The students running onto the field was really impressive and the fans loved it. Why not make that an Aggie football tradition. Let the Aggie Pack run onto the field before every game. The players loved the mob scene outside the tunnel and Maier made specific mention of how the big crowd motivated the team.

If anyone has some connections with the Athletic Department, how about suggesting this to them? I think it would be a great tradition along with the kids stampede that just makes everyone smile.

That's true. I know when moved our season tickets to section 120 this year there were quite a few seats already taken which I assumed were season ticket holders...more than what showed up last night.

Post-game interviews with Hawkins, Maier, Preece, Culberson and Doss:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/UCDavisFootball/posts/

UND limped into Aggie Stadium decimated with injuries and I think we need to keep that in mind when we look at the final score. Nevertheless, I thought the Aggie offense was really firing on all cylinders. Maier's quick release and accuracy was impressive and our receivers running were nice routes and they catch balls in traffic. I thought our RB's churned up some tough yards too and our O line did a good job protecting Maier. So the execution on offense was excellent overall.

You've got to love the open playbook on offense too. It's quick, creative and bold. What a breath of fresh air that is after what we've seen in the recent past!

We continue to give up the big play on the ground and we are vulnerable to getting burned on the deep passing routes. The D bent a whole lot but didn't break. We caught a break when they got that big pass called back on a hold and we got away with a face mask on a sack that forced a 3 and out.

We had a really nice pick by Culberson and another DB had very athletic leap to break up a potential TD pass at the goal line. We also dropped a pick six and another potential pick. So our DB's were getting themselves in position to make some plays on numerous occasions.

Overall, I think the D is a work in progress. Parenteau was in street clothes so there must still be some concerns about his concussion at Weber. The D needs to stay healthy and just keep getting a little better each week. They'll be severely tested next week against EWU.

It was a good win with a lot of positives especially after coming off the loss at Weber State.

The west stands had a lot of empty seats. We sit in section 120 and I think it was 40-45% full at best. So it seems to me that a lot of season ticket holders were missing.

I don't understand that. UND is scheduled become a member of the Missouri Valley Football Conference in 2020 so I guess they will be an independent until then. So how would a loss to them count as a conference loss...makes no sense...

The two teams combined for 1102 yards of offense: 651 for the Ags and 451 for the Fighting Hawks. We need to shore up the D because, if we don't, we're going to have to score 45-62 points to keep pace with a team like EWU.

This was the most fun my wife and I have had at Aggie Stadium in a long time. The announced crowd was 9500. The new UCD students ran onto the field before the start of the game and, I swear, they were coming out of the tunnel for 5 minutes...must have been several thousand!

Now if we can only get them to come back. I think we should have an Aggie Pack stampede every game...let the students lead the team onto the field.

Yes, Idaho joins next year...dropping down from FBS. So with ND leaving that will still leave us with an unwieldly 13 teams.

I haven't seen Parenteau. Really nice crowd and a big Aggie Pack

My wife and I will be there in section 121. Looks like the weather will be beautiful for a fall evening football game. I'm hoping for a great collegiate atmosphere.

Go Ags!!!

Bob Dunning takes the Ags by 7 over ND.

http://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/bobs-picks-lots-of-high-scoring-contests/

If you love college basketball it is worth your time to read the article I have linked below. It is a disturbing, eye-opening, hard hitting article by a journalist from the Indianapolis Star about how the staggering amount of money from athletic shoe companies is involved with the NCAA, colleges and college coaches and how that has led to rampant cheating:

Excerpt: "Abject greed has put college basketball where it is today. The naked and unseemly lust for the wrong kind of money led it here, into the middle of an FBI investigation, with several coaches under arrest and one legend defrocked and more of both, so much more, to come. More arrests. More defrocking. This is the comeuppance of college basketball, but the guilty parties are not just the seedy coaches, the greedy parents, the oily Adidas executive and the slithering agents.

College and university presidents are to blame, too. Because it is their abject greed, their naked and unseemly lust for the wrong kind of money, that let this happen.

By arresting an Adidas executive and laying bare a series of schemes that saw money gushing from a shoe company and into the hands of recruits and their families — with the trade-off being those recruits would play for the right school, sign with the right agent and wear the right sneaker — the FBI has confirmed that the NCAA doesn’t run NCAA basketball.

Shoe companies do."

http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/columnists/gregg-doyel/2017/09/28/ncaa-presidents-blame-college-basketball-scandal-fbi-rick-pitino-louisville/711098001/

They moved the location of last night's Bud Lite Coaches show to Tommy J's the Grill at Froggy's at 726 2nd Street. You can still view it on the UC Davis Football Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/UCDavisAggies

Excellent article about the inevitable problems of the multi-million dollar, college basketball industry being marketed as amateurism:

Excerpt: "Yes, laws were broken, and the coaches and shoe company executives involved should be punished. They abused the trust they’d earned from players to stuff their pockets.

Yet, what are we really talking about here?

Because the feds’ report charging Chuck Person (Auburn), Lamont Evans (Oklahoma State), Emanuel Richardson (Arizona), and Tony Bland (Southern Cal) with fraud and conspiracy can’t be surprising. Not because those four coaches already had raised our suspicion. But because they operate in a morally cloudy system.

And everyone knows it.

That’s what happens when a business is marketed as amateurism. A sleight-of-hand the NCAA has pulled off for decades.

Well, this week’s news may finally change that. The fallout could be seismic."

http://www.freep.com/story/sports/2017/09/27/college-basketball-scandal-louisville-rick-pitino-one-and-done/709273001/

Not really a laughing matter but that's funny!

Of course, the NCAA saw fit to bust UOP for some pretty small potatoes by comparison to scandals like the academic fraud at UNC which has still gone unpunished. But, hey, the FBI sent some heads rolling today and it looks like there's a lot more to come. I guess cheaters will be cheaters until the FBI busts them.

I hear ya, maybe someday when you feel like you have the means you'll be able to subscribe. Hopefully, all those years of study will pay nice dividends for you in the near future!

Please understand that I'm not making a judgement about bypassing the paywall of the Davis Enterprise, but I choose to pay for a digital subscription. All local newspapers throughout the country are struggling in the digital age and very small newspapers like the Enterprise are disappearing quickly.

I've read the Enterprise for free for years and I appreciate their coverage of local Davis news as well the writing of scribes like Bob Dunning. It's not cheap but I want to support them and I hope they won't go under like so many small town rags have.

Article about what the FBI investigation could eventually change in college basketball:

Excerpts: "As more schools are ensnared by this investigation, a more equitable future for college basketball could emerge, where major universities like Louisville, and the similarly implicated University of Arizona, have less of a stranglehold on the sport as they lose the ability to throw around cash. But it’s not just the schools that are now on notice. So too are corrupt AAU coaches, self-interested financial advisers, and multinational apparel companies with a stake in all of it."

"While the game has months of bad headlines ahead of it, if this is the end of what acting U.S. attorney Kim called the “dark underbelly of college basketball,” then it’s a good thing. And if it leads the NCAA to try to stamp out opportunities for bribery by ending the farce of forced amateurism, then it’s even better."

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/explaining-the-fbis-college-basketball-investigation.html

The downfall of Rick Pitino:

https://www.aseaofblue.com/2017/9/27/16371900/rick-pitino-louisville-cardinals-kentucky-wildcats