Not an expert by any means but I think it could matter. We'd absolutely be on the bubble with a loss so every part of your resume comes into play here. We've seen it happen at the FBS level for the 4th spot in the playoff where Ohio State got left out of the playoff in part because their one loss was by 29 to a 6-6 Purdue team while Oklahoma lost by 3 to a 9-4 Texas team. Not to mention that it will be the most recent result the committee sees. If UCD loses by a FG to an undefeated Sac that the committee is going to give a top-3 seed, to go along with two other close losses to two other likely seeds, it's going to look much better than losing by 30.

Maybe we're in no matter what already. Maybe any loss to Sac and we're out no matter what. It would probably be valuable to check out one of those FCS boards where people follow it more closely. If the season ended now, I think we'd be in the playoffs.

To piggyback off of movie's response a bit.

If we beat Sac, we're in for sure. I would bet literally anything in the world on that. Additionally - and we'll get a better idea this week when the polls come out - if we beat Sac I think we get a home game in the first round (though no bye). All you have to be is top-16 and you get a home game. Take it FWIW, but Sagarin has us as the 6th best FCS team. Massey has us 13th. Bill Connelly's SP+ has us 11th. If we beat a top-3 (by the computers and polls) team regardless of how ugly it is, we're moving up.

Live movie said, we're in a top-2 conference, we've hammered every bad team we've played, we just beat a ranked team on the road fairly easily and our only losses were to FBS, #1, #3, #7. Plus we'd be riding a 6 game win streak capped off by beating an undefeated team.

A loss and I think it depends in part on how we lose. If we get blown out it becomes tougher. But a close loss and our only bad loss was by 17 to Montana State which isn't even that bad of a loss. We were within a TD with 6 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. Northern Iowa got in at 6-5 last year. They had one bad loss to a 4-7 team in OT but otherwise only lost to playoff teams. However, they had three wins over playoff teams including 2 on the road. 2018 Northern Iowa probably had a worse resume than we would this year with two losses to sub-.500 teams though they did beat South Dakota St by 15.

So to summarize, win and we're in for sure, maybe with a home game. Lose and we sweat it out.

In all likelihood this is a playoff play in game for us.
It's also a rivalry game.
Where our rival is undefeated.

LET'S EFFING GO!

They seem to be a solid team (going based on results). Before today they'd lost to 6-4 Wash St by 7, 3-7 Indiana by 13 and an undefeated Sac by 3 on the road. Also won at Montana. Missed Montana St and Weber but all you can do is play your schedule and they've played their schedule pretty well this year.

Like you said, this was a good win for us. We put up 44 on them and the most they'd given up before today was 35.

Yeah, there's been too many times when a coach has said some form of the "I'm happy here and I'm not leaving" only to then leave that there's no point in believing them.

Now, could Taylor be telling the truth? Sure. But only time will tell on that.

Go on the road on comfortably beat a top-15 team? That’s a “we want to make the playoffs” type win right there. Beat Sac and we’re in for sure. A close loss and then I have no idea.

I think Eastern Washington is bad this year.

I know. I’m really going out on a limb with that one.

Admittedly I forgot about the ending to the 2021 season.

I agree we need to start winning tough / big games. — movielover

It's definitely a frustrating spot to be in. On one hand, it's good that we're not getting hammered by the good teams and are generally in these games late. And it's definitely good that we're handling our business against bad teams. Shows that just because the opponent isn't a quality one, that we're not overlooking them. So you could say we're up for every game and not really having any letdown or look ahead games.

But on the other hand, when you're getting so close, you want to get over the hump. And for the most part, we haven't been able to do so.

LOL. I missed that part in my post. Like you can't just remove a guy's best season like that. The season happened. And even though it's better than what we've done in his other seasons, the schedule was partly the reason for that. We missed Weber and Montana State (2 of the other 3 Big Sky playoff teams) and we also got a 1-11 San Jose State team.

You can only beat who is on your schedule, for good or for bad. We were a minute away from hosting an FCS Semifinal game that year.

That's true. We would also have beaten Sac State when Montana lost to them though. I don't know exactly what the committee values. Assuming we split the two games, we'd have a better conference record than Montana (unless they beat Montana St) and unless Idaho loses to Idaho State, we'd have a worse conference record than they would. And if Montana beats EWU, we'd have worse overall record than both Idaho and Montana. At least in Montana's case, that's due to us playing an FBS team while they didn't.

So maybe beating Idaho would give us the nod if the committee is debating us vs. Idaho.

Boy was that article a disaster. I mean, Hawkins isn't perfect but that article was not great.

