Cal gives their head coach a huge contract extension

Cal and head coach Justin Wilcox announced Thursday afternoon that the two parties have reached a four-year contract extension, which will run through the 2027 season.

“I appreciate the opportunity to be the head football coach at Cal and am excited about the future of our program,” Wilcox said on Twitter. “I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute I have spent with the extraordinary young men who have been in our program.”

It was rumored Wilcox could be named the next headman at Oregon, but for now, he’s staying in Berkeley.

“If [Cal] continues along this path, we can do some great things here,” he said, “and things that haven’t been done before.”

Cal just missed out on a bowl game in 2021, finishing the season with a 5-7 record. 2020 was a blip on the radar, as they only managed to play four games and went 1-3 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The two seasons prior, however, Wilcox led the Golden Bears back-to-back winning campaigns and bowl games in 2018 and 2019 for the first time since 2008 and 2009.

“We have very high expectations,” Wilcox wrote. “I think we’ve earned the right to expect more, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Wilcox is very familiar with the Pac-12 style of play. He played safety at Oregon in the late 1990s and has stayed on the west coast’s collegiate football scene for the best part of the last two decades. Aside from a two-year stint as Tennessee’s defensive coordinator from 2010 to 2011 and one season at Wisconsin (2016), he’s stayed in either the WAC or Pac-12 his entire career.

After parting ways as Wisconsin’s defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach, Wilcox took the head coaching job at Cal and has remained there ever since.

During his five-year tenure with the Golden Bears, Wilcox has amassed a 26-28 record. If he sticks out the entirety of his contract, he’ll be headman of the program for an entire decade.

Cal kicks off their 2022 season against UC Davis on Sept. 3, before following up against UNLV and then a road trip to Notre Dame in Week 3.

“We feel like we have unfinished business here,” Wilcox said last week, “We are very optimistic about our future. Obviously the past season we had five games where one play could have made a huge difference. If we can find those margins in our offseason and how we coach and how we play, we feel like we can do some special things here.”