Cal Football: Media Availability - Travers Family Head Football Coach Justin Wilcox (9.3.2024)

We'll go ahead and get questions started with Jeff Faraudo with Cal Sports Report. Go ahead Jeff. Yeah good morning Justin. How you doing? I'm well. Jeff, how are you? Good. Can you, give us updates on some folks, of their status, Jadyn Ott, Tobias Merriweather, Kyion Grayes Sioape, and Will McDonald, if you could. Yeah, Grayes. We're hopeful. Ott, Probable, Sioape We'll see as the week goes on. Same with McDonald and Tobias. We'll know more this afternoon. So I don't have a confirmation one way or the other on all those guys. right yet, Jeff. All right. Thanks. Yep. All right. Do you have a next question for coach? Go ahead and put it in the chat and we'll go ahead and call on you. All right. We'll go to Steve Kroner from the SF Chronicle. How you doing? Good. Steve, how are you? I'm good. Okay. Two and a half days after Saturday's game, there's some things that, you saw in the aftermath that were better than what you thought during the game. And maybe 1 or 2 things that weren't as good as you thought during the game. I think a lot of it was pretty clear, even right after the game. You always learn a little bit more as you, go through the video and hit the coaching points with the staff and the players. Post-game. I thought, I think the obvious were the statistics first half versus second half and all the all the things on both sides of the ball that went with that. I think from 10,000 ft, we were really excited to play. And the guys on the team were really, really, eager to get out there and compete. And I think, maybe, some of that got got in our way a little bit. Sometimes you gotta learn to manage that energy that you have on game day and, kind of being in the red, as we call it, doesn't always, equate to playing great football. And I think that happened to us a little bit. Just the excitement of the first game. The energy of that first game and wanting to do so well. So learning how to manage that and get ourselves in the zone for peak performance is going to be, a key going forward. I was really proud of how they played through, some not so great football, on both sides of the ball and competed all the way to the end of the game and played much better in the second half. But, you know, that the obvious things that we talked about after the game were what they were. Great. Thank you. Next question will be Thomas Dunn from Write for California. Good morning. Justin. You really emphasized executing when it gets down to one score games and close games. What have you seen from your team last year compared to now? That tells you, if you get to that scenario setter, that you'll come out the other side on top. Yeah. Well, it's, emphasis on, doing all the little things right all the time. We kind of have that saying how you do any thing's, how you do everything. And so being detailed in our walkthroughs and practices and our communication and doing that throughout, the entire camp. I mean, that's where the stuff shows up because you never know when that one play is coming. That's going to change the outcome of the game. Ultimately we have to go out there and do it and perform. And I know our guys are really excited to play. We got a heck of an opponent coming up. And, We need to make big strides from where we were a week ago. And I know our guys are primed and excited to do that. All right Cody Henderson from The League Winners Hey coach. The offense had the ball around midfield. Around the two minute timeout. Did you consider letting letting Chandler Rogers try to work that two minute on offense and try to score there? What are you talking about? What half, first half or second Half? Second half. Sorry. Towards the end of the game. No, we didn't think that was appropriate. I understand, we we talk about those situations. We work two minute offense. We've worked out the clock. The new dynamics with the two minute warning and how that impacts drives at the end of half and end of game. But that was not a situation that we felt it was, as much as we want. I did want Chandler to get more reps. Absolutely. And, the rhythm of the game, didn't really help him in terms of how how many reps he got. I wish it would have been a bit different. But at the end of the game there, the game was under control. And we didn't feel like that was appropriate to practice, and work a two minute situation when we didn't need to. All right. We'll go back to Jeff Farad. Yes. So obviously, this will be a much different game than you had last week. And assuming that you're starting, Fernando, are you likely to let him just continue to play, to develop some rhythm in your offense, or are you decided that you would be going to play both quarterbacks still? Yeah. Rhythm in the offense comes from getting first downs. And unfortunately they're in the first half. For a number of reasons. We had five of the six drives were three plays or less. And so nobody can get into a rhythm. The quarterback can't, the O - line can't. The team can't. If you're going three and out or less on five of the six drives. So I think the quarterback obviously had those guys play a critical role, as does the the tackle and the running back and the tight end and everybody else. So as an offense, we need to do a better job creating rhythm. And the way you do that is by getting the first first down on the drive. So you can create some rhythm. So, I think Fernando did some good things. He threw some good balls. There's a few things that we have to be better on, with Fernando. And then I think Chandler did some good things as well. And again, I kind of go back. I wish we would've converted a couple of those, first down so we could have got him some more opportunities. You said you'd continue to get more opportunities this week. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, I think, again, we like both those guys. We like that quarterback room and we'll see how this week goes and, how the game goes on Saturday. All right. Thank you. Yep. All right, back to Steve Kroner. Hey, Justin. Sam Jackson is playing wide receiver for Auburn. In a Different World, Could Sam Jackson have been playing wide receiver for the California Golden Bears this year? Yes. Sam, being here for a year, he's a dynamic athlete. And we did have discussions at the end of last year after he had suffered an injury about him, wanting to play wideout. And we were very open to that and understood that, that might be a great option. He chose to go a different direction, and we wish them. Well. I want nothing but good things for Sam. I hope everything plays out in his favor Other than this game, he is a dynamic athlete. I mean, a dynamic athlete. We know that. We saw it firsthand. And, I think it kind of speaks to their roster when you look at right now, just some of the guys on there and I'm sure He'll get opportunities in the game. I don't know how many. Kind of depends probably how that game goes. But they got some very, very talented wideouts. All right Matt Moreno from Rivals Hi coach, after Saturday's game, you mentioned his tackles as being something that stood out defensively. But as you assess things and go into this next week, what are some things maybe on that side of all that you want to see more of or less of, you know, going against Auburn? Yeah, more