Ron Rivera’s job description is simple: Make Cal football relevant

Can Ron Rivera save Cal football?

An overreaction? Maybe not.

As the college football landscape continues to undergo seismic shifts, the Golden Bears are striving for more than an improved win-loss record.

They’re fighting for survival as a major-college program.

Rivera, the long-ago Cal All-America linebacker and more recently an NFL head coach with two different franchises, was hired in March as general manager of the Bears’ football program.

This is part of a growing trend across the country, with schools including Stanford, North Carolina, Notre Dame, USC, Alabama, Texas Tech and Texas hiring GMs to deal with the ever-growing complexities of running a modern college football program.

The job involves managing the recently approved profit-sharing payments to athletes and the mushr