“Life’s going to remind you that it’s not about perfection,” Hawkins said of the unexpected loss. “I’ve had a number of championship teams in my career, but I’ve never had an undefeated season. We’re still a work in progress.”

For his part, Idaho State head coach Rob Phenicie, whose team is now 1-4 overall and 1-2 in the Big Sky, said, “We got a monkey off our back. We were 0-5 against UC Davis.”

Phenicie sensed an upset was possible by the way his team practiced all week.

“Our kids talked the talk on Monday and they walked the walk today. It was cool,” he noted shortly after the final gun sounded. “I was expecting we’d have to score a lot of points to win this game. Davis has a really good offense and a great system. But we had a great game plan and getting those three turnovers really helped.”

The Aggies had an uncharacteristic three interceptions in the game, including several that killed promising drives.

Noted Hawkins, “I always say that whoever wins the turnover battle is likely to win the game. Two of those interceptions
came in the red area, so that really hurt us.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/no-surprise-aggies-tumble-in-poll/?utm_source=DE&utm_campaign=bd5d4f53c7-Daily_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_be64fee185-bd5d4f53c7-171004309

I agree, Mike. I thought HR looked good in the second half especially when we started playing up tempo with fast snaps. I think he's got the most solid skills all around run and pass and is the most experienced.

The average of the 7 polls above is #13 which I think is about where we belong at the time. We need a couple of decisive wins in the next 2 games coupled with some loses above us in order to move up.

The Stats FCS Poll has us down 6 spots to #13.

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/football/fcs/stats-perform-fcs-top-25

The folks over at AGS have the Ags down 8 spots to #14 and voted us as having the most significant loss of the week.



https://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?283041-AGS-Poll-Results-Week-6-2021

Hero Sports has us at #13.

https://herosports.com/fcs-football-top-25-herder-ballot-2021-6-bzbz/

The Aggies are down 4 spots to #12 in the FCS Coaches Poll.




https://www.afca.com/fcs-poll-southern-illinois-jumps-to-no-4-after-comeback-win/

Ags drop 9 spots to #14 in the college footballpoll.com rankings.

https://www.collegefootballpoll.com/fcs/rankings/

The Ags drop 6 spots to #12 in the College Sports Madness Poll.




https://www.collegesportsmadness.com/fcs-football/top-25-rankings

Most folks thought that ISU would be a cake walk since we were #7 and 5-0 and they were unranked and 0-4. They came mentally prepared and excited to pull an upset. On the other hand, we came came in expecting an easy game, played uninspired in the first half, made mistakes and dug a hole we couldn't get out of.

I hope we come into this game with a bad taste in our mouths and fired up to make a statement.

We've had a great student turnout in the first two home games primarily due to both games having a student stampede. Will the students return for Saturday's game without a stampede? I hate to say it but, if we look at the recent history of student attendance, it's highly unlikely that many will return.

This is pure speculation but, with this glaring loss, I would think we would need to run the table to be a lock in the playoffs. If we lose respectively to EWU and win the all of the other games, we could make the field but probably not be a first round host.

Lots of football to be played and we simply need to take care of business week by week though.

A lot of speculation and "ifs" for sure. Sometimes big risks pay big rewards. Las Vegas makes a killing off of people buying into that mindset and, consequently, the vast majority of people go home empty handed. I just don't think the risk in this instance was worth taking.

Give credit to ISU. They had everything to gain and nothing to lose and they were mentally prepared to play and they really took it to us in the first half. Unfortunately, for the Aggies, this is a bad loss. Although several Top 10 teams lost this week, none lost to an 0-4 team who many felt was bringing up the bottom of the Big Sky and playing without their starting QB.

There's a lot of football yet to be played and the Big Sky is generally a dogfight each year. We may see more upsets or EWU may run away with it. A loss like this can carry a lot of negative weight if we are in a tight race for a playoff position at the end of the season. We'll need some impressive wins going forward to offset this loss.

I thought that going for it on 4th and 17 was a bad decision. The odds of us getting a first down were not good at all given how stagnant the offense had been up to that point.

TT was in at QB and passing has not been his forte from what we have seen from him. He's made remarkable plays with his legs but we have not seen sharp passing from him other than short strikes. The ISU defense was playing well and now they could play to contain and keep the play underneath while focusing on preventing a big gainer.

I'm sure, of course, that Hawk thought his defense could keep them from scoring with so little time left if we failed to convert but that didn't happen. As a result, ISU went into the half with a 3 score lead instead of 2 along with a huge confidence boost and all the momentum while we looked shellshocked. Being down 3 scores at halftime 24-3 at vs being down 2 scores at halftime 17-3 is huge.

Sometimes a coach needs to be a riverboat gambler and go all in when playing to win but, considering how ISU had dominated the first half, the risk of going for the 4th and 17 was not a smart risk to take. It would have been much better to kick the ball deep, go into locker room down 17-3 and use the halftime to regroup. It was the decisive turning point of the game, in my opinion, and, although we played better in the second half, we never really recovered.

“Mama told me there’d be days like this, but she never told me it would be today,” said Aggie head coach Dan Hawkins afterward.

“Give credit to Idaho State. They’ve been kicked around a little bit, but they outplayed us and they outcoached us. They deserved to win today.”

Idaho State head coach Rob Phenicie, who has been heartbreakingly close to beating the Aggies on two occasions in recent years, could hardly control his joy.

“Any time you can beat a Dan Hawkins coached team, you’ve accomplished something,” said the ISU coach. “He’s one of the greatest coaches around.”

Noted Hawkins: “We’re still a work in progress. It clearly was not our best game, but despite so many setbacks, our guys hung in there until the end. But again, all the credit goes to Idaho State. They had a great game plan and they executed it all afternoon.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/bengals-upset-aggies/

NDSU 34 Northern Iowa 20 Final
Villanova 28 James Madison 27 Final
South Dakota 20 North Dakota 13 Final
Southern Illinois 42 South Dakota State 41 OT/Final
EWU 63 Northern Colorado 17 Final
Montana 31 Dixie State 14 Final
Montana State 45 Cal Poly 7 Final
Idaho 35 Portland State 14 11:19 Q3
Southern Utah at Sac State 6pm

We're on track to give up over 500 yards...