If you are going to sod the yard, do it as soon as practical before the crabgrass seed begins to sprout. If your winter is going like ours, you are already too late - my weeds are popping like crazy. Starting with sod almost eliminates the possibility of new crabgrass getting started. If you were starting seed in the spring, then you are guaranteed to have a full crabgrass lawn by July. The best time to reseed is in fall or late summer. Where do you live? You'll have to be more specific. Since you said NoCal and since most of the population that thinks it is in NoCal lives in the Bay Area, I'm going to assume you live there. But if you live inland towards Sacramento, then your exact location becomes more important. If you are on the bay, then you can get away with cool season grasses like fescue and Kentucky bluegrass. IF you are inland where the temps get to the high 90s, then you are in warm season territory. You'll want either bermuda sod or St Augustine. NEVER ROTOTILL soil in preparation for grass. When you rototill there is no way to keep that machine from gouging deep into the soil and bucking over tree roots, rocks, and just tougher soil. What you end up with is a level surface on top but an uneven surface under all the fluffy soil. When the fluffy soil settles, it settles to the uneven surface below. That leaves the surface uneven and you will want to level it. Just start with a level surface and you will be 3 years ahead. When you install the sod, be sure to roll it down with a rented, water filled, roller. Grass roots will not grow through the air to reach the moist soil below. You must have good sod to soil contact. If the area is small you can just walk over it as long as you hit all of it. Here is the 1-2-3 of lawn care. It's really this simple. Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an hour in every zone, all at once. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. Deep watering grows deep, drought resistant roots. Infrequent watering allows the top layer of soil to dry completely which kills off many shallow rooted weeds. Mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. Bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses are the most dense when mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. Dense grass shades out weeds and uses less water when tall. Dense grass feeds the deep roots you're developing in 1 above. Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 4 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above. If you are not going to use organic fertilizer all the time, I strongly suggest you use it one time per year at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Your soil microbes cannot live without food. Organic fertilizer is the...

If I shared a picture, all you'd see is white. We've had about a foot in the past week. I agree on the "should have killed" comment. I've been trying to replace my KBG/TTTF lawn with natives for the past few years by overseeding instead of killing and starting from scratch. I think I'm finally to the point where I have enough native grass that I can just water for the native grass and the old lawn will die, but I probably spent 2-3 times as much on seed as I would have if I had killed it to start. I think it's potentially even more of a problem in your case. I'm replacing grass that needs an inch or two of water a week with grass that needs an inch or so a month, but your new grass has similar water requirements to the old grass, so it will be difficult to favor the new and see it take over.

Nelson: Hope you didn't spend too much time fighting the bermuda this morning. Maybe you won't have to do that again. Enjoyed seeing you yesterday, too. I generally don't use sprays in my garden, but I make exceptions for bermuda-killer and nutgrass-exterminator!

Is this a case where maybe you blanket sprayed at maybe a little heavy on the application rate? It does resemble an herbicide burn, and I don't see any direct indication of bacterial or fungal issues. To rescue, the best thing to do during the summer is actually to do very little. Mow it, keep it watered, and otherwise let it return on its own. Summer is stress enough on the lawn. If you feel you must feed, do it organically only until Labor Day. Synthetics are just going to stress that further. However, bag rate of Milorganite or 15 pounds per thousand square feet of soybean meal wouldn't be taken amiss at this point (even if you already fed synthetically, but if you already fed organically wait until August).