Beating Stanford has been Justin Wilcox’s Christmas miracle—But how long can it last?
While Stanford football is hoping to find their head coach for the future after Frank Reich’s interim season ends, Cal football in contrast continues to cling to Justin Wilcox, who is now in his 9th season at the helm despite having a 48-54 (.471) overall record and a 26-46 (.361) record in league play. Wilcox has guided the Golden Bears to four bowl appearances, but they are 1-3 in those bowl games and not once has Wilcox’s Bears finished with a league record at or above .500 (a win on Saturday would change that).
It’s been nine years of mediocre football in Berkeley during Wilcox’s tenure while Sonny Dykes, the coach who Wilcox replaced, has gone on to have far greater success at his next two stops: SMU and TCU. In 2018, Dykes coached SMU to their first 10-win season since 1984. In 2022, Dykes coached TCU to the national championship game. Cal under Wilcox has never even sniffed such success.
Given Dykes only lasted four seasons in Berkeley (2013-16), from a distance it’s puzzling that Wilcox has lasted more than twice as long. Dykes’ final season at Cal was a 5-7 season in which they went 3-6 in the Pac-12. Cal last year went 6-7 overall and 2-6 in the ACC, losing to UNLV in the LA Bowl 24-13. It’s more than fair to ask: Why is it that Wilcox has gotten so much more rope than Dykes?
The answer to that question might run through Palo Alto, California. The city that neighbors Stanford. During his time as head coach at Cal, Dykes went 0-4 in the Big Game against Stanford. Not once did Cal even lose by single digits to Stanford during those games. It was one-way traffic for the Cardinal as they dominated the Golden Bears. Two of those Cardinal teams were ranked inside the Top 15 and the biggest blowout was in the 2013 Big Game in which Stanford won 63-13 on The Farm. Going 0-4 against Stanford simply wasn’t cutting it for the Berkeley faithful, who desperately wanted to reclaim the Axe. As a result, Dykes was out and Wilcox was in.
While Wilcox hasn’t accomplished much in Berkeley, the one thing he has been able to do is coach Cal to Big Game victories. Something Sonny Dykes never did. Given he ended a nine-year losing skid to Stanford and currently has a four-game winning streak against the Cardinal, Wilcox has built up a lot of good will in Berkeley by simply beating Stanford.
Not all of that is bad. Rivalry games matter a great deal in college sports and as one who previously covered Cal basketball and graduated from UC Berkeley, I know how much it means to the Berkeley community to lift that Axe. It matters a great deal to both Stanford and Cal.
That being said, the elephant in the room that few want to acknowledge is the painful reality that Stanford football falling off a cliff has been a major reason for why Cal has won four straight Big Games. Stanford has gone 3-9 four seasons in a row and if they lose to Cal again on Saturday, it will likely be five straight 3-9 seasons. Had Sonny Dykes faced four straight 3-9 Stanford teams, one can’t help but wonder if he would still be in Berkeley coaching the Bears.
The harsh truth is Cal’s Big Game winning streak is as much if not more due to Stanford just being terrible than it is about Justin Wilcox being this great coach. His overall body of work speaks for itself.
Looking ahead, one can’t help but wonder how much longer Stanford will be the Christmas miracle that keeps Wilcox employed. Andrew Luck is now the general manager of the Cardinal and seems to have full support from university leadership to get the football program back on track. At some point, if not this coming weekend, Stanford will get the Axe back. And when they do, if Wilcox is still the head coach, what reason will Cal have at that point to keep him?
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