I can't imagine that there's a football player anywhere that wouldn't want to play for a coach like Hawk. As fans, we often fluctuate up and down with our emotions and evaluations of how the team is playing. Hawk just tries to keep the team focused on learning from the previous game, getting better and moving on to the next opponent. No tantrums and blame. He looks for the positives and just as he says, "We just want to be the best version of ourselves that we can be." Awesome...

Ags fall out of the Top 25 in the AGS Poll

Rank Team: Total Points First Place Votes

1 North Dakota State Bison 2194 86
2 James Madison Dukes 2076 1
3 South Dakota State Jackrabbits 2027 1
4 Weber State Wildcats 1841
5 Villanova Wildcats 1835
6 Montana Grizzlies 1742
7 Montana State Bobcats 1646
8 Furman Paladins 1579
9 Northern Iowa Panthers 1435
10 Towson Tigers 1362
11 Nicholls State Colonels 1250
12 Kennesaw State Owls 1248
13 North Carolina A&T Aggies 925
14 Youngstown State Penguins 850
15 Illinois State Redbirds 847
16 Central Arkansas Bears 792
17 Stony Brook Seawolves 696
18 Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens 671
19 Maine Black Bears 516
20 Princeton Tigers 489
21 Southeastern Louisiana Lions 364
22 Sac State Hornets 354
23 Austin Peay Governors 302
24 Dartmouth Big Green 271
25 Southeast Missouri State Redhawks 266

ORV:
26 Jacksonville State Gamecocks 191
27 North Dakota Fighting Hawks 172
28 Sam Houston State Bearkats 152
29 UC Davis Aggies 147
30 Yale Bulldogs 98
31 Central Connecticut State Blue Devils 62
32 South Carolina State Bulldogs 39
33 Wofford Terriers 30
34 New Hampshire Wildcats 29
35 Houston Baptist Huskies 17
36 McNeese State Cowboys 15
37 Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles 14
38T Chattanooga Mocs 11
38T San Diego Toreros 11
40 Elon Phoenix 8

Most Significant Win: Nicholls State Colonels
Most Significant Loss: UC Davis Aggies

I think maybe a lot of us were seeing through rose tinted lenses after the quick turnaround by Hawkins and last year's success. Gould had a great eye for talent and was an excellent recruiter and you make a good point about how Hawkins has been able to utilize that talent. My question, then, is whether Hawkins has been able to recruit as well as Gould given our struggles this year? Is he bringing in the level of talent that Gould was able to land? Or, has our talent level slipped and, even with better coaching, and we just don't have the "Gould level" of talent to be able to execute this year?

Sac State 48 EWU 27

Sac has taken a giant step forward in their program this year and we've gone in the opposite direction...who would have thought that. We have obviously been overrated all season so far due to our success last year. Very disappointing...

I’m heading out to do another hike...really can’t take much more of this...

I just checked in on the game after a big hike in Nova Scotia...wow...what is going on with this team?!!!

I'm going to try and keep updated from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Will be hiking this morning...44 degrees and windy...hope we stay dry! Post up often and Go Ags!

Nice find. Rening had 17 carries for 305 yards in that game...wow...

Was that definitely classified as a tornado? It looked very unorganized without much circular rotation. It looked more like a big dust devil to me...

I found this over on the Big West Basketball Boards Forum:

Blue Ribbon, the most in depth publication out there regarding Big West basketball, released it's PDF version this week. Here's how they see the conference shaping up:

1. Santa Barbara
2. Irvine
3. Northridge
4. Hawai'i
5. Fullerton
6. Long Beach
7. Riverside
8. Davis
9. Cal Poly

All Conference Team: Sow, Diane, Leonard, Heidegger, and Gomez. POY: Diane. NOY: Kamga
Top 3 Backcourts: Santa Barbara, Northridge, and Irvine
Top 3 Frontcourts: Northridge, Irvine, and Santa Barbara

Definitely a clear cut top 3 in the league with a battle for the rest of the slots. Even Cal Poly who is a consensus last place pick has some decent talent coming in. Jamal Smith (3.3 ppg. 2.4 rpg at Fullerton), Nolan Taylor (8.9 ppg, 4.0 rpg at Pepperdine), Keith Smith (7.1 ppg, 3.1 apg at VMI), and Malek Harwell (2.2 ppg, 0.7 rpg at Boise St) all are coming in with D1 experience. Smith and Harwell are grad transfers.

Dropped to #14 in the AGS Poll:

Rank Team: Total Points First Place Votes

1 North Dakota State Bison 2210 80
2 James Madison Dukes 2119 6
3 South Dakota State Jackrabbits 2049 3
4 Weber State Wildcats 1860
5 Villanova Wildcats 1839
6 Montana State Bobcats 1658
7 Montana Grizzlies 1591
8 Furman Paladins 1445
9 Central Arkansas Bears 1305
10 Towson Tigers 1292
11 Illinois State Redbirds 1283
12 Northern Iowa Panthers 1261
13 Kennesaw State Owls 1240
14 UC Davis Aggies 1142
15 Youngstown State Penguins 972
16 Southeastern Louisiana Lions 960
17 Nicholls State Colonels 779
18 North Carolina A&T Aggies 706
19 Maine Black Bears 492
20 Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens 453
21 Stony Brook Seawolves 439
22 Princeton Tigers 349
23 Eastern Washington Eagles 205
24 Austin Peay Governors 184
25 Elon Phoenix 132

My thoughts exactly. Right now I have many more doubts than confidence in the ability of this team so far. It appears that we have fallen off quite a bit from last year and I'm not sure why since we returned a lot of talent.

Very true.

I wouldn't be surprised to see us drop out of the Top 10 in the FCS polls. I'm hoping that this was just an all-around bad day for the Aggies and a very good day for the Griz. I'm worried, though, Montana exposed a lot of cracks in our armor.

Hawk was creative in describing why we got beat: "out-played, out-executed, out-energied, out-desired and out-everthinged." Saying that this would be "a good lesson" for the team is about the only thing he could find to say that wasn't completely negative.

Time to put this game behind us, regroup and see if they can begin to turn things around at North Dakota.

Official attendance: 10,011

It's going to be really tough. We have some glaring weaknesses at the moment:

1) We have not be able to rush the ball consistently and effectively
2) We have not been able to protect Maier and give him time
3) We have not been able to establish a good pass rush
4) We have not been able establish a deep pass threat

Northern Colorado 27 Idaho 24
Idaho State 51 Portland State 24
EWU 35 North Dakota 20
MSU 49 NAU 31

The students might have been louder if they had something to cheer about. This was a total beatdown by the Griz. We were never really in the game. Honestly, I think we were outplayed and out-coached today. To play this poorly with a good crowd and lots of students is extremely disappointing to say the least.

Unfortunately, you can say goodbye to most of the students for the next home game after what they saw today. We may have been ranked #4 or 5 going into this game but we didn't even play like a team that should be in the top 20. We will drop like a stone in the rankings and deservedly so after getting dominated like this.