I think everyone knows quite well that when Sac State sucks in any sport they can always find a way to beat the Aggies, and then resume sucking thereafter. The exception is if the Aggies also suck at the time. Fear the unsatisfactory hornets.

The Pac-? needs some of those schools to join for a different reason, as they all sponsor baseball. Colorado St, Boise St, and Utah St do not, which leaves them with 4 teams otherwise. Of lesser importance I'm sure. Boise had a team for a minute in 2020.

Some former D-II championship players have coached there such as Kevin Nosek, Brandon Laird, and Jonathan Surface.

Hopefully they play more like Homer.

That's pretty ridiculous. Grand Canyon seems to have no idea what to do. They were NAIA, Division I, down to Division II, then they wanted to be NAIA again but couldn't because they weren't a non-profit entity. So back to D-II and then D-I again. I believe they were independent for awhile, then the WAC, the WCC and now the MWC maybe. Lunacy.

I don't really see the MWC being very lucrative for them because they don't have a football team. Their big sports seem to be men's bball and baseball.

How unusual that they were giving away High Wheelers gear at a UC Davis football game. At least they were promoting it.

They might be the Yolo High Wheelers of Oakland at this rate. Really doesn't make sense that they fired all the front office staff. Wherever they wind up they need front office people. You can't blame the ticket sales manager for poor attendance, as they had nothing to do with the lights problen. Like I said they really didn't do a good job researching + planning this. Yolo County is a pretty small market for baseball, better for football.

That's pretty harsh, but it's the reality of minor league baseball, especially independent ball. You live and die by your paid attendance. Independent ball failed in Sacramento and Vacaville previously.

So they were told the future of the team in Davis was in doubt-that wording seems to suggest they're consideing a new location in Northern CA. Chico could be a good landing spot. They had a team-the Chico Heat-that drew pretty well in the 00's It didn't so much fail as their league did. A bit far from Oakland but not as far as MT or ID. More likely they wind up at Cal or Laney.

I wonder if they will still fulfill their lights promise if they leave considering they were supposedly already purchased ? Unless they could get their money back.

Even if they stay in Davis somehow I just hate how they let down the community. They sold them a promise and failed to deliver. I'll probably have to change this username.

For a production that big I would have suggested skipping the player interviews. In a summary conference overview like this the coaches can easily handle it. If it were 11separate shows then sure, include the players and enrich the content this way. In the long format it's excessive.

Also, Im of the opinion that player interviews are more valuable during the season, when they can offer insight about the actual games they played in. That is the advantage of interviewing the players.

That sounds about 4 hours too long. I can't imagine being interested enough in Big West basketball to devote 6 hours to watching it. I guess just skip ahead to your favorite team. Thanks for locating the timepoints so we don't have to listen to Hawaii if we don't want to.

Yes, I would drop football rather than drastically increase its budget to move up to FBS. If it remains in FCS it can stay. How much does the program cost to run in order to bring in its portion of $5-6 million ? This is not a huge financial windfall; football just brings in more total dollars to help offset its expenses than the other sports. According to this article I just read the UCD athletics budget was approximately 39 million in FY 2023. 6 vs 39-football- doesn't pay for itself or other sports completely.

That's ridiculous that they told you to put a donation on a credit card. Greed over common sense.

The bank is closed here too. Athletics hits me up for donations 2-4 times a month. Nope. What's humorous is every year they come up with new names for their fundraising programs, but whether it's "Champions Achieve" or whatever it's just another way of saying "Give us Money". The only things new about their "exciting new programs" are the names.

To be honest I was very excited about the move to Division I in 2003 (when I was excited about the move), but now not so much. All it's really brought is more expenses across all sports, more losses (although some of the wins have been really big ones), and more annoying fake athletics administrative positions. At this point I'm closer to saying UCD should drop football and move to D 2 than advocating for any major upgrades for football. Or stay in D1 and just drop football and a couple underperforming programs. Use UCD Health Stadium as a multi-purpose facility (more than it already is).

Of course I'm an outsider so I have no right to tell them what to do with the money they rightfully took from others, willingly or not.. Therefore, that idea dies here on this board, just like the FBS crap should. Good for Sac State doing something. Not necessary to keep up with the Joneses. Wake me up if Sac State threatens UCD in quality of academics.

