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In one of the more surprising offseason coaching changes, Cal’s offensive line coach Jim Michalczik (still don’t know how to properly pronounce this) will be leaving the Bears to become the Offensive Coordinator at Washington. Michalczik will continue with his coaching duties through Cal’s bowl game before joining the Huskies coaching staff with new head coach Steve Sarkisian.
Well…crap.
While this isn’t an irrecoverable loss, it is a big one for the Bears. Michalczik has been a cornerstone in the Tedford coaching era since day one, and has been instrumental to Cal’s success in recruiting and developing one of the premier offensive line units not only in the conference, but in the nation during both him and Tedford’s tenure at Cal. As much as Cal has benefited from outstanding talent at runningback and quarterback the past several years, much of that success begins with the job that Coach Michalczik has done with the Bears’ offensive line unit.
Understandably though, the move makes sense for Coach Michalczik. A Washington native with head coaching aspirations, the promotion to the Offensive Coordinator position does make a lot of sense, and it was a move that Michalczik described as “an offer I couldn't turn down.”
Interestingly enough though, new head coach Steve Sarkisian has already stated he will be calling the plays on offense, so one has to wonder how much Michalczik’s role will really change from a similar position he was in during the Bears 2007 season in which Michalczik was promoted to offensive coordinator, while Coach Tedford called the plays.
I wish Coach Michalczik the best of luck, but dammit, it’d be nice to see him stay. You can check out Okanes’ article on this here.
4 comments:
What about the fact that CAL's recruiting class to-date is horrible. We have 3 good blue chips (4 stars) and continue fishing for JC defensive players. Tedford's first year justified grabbing these guys but he is in year 7 now. Grow your farm Teddy. Now this, we have one OL recruit. In short, this year's class has me worried that Tedford is leaving.
Wow. To draw back to the early 90s, take a chill pill man. I don’t think our recruiting class is “horrible.” Rivals has us ranked 40th in the nation, with four 4-star recruits, and 5 stars. It’s certainly heating up a bit more, and I’m fairly confident there are a few more big names who will be committing to Cal in the near future.
For the record, some of these JC recruits have worked out for us just fine (Desmond Bishop, Garrett Cross, Aaron Rodgers, Lavelle Hawkins, etc)
Plus, Tedford and company have also shown a great ability to find talent that has flown under the radar and isn’t necessarily “highly ranked” (Alex Mack, Justin Forsett to name a few).
Be patient young anonymous Padwan.
Bear with Fang, I have to agree with Anonymous. Yes, it's nice to be positive all the time like those Soccer Moms and their bottomless cheering. But what is the ultimate prize? The Rose Bowl. CAL MUST step up their game on and off the field. Why act like a "just happy to be contending" versus let's build a legacy here in Berkeley. JC recruiting is used to fill stop gaps. They last 2-3 years. To counter your JC recruits, look at the in-grown defensive studs in Tedford era: Mebane, Worrell Williams, Alualu, Syd-Quan, Follett, Felder and Hagan. (notice that they were 3 and 4 star recruits) When we breed our OL, they are redshirted and then become studs by their Jr and Sr years. (Hence sadness when Michaelczik left the program). You say Rival ranked #40 and Scout at #57 is sufficient? If we were Arizona or Arizona State, I would be content. But we are #1 Public Instition with a Top Notch Program and Great Coach. I would like as a Bear Backer that we demand more. Especially since Stanfurd is ranked #17. Outside of DePrimadonna Jackson, the fact that we always lose to USC in head to head recruiting every year is pretty sad. At least UCLA and Stanfurd has caught a few through the years. This recruiting season, Oregon took two 4-star recruits and Stanfurd took one 4-star from the East Bay, is also pretty sad. So I'll take the chill pill with Anonymous, but I suggest you use your fangs and demand the Bears step up to the next level. Being slightly better above average or mediocare can only be sustained a few more years. (Go ask the Sacramento Kings or Phoenix Suns how it feels when their window closed)
Money Rey, if I could demand the Bears step up their game and actually expect to see them follow suit, they’d be doing more than crushing teams in the Rose Bowl.
Just to clarify, my telling people to relax a bit wasn’t in any way to spout a “soccer mom” optimism or express any desire for settling. Nor did I ever say that our current recruiting ranking was “sufficient.” I just said it isn’t really “horrible” by any means and that it’s still early. My whole point was that we just needed to be a tad more patient before declaring that Tedford doesn’t care about the program. A number of pretty big name recruits (Devon Kennard, Deandre Coleman, etc) still have us at the top, or near the top of their respective lists, and really, you just have to let the recruiting season fold out before declaring it’s the end of Cal football as we know it.
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