Thanks Dr. Mike I was getting depressed.

It does seem that we have reverted back to our condition a couple of years prior to Biggs' departure where we had an almost total inability to run the ball. At the time the offensive line coach, who is still with us, said something along the line that we had so many plays where the offensive linemen moved laterally that they lost proficiency at just plan down the field run blocking. To get some run effectiveness Biggs added a fullback and also experimented with the wildcat. But now we seem pretty poor, generalizing from this game. The fly sweep plays seem to be inherently vulnerable to defensive penetration.
I really was expecting that we would be good in the red zone this year because of our coaches, but nothing worked yesterday. I think we need to figure out how to run the ball again.

Trout!

even partial scholarships add up. Can't sustain 30 NLI recruits, that has to eat into following class. We've historically brought in less 15

The polls are ridiculous The voters are not knowledgeable about teams outside their local area or at best the league their local team plays in. The computer rankings are at least unbiased. We should be happy that we move up in them. There are 50 or 60 teams between where we rank and where SD ranks, on the other hand we are adjacent to Weber state.

Anyone know how many scholarships are available?! Did we use too many bringing in 30 plus commits this year?

Tehran was a HS qb, passed for quite a few yards, perhaps a possibility for wildcat or trick plays sometime down the line

Lots oflocal bias in that list, and its just a reflection of how they looked so far this year.
I think people touting weber base it all on the Cal game. Cal is not as good as San Diego State.
We had some moments in the SDSU game but did not put up the yardage Weber did against Cal. But what does that mean? Not much. PSU was even better against OSU and that foretold nothing.
Cal apparently couldn't get pressure on qb. That's worrisome. But they won't surprise us as they did Cal.
Our FCS record of wins over San Diego and Portland State is is much more impressive than their win over sac state. Montana- western doesn't count.

Its funny to me how the Great West conference alumni have outperformed most the FCS powers. How would you like to compete in a conference with southern Utah, both north Dakotas , both south Dakotas cal poly and Davis.

Creighton's responsibilities seem to have grown under Hawkins. He's the special teams coach in addition to tight ends and I assume he still has a big part in recruiting. Good that he was retained.

Tehran would have been very impressive as a triple jump standout weighing 230#

A good year would be to go 5-3 against big sky teams, counting Portland State game. Bonus points if the wins include Sac and Cal Poly. I'd like to see us get a new victim who we haven't beat recently or ever. Like Eastern Washington.

Ron Gould's method is appropriate if you have the talent for it. Think of Woody Hayes if you are old enough. Ohio state could win almost always over less talented teams. But their style precluded winning against a more talented team, like In the Rose Bowl. You have to be multidimensional to pull of an upset. Also need luck and if you don't take chances you don't leave room for luck.
Gould had the perspective of a position coach where proper technique was the way to succeed, I think he assumed if you took care of the ball and avoided penalties you would win your share. So we won time of possession, Opposing coaches praised our ability to line up correctly. We weren't heavily penalized etc, But strategy was limited, Gould did not find a way to utilize good athletes on the team like Turay or Silvera. At this level you need to find ways to use your talent.

The best argument that this game is the game of the week is that no one knows who's going to win. If there is a favorite here it's because you are at home. It seems you have a solid team; would you say they played conservatively after getting the big lead last week?
I kind of assume everyone should hammer Sac State. To your teams credit they were able to stage a long drive near the end of the game to put it away.

Not much in their record this year that seems impressive. Against sac they had less than 300 yards of offense, and had low gain per carry and short completions. Perhaps they just played really conservative as they got a quick lead due to a trick play and a blocked punt. Almost saw their lead slip away. Seem to have little faith in their field goal kicker, as they went for two on their early touchdowns. I think they have a freshman kicker.

Oldaggiw, I think the San Diego game can't be discounted. Pretty similar to playing an Ivy, they give aid to athletes. Sure we should be favored, but what does Cal Poly think about whether beating them means anything? Showed we could defend against a pretty good experienced qb. They scared me by how well they ran the ball between the tackles, so it wasn't like playing an out classed opponent.
We get a lot of recruits out of San Diego area, I think we should play San Diego regularly.
But you are right that we haven't beat a top notch FCS team yet. Im looking forward to pulling of an upset against a better team. I think we'll see that happen this year for the reason you state. We are not predictable and we give opponents more to prepare for.

I think Hawkins will stay if the job is rewarding in the sense of wins and progress toward building something. He's done the move up from Boise to Colorado, and I don't think he found that personally satisfying. At his age money starts to mean less, as he's already probably financially secure and his kids are raised. Just a guess, as I don't know the man. If he gets frustrated with the situation he's probably out of here. I think he's sincere in viewing Davis as a sleeping giant. We all know the challenges to that but there aren't many D1 bottom feeders that would offer a better opportunity.
In regards to comparisons with Joe Montana, being like Montana in an FCS setting is not the same as being Joe Montana in the NFL. I think we see what Hawkins is referring to; Maier looks like a winner in that he is cool under pressure, sees the field, and makes plays.

The computer rankings and predictions are in the main still influenced by where the teams were ranked prior to any games being played,. Our recent game performance is better than Weber's. Sagarin rankings have the two teams adjacent to each other. Weber predicted the winner based on one methodology and us favored via another ( offense-defense). Anyone's game. I wouldn't bet against us though. The coaching staff seems to know how to get touchdowns, and we have enough offensive talent for them to work with.

We are fortunate that we are good at wide receiver and qb, which are required for us to play our traditional aggie style. By which I mean a pass predominant style, which we always had except Gould era.

Also, I like our backs They don't have great stats but are versatile and have varied skills.
Defense again was tough when it counted.

In retrospect the game showed PSU had serious flaws, bad kicker, frosh qb who played like one. Slow punter. We on the other hand had no glaring deficiencies a good team all around.

Next week is anybody's game, which is the way I think the season will be. We can play with these teams now.

The Big Sky isn't that tough, we've just happened to be bad since we joined. Evidence for that is our record against Big Sky teams before we joined, and look at the sagarin ratings of the teams all clustered around mediocrity. I think we will win games here and there and be competitive in most games in conference.

I see we have an American studies major, and a Native American studies major as well! Not knocking those majors. My view is if a player majors in anything he wants and makes progress to a degree, good.
But I'm still curious if we have some obstacle to transfers; because we get hardly any, except JC. I know it used to be hard or impossible to transfer from a JC without having completed 90 plus quarter units. I wonder if the same applies to transfers from other UC campuses. That would be dumb. It would be nice if the flow of players between davis and UCLA was not unidirectional. We lost a defensive end to them back around 2006 and this year a running back.