When California football coach Jeff Tedford goes to bed most nights, he walks down the hallway to his office. He pulls down a mattress from the side of the room, sleeps for a few hours, then showers down the hall.
Four nights a week, Tedford doesn’t make the 30-minute drive home to his wife and two sons. He’s a stickler for details, planning and executing everything from taking a knee at the end of a game to the team’s victory parties.
“I’m sure some people think [it’s crazy],” Tedford said. “I’m not the only one. Some of the other coaches do it too. We stay late, and by the time you get on the freeway to drive home, everyone’s asleep. You have to be back up here so early, it really doesn’t make much sense.”
What does make sense is Cal’s hiring of Tedford in 2001. Tedford, known as a quarterbacks guru, is the mastermind behind Cal’s turnaround.
During his job interview, Tedford wondered whether he could win there. But he led Cal to a 7-5 record and a bowl game in his debut last year, which came on the heels of a 1-10 record in Tom Holmoe’s final season. The Bears beat three nationally ranked teams–Michigan State, Washington and Arizona State–in the same season for the first time in 52 years, earning Tedford Pacific-10 Conference coach-of-the-year honors.
The Bears were 3-4 this year entering Saturday’s game against UCLA at the Rose Bowl, including a surprise 34-31 overtime victory over then-No. 3 USC on Sept. 27.
Tedford’s success has many wondering how long before the NFL calls. He entertained at least two overtures for assistant’s jobs when he was Oregon’s offensive coordinator.
“Being a head coach in college was something I definitely wanted to have the opportunity to do,” Tedford said. “I really enjoy being around the college game and the guys. So many of the NFL guys move their families around, and I wasn’t interested in jumping on that roller coaster. I plan on keeping my family here until we get through school.”
Tedford has employed a feel-good atmosphere at Cal not felt in a long time. Before him, the Bears hadn’t had a winning season since 1993. What’s perhaps most impressive about his debut is that not only did Tedford win, he won with so many players from the one-win season.
“I’m not real good at looking at what happened in the past,” Tedford said. “As far as I was concerned, the year before we went 11-1 [at Oregon]. I had expectations of winning, that’s all I knew.
“It was very gratifying, especially for those kids. When we first got here, to see the body language of a team that was 1-10, they carried themselves different. The guys didn’t have those dejected heads after a while. They felt good about themselves after winning big games.”
Everyone loves a winner.
“No question, he’s ratcheted up expectations for our program,” said Dan Coonan, Cal’s executive associate athletic director. “I don’t call it a curse. I call it a blessing. We want the program and the fans to expect to go to a bowl game every year. That would be wonderful.”
As an assistant at Fresno State, Tedford soaked in everything about quarterbacks and used his own techniques to develop them. He’s well-known in the NFL for having tutored some of the college game’s best, including Kyle Boller, David Carr, Akili Smith, Joey Harrington, A.J. Feeley and Trent Dilfer. In fact, Dilfer still consults Tedford.
Tedford uses checkers to run quarterbacks through the game plan. Each checker piece is lettered to indicate positions.
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Cal officials always envisioned Tedford as a good head coach. But they couldn’t have envisioned this. Not this quickly, anyway.
“Organizationally, every aspect of what they do is planned out, and that’s just not football specific,” Coonan said. “It’s everything. There won’t be anything new on the football field. It’s not just that. The parties after the game are well thought out too. He has a vision for everything. There’s even a march to victory on how to walk to the stadium. It’s impressive.”