The Art of The Wilner Tweet
If I can’t get a game preview out this week, this should cover most of it.
Football talk can wait until Friday, I have something fun planned for today:
The University of California, one of the great public institutions in the Country, a beacon of American counterculture, and home to one of the least-good football teams in the Pac-12.
And although things aren’t looking great from high atop Tightwad Hill, not even a Cal loss to Colorado could stop the West coast’s most tenacious sports reporter from Reporting on his beloved Golden Bears and their endangered conference.
So, in honor of Cal week, we shall honor the Pac-12’s preeminent scholar, the City of Berkeley’s biggest fan, and the tweeter of perfect tweets: Jon Wilner.
Whether he’s suggesting that the Pac-12 desperately needed USC to win the conference title game in the Covid year, or saying Verone McKinley was a dirty player, or calling Colin Cowherd out on his “crapola”, this Bay Area giant and his Hotline have managed to almost single-handedly keep San Jose’s The Mercury News in circulation with his decades worth of expert takes.
If you don’t already follow The Wilner on Twitter, do yourself a favor and do it now. Whenever there are goings on throughout the conference, Jon is there to say the thing that you could literally never think of.
I wish my brain worked like this guy’s brain does.
One his most recent bangers was when he was blaming UDub’s loss against UCLA on UCLA’s weak schedule (as if Kent State and Portland State told us so much about the Huskies):
The number one thing you have to remember while deciphering a Wilner tweet is that he has his Enemies. Like we all do.
Primarily, he’ll look to jump on any other California team, much like his above attempt to discredit UCLA.
But in the last decade or so, he actually seems to prefer taking a regular shot at Oregon. He has even found himself capable of advocating in favor of USC if it means that UO can catch a stray bullet in the process. He said this in 2020 after Mario beat up on the Trojans again to win the Pac:
And of course, we can’t forget that Wilner’s side gig as Justin Wilcox’s PR guy means that he is contractually obligated to blame every shortcoming in Cal football on the City of Berkeley:
I really have zero interest in litigating exactly what Wilner was even yelling about there—mostly because my eyes glazed over when I spotted the word “infinitesimal”—but I do think I should draw a chart about how I think Jon might have drawn that chart himself.
Now, most Oregon fans are probably saying something like: “Hey, we have one of those!” And you’d be right, Canzano is pretty good at what he does too, but something about a Wilner bomb just hits different.
Canzano might have called for LeGarrette Blount’s arrest, but we are pretty sure Wilner predicted an earthquake on Tuesday:
So, it’s safe to say Jon has the edge on John.
And there’s my formal pitch for you to follow Jon Wilner. You can’t possibly be disappointed.
That way, if you’re traveling to Berkeley this weekend, you can let the locals know that you obtained all your football coverage/public health updates/seismology information via the Wilner Hotline.*
Or you could just get all of that and more in audio form with the Canzano & Wilner podcast (yeah, it’s a thing).
Go Ducks.
*Ok fine I actually think you should follow him in a not-funny-way too a little bit because if you’re ever going to see a tweet about the future of the conference (good or bad) it’s coming from @wilnerhotline, he’s a crazy connected guy. And also he has a Heisman vote so go tell him to vote for Bo when the time comes.
My favorite Wilner thing is how he likes to say "we here at the Hotline" as if he has a team of investigative reporters under his command.
So many great memories Wilner has given us.