I don't know if the 3.5 million for "staff" is an average of their members or a requirement. I looked at the Nevada coaches and they have perhaps 18 to Davis' 12, it's hard to compare because of different roles. While it makes sense to expand the staff, and increase pay, more than tripling Davis' coaching expenditure seem like it would not be necessary to put a good product on the field.

There are no commitments in the 2027 class, and the offers are mostly in competition with the usual Mountain West, Ivys, service academies, big sky.. Looks typical

The distinction is meaningful. An established player may have endorsement value, may be able to sell his name to youth sport camps, or to a car dealership. If so the school doesn’t even have to be involved. With rare exceptions that are unlikely to be found in the Mountain West incoming freshmen endorsement value is near zero.

It seems to me the 2.5 million requirement would be revenue sharing rather than NIL. Name, image and likeness payments have to have a reasonable correlation with the market value of an athletes association with the product. It’s now not run by consortiums but by the school, and auditable by the NCAA, steps motivated to avoid it being used to evade the revenue sharing limit. Revenue sharing is going to be the standard way to pay players, can be distributed any way they want, but the program has to have revenue.

Dr. Taylor Thompson is with Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard
https://researchers.mgh.harvard.edu/profile/2185246/Taylor-Thompson
It was the 70s. class of 74, UCD Medical School class of 77.. Back then the medical school was in some temporary buildings on campus. So he overlapped with Biggs and Speck at QB. He would have played in the Broadway Bowl against UMASS, And in the classic game against Boise.and probably the Miracle Game against Hayward.

Kupp was timed at 20+ MPH in a game. So he wasn’t as slow as a 4.6 40 time would leave one to mbelieve. Another 4.6 40 guy who had a huge impact at the FCS level was Hayden Hatten, and he had a 39” vertical. Fred Biletnikoff was a high jump champion in HS, all state of Florida if I recall correctly. Athleticism counts, not one particular method of measurement.

Re backup corners, I thought Marquis Bell played well last year, at least he made big plays. He may be more of a safety, based on his size. Drew Faulkner was a three star HS recruit at Idaho, and has played at the JC level. Lots of other candidates.
I think the main question for the defense as a unit is can they fix the issue they had at the end if the season with rush defense. The Connors being back will go a long was towards fixing that, but they weren’t stellar before those guys were hurt. At the end of the season when we finally had healthy corners, teams game planned to run against us.

In addition to Gbatu and Dobbins another Davis wide receiver, Zach Jones, scored 5 touchdowns on 15 receptions, and added another two TDs on 3 carries.

DB’s haven’t released but I feel FOUR of our guys should be on that list

Richardson missed enough games that he doesn’t have the stats. Hayden John doesn’t have the resume. Cofield and Rex Connors are going to be on the list.

I’m pretty sure the roster has John’s eligibility wrong, I mdon’t think he ever redshirted.

Advice to whoever maintains the roster: pick a method and stick to it. The players who have been here their entire career are mostly listed by academic year, and if they are fifth year players they now list them as red-fifth. Thats as good a way as any. Now do it for everyone including whoever transferred here too. And go back to listing HS graduation year.

Vavae forgot to mention his reserve players. Trey spoke about the depth in receivers. I notice in the roster they moved a freshman WR to DB. Quite a change from last Spring where they had Perez running routes..

You don’t have to be very creative with student aid when tuition is free for students families making less than $200,0000 and families making less than 100,000 get everything free. Harvard's policy.

NAU returns very few of the players considered “contributers” from last season’s team, 25%.
https://www.si.com/college/fcs/mvfc/which-fcs-football-playoff-contenders-return-the-most-production-in-2026

The Analyst has a recently updated 2026 preseason ranking.
Davis is number 5, behind the Montanas, South Dakota State, Illinois State, and just ahead of Rhode Island. Familiar teams.
Idaho State is the only other Big Sky team in top 25

Link

Hopefully Davis is smart enough to play only one FBS game, as long as they are FCS. More hurts playoff chances. They could play two if the games were both against lesser FBS programs. I'd rather they play NDSU than SMU, but they play the FBS game for cash, and NDSU isn't going to be a big check.

That’s my opinion too that they need to develop more depth by playing more guys. Last year we were so loaded with all league caliber senior and grad tight ends that three junior tight ends barely touched the field annd two of the juniors graduated or retired Also we didn’t have many salted away games.

FCS football Central is wrong about the 4 returning starters on the offensive line. Jace Rodriguez decided not to come back after being in the initial Spring roster.

I’m of the opinion that Sac would have made the playoffs if they hadn’t chased Carson Conklin away. He was with Sac though Spring camp. The go-go offense had some things going for it. It wasn’t intrinsically a run only offense like it was in our game with Sac. Sac was trying to take advantage of our weak run defense at end of year, which combined with their inconsistent QB play seemed like the way to go.

Except for Williams, none of our tight ends have appeared in more than two games and none have ever recorded a stat. Three of the four are redshirt freshmen next year, but all the second year freshmen were three star recruits coming out of high school.

You’re right, but I’m optimistic. I bet we don’t use multiple tight ends as much, which has been a feature of the offense, if Williams can’t play.

FCS Football Central has a ranking of contenders with returning “contributors” based on the percentage that return. Doesn’t count transfers.
Davis is fourth overall, and returns the second highest percentage on defense behind only UTRGV..
Montana State edges Davis out by claiming the third spot overall. I attribute this to Montana State’s tendency to play a lot of people in blowouts, of which they had a bunch. Plough is conservative in playing guys who aren’t proven, and Davis didn’t have many blowouts.
Article link

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Re “ Whatever happened to Boogie Sylvester?” I think most of the players who had season ending injuries last year participated on a limited basis if at all. Maybe someone can list the guys who did play.
Williams?
Totton?
Sylvester?
Bell?
Carrillo?
Garretson?

Etc. There could be as many as 10