During his 3.5 years at Cal, Sonny Dykes has had (by the standards of college football) a very patient fan base that has generally supported him. This has been true for a few reasons:
- Jeff Tedford left behind a radioactive shell of a program with problems that went well, well beyond simple issues of talent or depth.
- Sonny Dykes has shown slow but constant improvement throughout his tenure.
- Sonny Dykes has pretty much always won as a favorite, never losing games against the weakest teams on the schedule (post 2013).
And for that reason, the vast majority of Cal fans have fallen somewhere between vocal support and silent noncommittal.