Cal has never been a traditional rival of Washington State’s, but ever since the Golden Bears hired Sonny Dykes in 2013, the annual WSU-Cal game has become a closely-contested, high-scoring affair with a civil war flavor.
When Mike Leach’s Air Raid and Dykes’ Bear Raid go head-to-head this Saturday in Pullman, it will be a family reunion for a significant branch of the Leach coaching tree because Dykes, the son of legendary Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes, got his start as an offensive coordinator under Leach at Texas Tech in the early 2000s.
With those common Lubbock roots, many of the coaches at Cal and 23rd ranked WSU are friendly with each other, but perhaps the two closest friends who will be on opposite sidelines this weekend are WSU’s Clay McGuire and Cal’s Brandon Jones, offensive line coaches for their respective teams, and former roommates and teammates at Texas Tech.