Cal Football: Justin Wilcox Fires Bill Musgrave, O-line Coach Angus McClure
In the wake of the team’s latest poor offensive showing in a 38-10 loss at Oregon State, coach Justin Wilcox announced Sunday afternoon the firing of offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave and offensive line coach Angus McClure.
"I felt these changes to our coaching staff were needed and made them with the best interest of our football program in mind," Wilcox said in a statement. "We thank Bill and Angus for their contributions and the investments they made in Cal football, and we wish them all of the best in their future endeavors."
In the video above, Wilcox discusses the Bears' shortcomings during his Saturday night post-game media session.
Both Musgrave and McClure were in their third seasons with the Bears, who rank 10th in the Pac-12 in both scoring and total offense. Cal quarterback Jack Plummer has been sacked 30 times through 10 games, which ranks 109th in the country.
This is a decisive move by Wilcox, whose team is 3-7 and has lost its past six games heading into Saturday’s 125th Big Game against Stanford. In his six seasons, Wilcox has never released any of his assistant coaches during a season and only rarely has pushed them out the door in the offseason.
But fans have clamored on social media for changes to an offense that has under-performed for years.
Cal unveiled a potential star running back this fall in freshman Jaydn Ott, who rushed for 274 yards in a win over Arizona on Sept. 24. In the past five games, he has carried the ball 66 times for 312 yards, an average of just 3.2 yards per attempt. At Oregon State, he had eight combined rushes and pass receptions and totaled just 20 yards.
Cal said the responsibilities of Musgrave and McClure will be handled by current assistants before a search for permanent replaces gets under way in the offseason. Cal offered no specifics on who would, for instance, call plays against Stanford or UCLA.
A seemingly likely candidate to handle the assignment in the interim is Geep Chryst, who is in his second season coaching Cal's tight ends but has served as quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers (1999-2000) and San Francisco 49ers (2011-15, working as OC only the last of those five seasons).
Others on the current staff who work with the offense are running backs coach Aristotle Thompson and receivers coach Burl Toler III. Former Cal offensive line coach Steve Greatwood, brought back to the program three weeks ago as an offensive analyst, could also be involved.
Musgrave, 55, came to Cal before the 2020 season after a long career coaching in the NFL. The one-time Oregon star quarterback coached for seven pro teams from 2003 through 2018, serving as offensive coordinator for four of them.
When he arrived at he hadn’t coached college football since a three-year stint at Virginia through the 2002 season.
McClure, 53, who grew up in the Bay Area, had previously coached at Nebraska, Buffalo, UCLA and Nevada among other places.
Cover photo of former Cal offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave by Darren Yamashita, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
