oregon won the game, but Wilcox and the Ducks defense did not do much to slow Tedford’s offense in the 43-40 Oregon win. Wilcox had watched from the sidelines as a redshirt freshman the previous season when Oregon opened the season with a 30-27 victory over Tedford and Fresno State in the first-ever regular-season college overtime game between two Division I teams.

During Wilcox’s junior and senior years at Oregon, Tedford was the Ducks’ offensive coordinator, and Tedford also gave Wilcox his first fulltime coaching job when he hired him as the Golden Bears linebackers coach in 2003.

Wilcox was on the Cal staff when the Bears finished the 2004 regular season with a 10-1 record and were ranked No. 4 in both polls, but lost a chance at a Rose Bowl berth because the BCS standings placed Texas ahead of the Bears.

Current Cal wide receivers coach Burl Toler III was a senior wide receiver on that 2004 Bears team. He had just eight catches that season after catching 48 passes in 2003, when Aaron Rodgers was Cal’s quarterback both seasons.

Cal was 1-10 the year before Tedford was hired by Cal in December 2001, a month after his 40th birthday. The Bears were nationally ranked at the end of the 2004, 2005 and 2006 seasons – the last time Cal has been ranked in the final polls -- and were ranked as high as No. 2 midway through the 2007 season. Wilcox left Cal for a job at Boise State following the 2005 season, but he and Wilcox remained in touch.

After being fired at Cal following the 2012 season, Tedford had stints with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Canadian Football League and Washington before becoming Fresno State’s head coach for three seasons (2017-2019). Health issues interrupted Tedford’s coaching career a few times, but Wilcox said the 59-year-old Tedford looks great now.

Cal quarterback Chase Garbers admitted he didn’t know much about Tedford, but was aware of what Tedford did at Cal.

“He really did build Cal in a way,” Garbers said.

Cal linebacker Kuony Deng said he got an opportunity to meet Tedford on Monday.

“I got to talk to him for a while and that was pretty cool,” Deng said. “Obviously we want to recreate some of those things and chase some of those same things, so being able to talk to a coach who was that successful, and the place means a lot to him, and he means a lot to us, so that was really cool.”

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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