-He acts as if it's a criticism of Hawkins that Hawkins won with Gould's players. It is a criticism of Gould that he couldn't get it done with those players. The fact that Hawkins took a team that was a combined 7-26 over the previous 3 years and led them to a 10-3 record, a co-conference championship, a playoff bye and a playoff win in just his second year with a bunch of players he didn't recruit is remarkable. Even in his first year the Aggies were only 5-6 but their losses were to a 10-3 FBS team, 3 FCS playoff teams and 2 teams that went 7-4 (the top 5 teams in the Big Sky).

-He seems to value beating Sac State a bit too much. He mentions that Gould's only saving grace was beating Sac 3 times in 4 seasons. Personally, I'd rather be a solid team that makes the playoffs but loses to it's rival than a bad team that goes 3-8 with one of those wins over it's rival. Ideally we'd be both better than Sac and a good team. But if I'm picking one, give me the good team.

-Obviously he either can't count or doesn't know what constitutes a winning record, as was covered above. We've had winning record in 3 of 5 seasons. And as I covered above (about 2017) and in another thread (about 2019), we literally only lost to good teams those years. I know eventually we've got to start beating good teams but a 5-7 team with losses to either FBS teams or FCS playoff teams doesn't mean we're a bad team.

-He mentions that Idaho can hang it's hat on beating Montana and losing by just 3 points to Sac this year but then with us says that narrow losses to SDSt and Weber are noteworthy but there are no brownie points. Just mention Idaho beating Montana then. But if you're going to give Idaho brownie points for losing to Sac, do the same to us. Also, while yes, wins and losses do matter, there's a difference between playing good teams tough and getting hammered by them. It doesn't have to be black and white. When we're talking about where we are as a program and how close we are to being where we want to be, how you're faring against good teams absolutely matters.

-He says no coaches voted for us in the latest poll when in reality we got 3 votes (reading is hard!).

-He says 17 of Hawkins's 36 wins at UCD were against Poly, Idaho St, NAU and Northern Colorado but then only cites the combined record of those teams this year. Doesn't make sense. Those teams weren't awful every single year. And even if they were, there's something to be said for not laying an egg and losing to a bad team. Unless I'm missing one, we've got one bad loss (2021 to Idaho State) in his 5 years.

-Says Taylor has raised the bar too far out of Hawkins's reach. Before I admit that, I'd like him to answer which coach has more playoff wins at his current school? I mean, that metric is as good as any other he put forth in his article.

-He also seems particularly hung up on what realistically can be considered nothing more than a comment by a coach excited about his team during the preseason.

Like I said, Hawkins isn't perfect. But this is nothing more than a hit piece from a dude who appears to have an ax to grind with Hawkins.

Reminds me of our 2019 schedule. By the final rankings we faced #1, #3, #4, #6 and #9 plus played at Cal and at North Dakota (7-5 but made the playoffs). Teams 1, 3 and 4 were three of the four semifinalists in the playoffs that year too.

Absolutely. If we go 7-4, we'd have wins over a top-25 team (on the road) plus a top-10 team (maybe still top-5 for Sac depending on other results). We'd also have losses to an FBS team and three losses to top-10 FCS teams (two of which were close).

I don't have the time to spend looking at all of FCS, but I wouldn't be shocked if we get in going 6-5 where the loss is a close one. I think this would be more likely to happen if we lose close on the road at Idaho but beat Sac since that's a signature win.

We definitely want Sac to win out before playing us. The better that win looks the better. I suppose if you just want to ruin Sac's undefeated season, them losing by a FG at Weber won't affect their ranking much and therefore won't diminish how a UCD win over them appears come playoff time (if we're in that discussion).

By seeded do you mean top-8 (a bye and a home game) or just top-16 (just a home game)? Because I don't think there's any chance we get top-8, and those are the only seeded teams. Weber, Montana State, Sac, South Datoka State and North Dakota State are all above us barring some ridiculous results. So are Incarnate Word and Holy Cross. At least one of the CAA teams will probably rise up too. That's 8 right there.

Did Sac's QB get hurt? Only 8-19 passing for 92 yards in the game and the backup QB has 26 carries.

Sure. Montana nearly beat them with their backup QB playing most of the game. Weber and Montana State could beat them. NDSt and SDSt could beat them. In all likelihood, they'll have to beat at least two of these teams in the playoffs to win the title. And they play at Weber in a couple weeks.

That's a pure film study call. You see a team repeatedly start to cheat backwards on a return and you file that away in case you need it at a perfect time.

Much different stakes but Alabama did that against Clemson in the first title game between the two. Noticed that Clemson was lining up a certain way every time and they could exploit it.

Heck of an onside kick call by Sac when they were down 7 too which helped them come back.