made tackles, less missed tackles. I thought the first half it really showed up defensively in the first half. It was tackling and we lost leverage and man coverage. Those were our issues primarily in the first half on defense. So we got to do a better job there. And I thought the second half we played better and guys did a good job with their leverage, understanding where their help was. And I think it's just the natural progression from game one to game two, of everybody being a little bit more comfortable. Some of the new guys who played for the first time last week been a bit more comfortable, building confidence, playing loose and understanding their job so they can play really fast. So, just looking for that next step from those guys. I thought again, the second half they did a, really a heck of a job, took the ball away, which was great to see and, proud of them for again, sticking to it. And doing their job when the first half didn't go nearly as well as we would have hoped. All right, back to Jeff Justin. You did have the three interceptions, and some of that was probably based on pressure on the quarterback, but you did not have a sack. And I'm wondering what you thought about your pass rush where it has to go from here. Yeah. We had some good individual rushes. You could kind of go down the list. McCulloch showed up for sure. X got to the quarterback. We got our hands on the quarterback and hit him, multiple times. We also forced that ball out and had some interceptions. And then the other thing that, I thought was really big was the batted balls. I think we had three total, at the line of scrimmage with the defensive linemen, batting the ball down. And those are those are key players. So we all want sacks. I mean, I get that, we had a couple opportunities, but we also, I would say did a better job affecting the quarterback. And that showed up in other ways. So, hopefully we can get the quarterback on the ground and we know, you know, they got a heck of a offensive line at Auburn. Quarterback's a veteran player and is really a good player. So, we'll need to be our best and better than we were a week ago. This coming Saturday. I gotta ask you a follow up. It's well-documented how much different you guys are, Personnel. Seems like they have a lot of new players as well. Is what happened last year. Have almost nothing to do with what might happen on Saturday. Well, I don't know if it's nothing to do. Obviously, teams change year to year. They've changed. We've changed, schematically, you know, especially, defense. You see some differences. Offense. You know, Coach Freeze always done a great job on offense. But they're going to do what they, you know, what's best for them and their players. So they'll be new wrinkles from year to year. But you mentioned the new players. You got the receiver, the recruit, I mean, he's a phenomenal athlete. Number eight. Number five. The guy from Penn State's a very productive player. New tackle, the running backs a good player. The QBs played a lot defensively. The linebacker, from Duke, the defensive end, the edge players and very gifted guy. And so they've got the corner, who we actually recruited hard. He played nickel for him last year. He's playing corner for him this year. Keionte Scott is a very good player as well. So they got good players. And Coach Durkin, is a really good coach. Knowing him a long time, kind of competed against him a few times way back when. So he's a really good coach. They'll be prepared and have good schemes. And they got really good players. And it was just one of 12 games. But how important could this game be to the arc of your season? Do you think. Well I mean they're all important, Jeff. I mean, that's the truth. They're all important. And this one is important as any. All right. We'll circle back to Thomas. Justin you just mentioned his name, but on the topic of pass rush, what is Ryan McCulloch showing you after contributing in spurts last year? And what is he showing you over the offseason? And how do you foresee his role increasing, if at all, over the course of the season? I think Ryan could be one of the most improved guys on the team. He is one of the most improved guys on the team from, January until now. He is a talented athlete. He's explosive. He can run. He's really coachable. He plays hard. I think he's got a bright future. And, he's not perfect, but he's getting better every week, every rep. And, really glad he's on the team. All right, back to Matt Moreno You had a pretty big emphasis on special teams, field position, things like that. How did you feel like things went in for the team after the tape? I thought, our kickoffs were noticeable. I thought the kicker was noticeable. I thought the kickoff return was a huge play in the game. You know, with Nohl Williams, they weren't going to kick it deep to Jadyn. I think we saw that right away. And then adjusting the return and Nohl catching it clean TJ Bollers made a huge block Jordan King Ryan McCulloch got that return going and Nohl took it to the house. That was a huge play. I think our punt return, did some good things. We can be better there. And Mikey had a couple nice returns. We just got to get those punt return started. So punting, a couple good things. I think we can be better in punt. And at the end of it, I think we were plus 12. An average starting field position plus 12 yards, which is, a big deal. And that's something we're going to continue to emphasize with our team. All right. We'll finish this off with one more from Jeff. Go ahead. Jeff. Justin, given the amount of travel you guys are going to have to do going back east for ACC games, is it likely you won't play many more non-conference games like this one, way back across the country? Jeff, that's a great question. And, I think that if we had known whenever these games are scheduled, I doubt they would have done that just because of the new travel schedule. But nobody saw any of this change coming when these games are scheduled. And usually that's six, seven, even ten years out. I know we're excited to go to Auburn and play. I mean, it's unbelievable environment. It's a great football team, story, tradition. It's going to be an awesome deal. If you could rewind it, I imagine they would just because, the travel is different than it would have been in the in the old Pac 12. So, yeah, we're just excited to go play. Yeah. I don't have your future schedule in front of me, but is it possible you tweak that a little bit going forward because of what we're talking about here? Yeah, I think the hard part, Jeff, is these games, that are set up are usually set up. I don't know when this one was, but it was well before I was here. These things are scheduled. It's not like they, two years ago meet, set up the Auburn game or any of those non-conference games. So, in this environment in college football, Jeff, a lot could happen. And we'll see where all this stuff shakes out in future scheduling. But, basically, the way I look at it is they just give us a schedule and we prepare and we go play the games on our schedule. And I'll let the administration and everybody else worry about, what's coming down the pipe. If they ask my opinion, I certainly give it to them. Keeping your knees bent huh? Always. Knees bent. you too Jeff Got to keep your knees bent. Thank you. All right.