Lets see:
Tedford had the football team bowl eligible every single year, including the one he came from a 1-10 season (barely 1-10 season I might add). A team in “chaos” due to scandel? You mean a NCAA tournament capable tournament team in ‘chaos’ due to some shady actions by the head coach. Don’t tell me Braun was handed a team in chaos with a lack of talent and winning. Because that’s what Cal was with the 1-10 team, with a tradition of decades as a losing team. They’re not the same. Unless you’re going by the official NCAA records with California’s vacated wins, which puts them at 2-26. Then I guess you have a point.

Braun made the NCAA tournament 5 times (out of 12), and NIT 3 times (out of 5). So he missed the NIT in 4 seasons, or once every three years. Tedford’s had a bowl eligible team 7 for 7 years. Tedford’s record in bowl games: 5-1. Braun’s success in the postseason? Yeah, he won the national championship I guess. And by this I gave the NIT a LOT of respect that it doesn’t deserve. You can make the NIT with a crappy conference finish (think 9th place). Bowl games are about a .500 record in the conference. Also throw in the fact that the pac 10 usually gets in 5 teams per year to the big dance, this number is more comparable to the number of bowl games pac 10 gets in football. So if you really want a better indication, Tedford’s made the bowl game every single year, whereas Braun made it in 5 of his 12 seasons.

Finished .500 in his last three seasons? This is the best stat you noted. More like finished 1 game above .500 in the last two seasons, 6-12 in conference play, NINTH in the Pac-10 both years. In fact, he’s only had above .500 record in 5 of his 12 seasons in conference play. Tedford’s finished in the top half of the conference every year except once.

Again, Tedford isn’t a Ben Braun. Don’t tell me the football team had more talent, wasn’t injured, didn’t face “very strong teams” either. Yes, the comparisons are pretty off. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of things I don’t like about Tedford and I’m pretty critical of it, but a Ben Braun comparison is a bit extreme. Because I remember Braun being a really, really terrible coach.

It is not particularly difficult to figure out how to stop Cal’s offense, whether by coaching or on the field, when the O line plays as poorly as it has been during most of this season.

(BTW, Anybody who thinks that Tedford would be asked to interview with ND is crazy. More likely Hairbag, whose problems of recruiting for Stanford would be the same at ND approximately. Unfortunately for ND, Hairbag is a Michigan alum and they hate ND.)

Now it would be difficult to replace Tedford and hope to find someone better, but Sandy Barbour needs to have a talk with him to say he needs to improve his results. This team needs to contend for a Rose Bowl, aspiring to mediocrity does not cut it. Give him one more year to make the corrections or you got to move on.

FanOfThaGamez (11/9/2009 at 6:50 AM)

moreNCSarecoming:

I think that it is time for Tedford to move on too. But it would be better for Tedford to be “encouraged” to go get another job than to fire the guy. The reason is that Tedford is by far the most successful coach in modern Cal history, and he has succeeded despite – not because of – an administration and university that has no tradition of success in revenue athletics in any sports and is actually hostile to football. Also, I question the idea that Tedford is wasting all this talent. I gave Ted Miller a hard time about this also. Miller was talking about how many returning starters Cal had, but I saw those players against Miami. Those returning starters didn’t have much ability. That was evident because Miami was a 7-6 team with a 2nd year head coach, a bad offensive coordinator (who was fired after the game), and was playing mostly freshmen and sophomores, including a true freshman QB making his 2nd or 3rd career start, and Cal barely got out of that game alive. (Plus there was the Maryland game!) Just because a guy is a returning junior or senior doesn’t make him a good college player or a difference maker. Pac-10 fans delude themselves about that because you think that because your coaches are so great the players don’t matter. The truth is that there are lots of good coaches in college football and to win consistently you need better players than the next guy, and Cal’s athletes are really no better than those on the other good teams in the Pac-10.

I would like to chime in here. I have been a supporter of Tedford. You can go back and archive my posts and you can see I have been an ardent defender against some of the ugly vitrol from your fan base. So here is some interaction I received from a fan. Tell me if this guy isn’t spot on……

FanOfThaGamez (11/9/2009 at 6:59 AM):

But if Tedford cannot be shown the benefit of seeking employment elsewhere (or if no one else wants him, say if Illinois or Notre Dame won’t hire him) then the AD has to get involved with that program. The athletics director has to tell Tedford to pick an offensive scheme and coordinator and stick with him. He needs to direct Tedford to hire the top defensive coordinator he can find to Cal can start playing at a championship level (either national or Pac-10, as Cal doesn’t play either and never has) on that side of the ball, and hire the top recruiting coordinator that he can find so Cal can stop deluding itself into believing that they are ever going to get anything done with talent that truly is only above average.

However, in order to attract and retain top talent at offensive, defensive and recruiting coordinators, Cal is going to have to significantly increase its budget for assistant coaches, including perhaps even give them the types of guaranteed contracts for $350,000 a year or more that you see top assistants in the Big 12, Big 10, and (yes!) the SEC get. And yes, that is a real problem on the west coast, where not spending much on college football is almost like an ideological thing. The result is Pac-10 programs getting what they pay for, which is only USC and Washington winning national titles in the last 50 years.

Cal a “Respected and competitive program”? Did you see the game on Saturday night? Do you call that “respectable” football? This is November. Do you remember the 2007 in the toilet bowl season after the OSU game? The Cal program is becoming predictably underachieving: lost to Oregon, SC, and OSU – the last a cut above mediocrity – in their own house. They lost by many points by were out of it from the end of the second quarter.

Now what I’m after is improvement. I’d rather have a well-coached, fired up team that loses competitively than one filled with athletes without any heart. One that packs things in maybe from the second quarter, maybe even from the week of practices. Nobody, but nobody can tell me that the Bears were well coached on Saturday. Riley should have been sat for at least a while, during the first couple of offensive series for the Bears in the third quarter, after he got his bell rung by Kristick late in the second quarter.

The real problem is the coach. Tedford is egotistically wed to his own manner of coaching and his own choice for QB no matter what. He is rigid and uncompromising. The game schemes are so predictable. Defense for OSU: stack the box against Quizz and you take away their biggest threat. Except studying any game film on OSU would tell you that they had more weapons that Quizz. (Every team knows that when you stack the box, you use your tight end. What did OSU do? Use Halahuni – repeatedly.) The fact is that Mike Riley knew that and compensated BEFORE the game. Hell, Cal couldn’t compensate DURING the game. This is antiquated, outmoded, not-very-smart football. Cal needs a young, very smart motivated coach who can actually reach the players and fire them up, not a guy wed to outmoded methods and applications. Cerebral is great, but it only goes so far in college ball. You need head and heart. And a lot of that latter.