Completely agree with the comments on the offense. The staff's ability to identify and recruit perimeter players has been really impressive. In the backfield, Gilliam, as a freshman coming off his redshirt year, was able to do things in space that really hadn't been done before by a Davis back versus top level FCS competition. But as often said, the most challenging positions to evaluate are up front. For Hawkins & Co to take the next step they need to generate pressure without bringing 5 or 6 guys and it doesn't seem like that was addressed in this recruiting cycle or last. The return of the lineman from Concord may help, but the only consistent pressure last season came from Moe and Baumgart and they're gone.

Another year of seasoning, De'Andre Morgan, Cade Peacock, Wilson, Hunkin, Suani ... we also lost some key players, including 4-year man Parenteau ... we also have some youngsters redshirting who are chomping on the bit.

Room for a JC sackman?

If a goal is to get bigger on the d line that isn’t reflected in this year’s recruits. Maybe that’s not a goal, as not only did we not recruit any defensive tackle nose guard types, we apparently didn’t offer any.

I'm honestly kind of surprised how low HERO Sports ranked our recruiting class... #48 in FCS. I feel like by the time these classes are getting significant playing time we'll be much better than that.

https://herosports.com/fcs/football-2019-recruiting-top-50-fcs-teams-rankings-ajaj

They have a rating system that counts the number of offers your recruits have. Since each recruit has at least one, the more recruits the higher the ranking. We only had 15 recruits, a lower number than most others.

Oh I agree 100%. I'm looking at the recruits we landed and I think they will do very well in Hawk's system.

Apparently, NAU just killed it.

The Big Sky teams ranked ahead of UCD have 24-32 signees. I don’t see how a program can sustain that while scholarships are limited to 63 scholarships, unless they have a lot of player turnover. Since most players are around for five years how can you sign 32 in a class like Montana State did??

Didn't UC Davis have a ridiculously large class in Hawkins' first year?

yes they did but maybe that was due to players leaving and some undersized classes prior? Also I think the Hero list is NLI signees, whereas our big class had some walkons
I think huge signing classes indicate a bad program. If you can only have 63 full scholarships distributed over 85 players how do you give 32 to high school kids?

Programs that had large signing classes will rank higher. Also it only included high school players. Cal Poly had a small class of 15 players and of those 5 were Juco transfers and 1 was a FBS transfer so Hero Sports only counted 9 players for a team like Cal Poly.

A program can have a maximum number of scholarship recipients of 85, if some are partial. Since a large percentage redshirt at some point, those 85 scholarships have to be distributed over five years of recruits. That implies 17 freshmen per class plus whatever the attrition level is, as the sustainable number of NLI signees, assuming some are partial.
This is further reduced if walkons from prior years earn scholarships as is usually expected. If teams hand out a lot of scholarships to transfers it can be higher as those guys are soon gone.
So, bottom line, celebrating huge signing classes is misplaced. It’s better to bring in a moderate number of real quality guys.

On a good note, I get to spend quite a few days on campus this Spring, so I'll be checking out practices/scrimmages on a much more frequent basis.

All project related of course.

‘Spring’ starts tomorrow, you know?

According to 24/7sports we have the number 1 recruiting class in the Great West
https://247sports.com/Season/2019-Football/CompositeTeamRankings/?Conference=G-West
If we hypothetically had been in the big sky, we would have been fourth, behind Portland State Eastern Wash and Idaho. This is based on their rankings of the players according to number of 2 and 3 star players

Our first week is 2/25 - so, should be in prime zone.

Walk on offensive lineman Luis Arroyo of Vintage High in Napa:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/napavalleyregister.com/sports/bay_area_college_sports/vintage-high-s-luis-arroyo-to-continue-in-football-at/article_036a995e-f5b8-5434-b595-89aee9799f2d.amp.html

“As I told coach Hawkins and coach Speckman who recruited him, this is a kid that you’re going to fall in love with,” Leach said. “His work ethic is second to none. The environment that he brings to the weight room is second to none.

“Once he gets there, I have a feeling that he’s going to excel and put himself in a position to become a starter and leader on that team. The attitude that he brings to a team atmosphere, it’s inspiring and it makes it fun to go to work every day.”

6'3", 265, PWO.

Sounds legit
“There was no doubt that when yards were on the line, the Crushers were running behind Luis Arroyo,” said head coach Dylan Leach. “In addition, Luis was an absolute beast at nose guard on the defensive line. His ability to read the play from a flex position is the best I have had in my 19-year coaching career, and that led him to the play on a regular basis. Luis also commanded double teams regularly, which allowed our linebackers to excel.”
Just goes to show how good you have to be to get a scholarship

Play him at Nose?

This kid sounds like a great get for the Aggies and a perfect fit with his academics and hard work ethic.

Evan Williams made his commitment to Fresno State yesterday.

Hopefully he enjoys his time in... Fresno...

Probably getting worse. And no bullet train.

This year it seemed that during the second signing period that they were major competition. They offer two of the three items in Davis’ sales pitch, good football and stay in California.

I'm well aware haha... it takes a special kind of person to willingly chose to live there.

While asking a clerk what's the best thing to do in town on a Saturday night after the @ Fresno game in 2009 her reply was, "You just did it."

A Fresno citizen told me - go to SLO or Yosemite.

A friend went to a game there a few years back and was in the ticket line. Two big guys showed up behind him and he said “you guys must have played some ball back in the day.” They replied “no, we just got out of prison and were meeting some of our old friends here at the game”. Well, it was better than them going to a shooting range for fun, but friend was not real comfortable with these guys around. He was not a Fresno fan either.

The most notable street gang in Fresno is known as the “bulldogs.” No lie.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno_Bulldogs