Cal Bears Fire Sonny Dykes After Four Seasons

In a surprising move at a surprising time, the Cal Bears have fired head coach Sonny Dykes after four seasons with the team.

After four seasons with very mixed results, the California Golden Bears are starting over. They have fired head coach Sonny Dykes after four years at the helm, less than a month before National Signing Day. He went 19-30 (10-26 in conference play) with the Cal Bears. In the meantime, offensive coordinator Jake Spavital will serve as interim head coach.

Dykes took over in December of 2012 after Jeff Tedford‘s firing, and was given a program with serious question marks, both academically and on the field. The team went 1-11 with true freshman quarterback Jared Goff at the helm in his first year, and had an historically awful defense.

They improved in his second season, as Goff turned into a record-breaking quarterback in Dykes’ offense. The Bears saw a four-win improvement, going 5-7 and narrowly missing Bowl eligibility. The improvement continued in 2015, as the Bears went 8-4 in the regular season and were Bowl eligible for the first time since 2011. They won the Armed Forces Bowl, beating Air Force, and Goff went on to be the first pick in the NFL draft. After the year, Dykes signed an extension at Cal.

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With a new quarterback, graduate transfer Davis Webb, the Cal offense was still prolific, but the defense took another step backward. Senior leaders Hardy Nickerson (transfer) and Damariay Drew (torn ACL) were lost before the season started, and an already highly-questionable defense had more holes. They couldn’t compensate, limping to another five-win season and missing out on a bowl game.

Dykes’ team was never equipped to be a true force in the Pac-12. They couldn’t compete with the other California schools, and went 1-11 against their in-state rivals. The only victory came in 2016 when they beat UCLA in what turned out to be Dykes’ final game. Cal lost the Big Game to Stanford in four straight years, while dropping all four games to USC.

On the academic side, Dykes completely turned the program around. They went from consistently having some of the lowest APR scores to putting up the best scores in the Pac-12. Coach Dykes emphasized the “student” in student-athlete, and while it didn’t lead to great results on the field, the players will appreciate it later on in life. Unfortunately, that isn’t the only thing that matters.

Dykes had a tenuous relationship with athletic director Michael Williams, who took the position in May of 2015. Dykes interviewed for multiple coaching jobs after the 2015 season, and for the Baylor vacancy after 2016, all while under contract.

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Hell broke loose after the news on Twitter. Cal players found out about the firing on social media, which upset more than one player (Vic Enwere [link] and Darius Allensworth [link], for example). Some of the same players (Allensworth and Ray Hudson) stuck behind Spavital, whose future is also in doubt with the move.

Spavital is a candidate to remain with Cal as the permanent head coach, and of course, free agent coach Chip Kelly is a popular name online. Cal is dealing with a huge debt and now has to pay a buyout to Dykes, so Kelly is likely a pipe dream unless they can raise an insane money to make the hire. If any outside head coach were to be hired, that could mean a completely new coaching staff.

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National Signing Day is on February 1st, and Cal currently has 14 committed players. Things are certain to change on the recruiting front with the head coach position in flux.