Pretty fast progress to have approvals pending when protocols and procedures are not yet determined. Or maybe that’s not what they meant.

I hope that the number of guys who are in competition for playing time makes complacency unlikely. This being the first home game, hopefully we’ll see some of the guys who weren’t on the travel squad.
I’m curious, do you think Cal Poly and Eastern offenses are substantially the same given the history of the head coach, the offensive line coach and the offensive coordinator at Eastern? I doubt Eastern’s offensive coordinator who was new last year changed the playbook much given their prior success. Seems that this game will be good preparation, including the scrambling QB.

I’m not saying your team can’t beat us, even twice. I was responding to the argument that out scoring the opponent 17-3 in the second half might indicate something. I concede that rust and new system, new players etc. contributed to your team falling behind so quickly. I also think Southern Utah is definitely better than their record, despite that 12 yard punt.

Since the authors don’t know what the poll means, neither do we. As TatCCHris says,it could be how hot the team is at the moment, which makes it hard to complain coming off a loss. However if those are the best teams, Poly has a steep challenge to get three wins out of their schedule, with four games against teams in the top 3. They would have to beat one of the top three along with NAU to get two wins. I don’t put much credence in teams climbing back into games to make it close. When teams are behind by huge margins at half time, the second half rally shows effort, but it’s like points in garbage time in basketball; doesn’t mean they could do it when it meant something,

Caden McCloughan was Poly’s starting strong safety. He is a junior transfer. He is also Kent McCloughan‘s grandson. Kent played and starred for the Oakland Raiders in the sixties, as a two time all pro cornerback. He held the Nebraska state record in the 220 until 2012. Good genes.

Their quarterback is a dangerous scrambler, but he got sacked six times, mostly due to his scrambling. Poly had two offensive tackles leave the game, the second looked like a knee injury.
SUU picked up a big first down late, I think it was a fourth and short, with a fly sweep.
Poly got burned for a touchdown on the third play of the game on short crossing pattern and then the receiver just outran the defense down the sideline.
I think our receivers will be a challenge for them.

I don’t know but I suspect none of them carry much weight. The coaches poll probably resembles the conference representatives opinion. Both likely share the same bias toward their conference and region, as that’s what they’ve seen. This year there is less inter-conference play, so their decisions will be less informed.

A lot of voting early in the year is based on what teams did last year. Even computer based algorithms don’t have enough of a matrix of comparative scores yet, so their ranking often still are influenced by preseason ranking.
At the end of the season algorithmic rankings are fairer that polls, which is why Sagarin’s ranking has us just ahead of Eastern.
The playoff team selection committee is composed of automatic bid conference representatives so that is going to be political. It will be harder for the Big Sky to get two teams in because we have four teams sitting this spring.

It’s going to be a rats nest trying to untangle the most worthy teams with such varied schedules, some playing in the fall or both spring and fall, and different numbers of games.

For what it’s worth Sagarin, which correctly predicted our Weber game to be a five point loss, has us as the second best team in the Big,Sky if you limit the list to those playing this spring, just slightly better than Eastern. They think we’re favored over Poly by between 15 and 18 points.

Wildcat has so far been just a rumor as they’ve only had one direct snap run in two games, and Gilliam took it.
Personally I’m curious what Tompkins can do, not so much out of the wildcat formation but with the same plays where we see Rodrigues run, assuming Tompkins can be a credible passer as well.

JT O’Sullivan endorses the use of gloves by QBs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgXIOT7JpnM

We don’t know if Tompkins is one of those guys who throws wearing gloves. He’s been reported as unusual in that he doesn’t need the laces on his fingers to throw, so maybe gloves don’t hinder him.
He has been in for four plays, only one of which could be called a wildcat, and he wasn’t the guy who got the direct snap, so he’s never been the wildcat QB so far., he wasn’t a QB on the play.

. CJ Hutton got four carries in this game and hardly appeared in Idaho game. Crawford and Babb also got carries. It worked ok initially although we had the one play where Hutton’s timing crossing in front of the QB contributed to a mishandled snap. But it was essentially his first game. I hope they keep using it with those three getting the ball occasionally. We gained 33 yards on seven carries with those guys, although some of those may not have had the fly action.

Those are meaningful stats
We had bad field position to start a lot of drives., as you point out 5 punts inside the 20, and the initial kickoff where we started on the 3 yard line.

18 QB rushes and just one catch by Harrell, Vaughn, and Castles show they were able to take away, or we abandoned what is usually a big part of our attack. Our offense relied a lot more on runs by slot backs and the quarterback than we usually see. Maybe that’s by choice or maybe the usual guys weren’t open.

What’s the story with Nick Eaton? 2nd start with no tackles according to the stats. This position switch isn’t working out.

No one saw the penalty. We’ve had three penalties one the tick tak holding on Babb in the first half that have been very devastatingly timed

Too many QB runs in a possession.
Our best drives were early not much happening of late on offense.

coaches only speak highly of opponents before the game

Not disputing any thing you said. Money was a factor but also we could recruit better as a D2 team with a perennial winning record, than we could as a transition team not eligible for the playoffs, or a team playing in an unknown conference against very good football teams like North Dakota State and South Dakota State etc.. It’s more fun being 9-2 than 6-5 or 5-6. And we didn’t get any more publicity being D1A than we did as D2.

Weber didn’t seem as physically dominant against Idaho State as they’ve looked against us in the past, or than they were against Idaho State last year, judging by last years box score. Weber had some mismatches against inexperienced cornerbacks that they used to break open the game in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, after which I stopped watching. We have more experience than ISU among our defensive backs so their freshman QB may have a tougher time.
Anyway, maybe we’ll be more competitive this year.