By Jay Heater
BERKELEY - Offensive coordinator Mike Dunbar and Cal have parted ways. Dunbar has accepted the offensive coordinator's job at Minnesota after serving one season in that capacity for the Golden Bears. It was an experiment that was partially successful for head coach Jeff Tedford, who wanted to add tactics from the spread offense to his game plan. Dunbar had run one of the nation's top spread offenses at Northwestern and hoped to have similar success at Cal. However, Tedford didn't want to part with many of the staples that had given the Bears one of the top offenses in the country since his arrival in 2002. "Mike was more comfortable running the spread solely," Tedford said from Dallas on Wednesday. "There were professional opportunities for him in Minnesota, and I think he is going to be more comfortable there." Tedford was asked if it was a mistake to bring Dunbar to Cal. "No," he said. "He brought some new ideas and concepts. Our goal was to meld those together. It's not that it didn't work. We were fine.
"But our goal was to meld the two concepts and not to be solely a spread team. I think he is of the mind to be 100 percent in the spread. He has had a lot of success doing that." Although Dunbar has left, Tedford said Cal will continue to utilize spread offense concepts. "But we're always going to have some aspect of two backs, with tight ends involved," he said. "I liked what we were doing with the spread and we're going to continue to do some. But we're never going to do it every down." Tedford said he has a few people in mind to fill the vacancy but said he was going to take his time. "I'm not going to rush into something," he said. Although Tedford was involved in setting up the offensive game plans, Dunbar called all but a few plays in every regular season game and the Holiday Bowl. Tedford said he will continue to be involved in some play calling, but he said he hasn't decided to what extent.
No comments:
Post a Comment