It's About Time

Justin Wilcox has "unofficially" been the head football coach of the University of California since the middle of January. This past week he "officially" became the head football coach. The wheels of bureaucracy move that slowly. His contract to do what he's been doing for about six months was finally finalized and approved.

Congratulations Coach! It's about time.

This is Justin Wilcox's first shot as a head coach. It's a bit of a coming home as his first non-graduate assistant job was at Berkeley. He was Cal's linebacker coach from 2003-05. He's been a defensive coordinator ever since with stops at Boise State, Tennessee, Washington, USC, and Wisconsin. It should be a nice change to have a defensive-minded coach guiding the Bears as they have played essentially no defense in each of the past four seasons. It was stunning and mind-numbing to watch. 

Here are some of the details of Justin Wilcox's long-awaited contract to coach the University of California Golden Bears football team.

~5-year deal that runs through 2021

~base salary of $250,000 per year

~talent fee, which is guaranteed, ranges from $1.25 million in the first year to $2.5 million in the final year

~the total annual compensation averages $1.9 million

Wilcox is the lowest paid coach in the Pac-12 by approximately $500,000 annually. This isn't unexpected considering this is his first head coaching opportunity. 

~received a $100,000 signing bonus

~if Wilcox is fired without cause, Cal would owe 100% of the remaining base pay and talent fee

No one that's fond of Cal wants to think about Wilcox possibly being fired, with or without cause, at the moment. There's been too much of that lately. 

~the contract has a series of incentive bonuses. For the 2017-18 seasons Wilcox can earn the following:

     -$100,000 if the Bears win six regular season games

     -$325,000 if the Bears win eight regular season games

     -$25,000 if the Bears beat Stanford (that's way too low!)

There are also a series of bonuses tied to the Bears academic performances, including a $60,000 bonus if the team GPA is at least 3.0. 

There's a real good chance that Justin Wilcox is the highest paid employee on the Berkeley campus. It's still about $1 million less than Cal paid Sonny Dykes last season and about $7 million less than the crazy salary that Michigan paid Jim Harbaugh. But this is Berkeley. And that's Michigan. When it comes to the importance of football on the respective campuses only the colors are similar. 

It's about time that Justin Wilcox finally got his contract. Go Bears!