It's true that football brings in the most money, but it also costs the most. The program doesn't pay for itself, which is why they have to soak students and potential donors to keep it going. It's a slowly dying tradition of which we can't let go, but we can enjoy it while it's still around.

I have to agree with abridge and NCagalum on this. Students/donors are supposed to pony up tens of millions of dollars so UCD can have a mediocre FBS football team that a prospective employer may or may not recognize ?

I don't think the name recognition argument is as strong as it used to be when you could get a degree and find eager employers waiting for you.. Maybe if you're trying out for a professional sports team. A top business has an idea of what schools are producing the most successful graduates in that field. Sounds more like those prospective employers you mentioned didn't really keep up on what the top colleges for engineering were at the time. Seems more like a they problem.

In my experience an employer places much more weight on your experience in terms of what you can bring to them.

UCD needs to concentrate on its academic mission. If all the sports teams were to be cut your degree wouldn't be worth any less. It's ok to dream but this isn't that great of a path.

I wonder why they just gave up on the temp lights completely after that first game ? The lights they were using seemed to be working fine, but they didn't provide good coverage for the outfield. They couldn't have just brought in more lights ?

They didn't plan this too well. It would have been more sensible for them to play 2024 in a temporary venue with lights such as Sac State while working on the lights at Dobbins.

Perhaps they could've played at Laney College's field as is ? Or share the Oakland Ballers' venue. Sac State's park is small but it would have been full every night.

They got greedy and tried to play in Dobbins before it was ready for action. They blew a big opportunity to get people hooked. Opening night had a significantly bigger crowd than I've seen at even a free Picnic Day game. Now they have to re-engage the fans they lost due to poor planning ..

tailgate party.

Sac State is and always will be a commuter school so probably not much difference in student attendance. The deal with Golden 1 is probably temporary while they set up their new arena, which I think was supposed to be in the Well, the Sac State equivalent of the ARC.

I would be happy if they proved me wrong.

Ah I hadn't thought of it in terms of demographics, but you may have a point.

Greater or accelerated apathy in this area ? More distractions here ? I don't want to get deep into politics but CA is a very liberal state, and liberals seem lto like soccer more. Look at Portland-they're crazy about it there. Football seems more popular in red states like Texas.

The legal recreational weed could play a role or not. I mean , give a college student a choice between getting high and going to a football game and it's a difficult decision.

I don't know if it's so much student disinterest in FCS football or university athletics in general. We can frame ideas about the athletic program in terms of what we think students will like, but we're thinking with our own ancient brains and favorite experiences. That has limited effectiveness.

Athletics in general may be fighting a losing battle with student apathy more as time goes on.. Why go to a sporting event when you can watch people doing crazy things on TikTok or hook up with random people on dating apps ? Smartphones and their popular apps are helping to disconnect people from the people and events immediately around them at the same time they connect them to more interesting people and events far away. Look at any modern dinner where everyone (or at least the kids) are on their phones.

As an old grandpa might say, if you want to bring people back to the old things we liked as young people we need to somehow get them disconnected from their electronic devices first. How do we do that- pressure Congress to make them illegal on the basis that the Chinese and Russians are spying on us ? Good luck with that !

Even the students who disconnect and enjoy one game are no sure bet for future ones.

It's harsh but I think a bigger and more modern stadium and FBS games to attract otherwise apathetic students would basically be pearls before swine. The school has to acquire and tens of millions of dollars just to get some lazybones to maybe get off the couch ? To hell with him. He can watch FCS football and like it or not. Or is it more about what WE (well I don't but you get the point) want to see ?

I don't agree with the idea that top-notch sports are needed for university name recognition. What makes the news are the advancements in whatever that impact people's lives, not mediocre FBS football. UCD seems to be pretty good at the former.

Though it's not advisible to walk in or around the SCC campus at night, save for whatever sports venue you might ever visit. Land Park is fine during the day-a lot of old, but nicely-maintained expensive houses. People seem to feel safe walking their dogs. I am not fully aware of the dining scene there, but it seems like a lot of fast food. Dad's Restaurant (not fast food) is pretty good but expensive. Hamburgers have a tasty but very messy chili sauce. There's a pretty good burger and bbq place across the street from the school that has its own smoker right out front. Again not inexpensive