Khalani Riddick rated as the number 12 FCS safety, Rex Connors number 1.
Now it would be nice to know whether Riddick is playing safety here at Davis. Is he, Batson, or someone else going to start alongside Rex?
https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2025/8/15/football-rex-connors-named-top-returning-fcs-safety-by-hero-sports.aspx

The USC buyout of their game with Davis was in 2021. Played Tulsa instead. Ended up with an FBS win and a lot of money..

The FBS rule for neutral site games is 70 but I couldn’t find any FCS equivalent rule, and the usual rule is 58. Davis played about that number when they beat Tulsa, but I think the humidity is going to be higher in Birmingham, 70 percent humidity and 88 degrees for the day, don’t know what it will be at 7:00 PM.. .
Maybe there are specific rules for this game. It is an unusual situation.

Joe is mistaken, it didn’t take the Aggies years to have a winning record, they were 6-5 in 2005 and 2006

Head coach Jacobs played offensive line at Ohio state. Offensive coordinator Soto first college job was at Davis as a QC analyst under Gould, he then moved on to a small school as the o line coach. Those two have coached together at three schools. So with that background you would expect they like to run.
We know that Davis also only returned two starters on defense, so the teams are even there. Linebacker may be Mercer’s biggest question mark.

One of our tougher games this year. Mercer’s offense is largely intact from last year but strengthened with transfer offensive linemen. They lost a QB to Oklahoma but return the QB they started the year with prior to injury. They have veteran running backs one of who weighs about 230ln, and veteran receivers. We aren’t likely to have a very low scoring game. Can the Davis defense mesh with all the new personnel in the first game?
Game features Hero Sports #2 ranked defensive end Zock for Mercer and #5 defensive end Psyk for Davis.

i suspect he will and you will be sworn to secrecy.

Here is the report on the Secondary from the Davis Enterprise. The headline says Kicking Game Lineman Competitive but the article doesn’t mention linemen, just Ridley and the Secondary.

“Plough talked about the Aggies’ defense, in the secondary where several players are vying to playing time when opponents have the football. The bulk of the players on the 2024 UCD team graduated.

“It’s hard to single out one guy in that secondary,” Plough said.
The coach thanked his staff for building up the players to cover an opponents’ passing game and running backs who bust through an offensive line and are looking for room to run.

“Feels like we’ve gone out and got some great players,” Plough said.”

Then they talk about Rex. No other DB named.
It seems easier to get classified information than to get a non all-american player’s name from a newspaper covering camp.

Any hope for the traditional position preview series on the team site? It’s that time of year.

Why would UCD want to move a home game, potentially with playoff implications to a neutral site game more conveniently located for opposing teams fans? It would be inconvenient for students, Davis fans, vendors, and community businesses.

Especially since Sac is going to want home games, and FCS rule [limits travel squad for fcs games to 58. If they play an FBS team they can bring 70.

Nine conference games starting in 2026.

https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/townnews/game/big-sky-conference-moving-toward-9-game-league-schedule-for-football-in-2026/article_c13d60fa-3a07-514a-8e31-94d6ac564b94.html

Looks likely no Causeway game in 2026.
Davis has a full slate of out of conference games.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/uc-davis-sac-state-causeway-classic-football-in-jeopardy/

Now that camp has reached the time to install game plan for Mercer, they must have settled on a QB if Plough is to meet his objective of having a clear #1. He probably has.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is listening does it make a sound?.

Lets hope we play more guys on the line and at running back and go back to the win the 4th quarter success we had a few years ago.

Neat trick. Group “values” you don’t like and put a label on it explicitly tying those values to a racial group. Then you can stigmatize that group with the prepositioned defense that you were just talking about a bucket of “values”, not the group. A supplementary benefit of this approach is you can throw in things you don’t like like capitalism, punctuality, thinness, seemingly at random so no one really knows what you are talking about, and if they figure it out you can change the values so you remain a step ahead.

If it was an FBS team, like Tulsa, Oregon State, Washington etc, they could bring 70.
Against Cal or Stanford, because they bus, no limit. But against an FCS team 58.

It sounds unfair but no more so than every FCS road game. Bad rule in general, saves a trivial amount of money.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Davis gets to bring 58 players, and Mercer will likely bus and bring as many as they want. Mercer likely will not stay overnight for an afternoon game. If anyone knows different please reply.

Sac Bee writers article, link to Fairfield paper:
What can UC Davis do to build on 2024's incredible success

“This is the best we’ve been on the offensive line,” Plough said

But a theme of the article is the continuity of the Davis program for 50+ years,
“The cool part for me,” Plough said after a recent practice, “is that Coach Sochor used to tell me that he felt like I was the perfect guy to be a bridge to this generation. I have relationships and I have knowledge of what was, and it’s important that I educate players and make them a part of what we do here and to continue the things that we’ve done for a long time.”

Anyone know what the travel roster size is for FCS neutral site games? Is it 57 58 if the team flies or stays over night? FBS neutral site games have roster limits of 70, but apparently FCS doesn’t have a neutral site rule.
I don’t know Mercers travel plans, but according to the somewhat dated travel rules I have read if they bus to the game and don’t stay overnight they could bring the whole squad.

Did you make that trip to Davis last week and see anything worth noting?