Yeah I remember seeing when he joined the Aggies that he transferred from southern nevada on instagram.

I agree with davisguy52 about frosh/transfers! Maybe also talk about what games you see as the biggest on the schedule this year/the most exciting.

Are you guys planning to go to Portland!?

Yeah I don't think students should be kicked off campus for moves parents make. Whether you agree with the team being cut or not, I totally get being mad as a member of the team and I also have not seen any members of the team saying anything crazy online. In the few tv interviews with team members they seem pretty grounded. Now, some parents doing wild things online (and in person) should be called out, I think lumping all of the eq supporters together is not something fans or the admin should do. I just don't really see a realistic path of the team coming back. I do get the perspective that the university should let current equestrian team members compete until they graduate.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2029044841210156
https://www.facebook.com/reel/868962296035923

Now talking about general athletic stuff, do we know if the MW ever plans to add water polo?

I didn’t get this email myself

Literally half of the posts on Reddit this week on the UC Davis Reddit are from equestrian people (from 3 or 4 accounts). At first people generally seemed sympathetic but most people seem annoyed by it at this point. They have some legit gripes but also are pointing out a billion random, disconnected things, lumping in other sports, and debating anyone who disagrees slightly with them in the comments about how they went about their pr campaign. Also, any time anyone points out the crazy amount of posts they flood the comments with attacking Rocko and the admin (on posts completely disconnected from anything athletics), they just deny they did anything distasteful. It’s also objectively true that they went after him and his family. Whether it’s under first amendment rights or not, they did go to regents meetings with photos of his daughter saying he’s only adding stunt after “grooming” her to be an Aggie cheerleader for years, showed up at his house with massive box trucks with signs, and accused him of being a misogynist. I’m not saying they are not ALLOWED to do those things, but if someone has tried to say it’s not the best way to try and gain support, the eq people just say “let’s not make rocko and the admin the victim”. 2 things can be true at once: the admin could have been better at communicating and transparency and flooding posts with random claims, personal insults and taking away from other students, athletes and the university as a whole might not be the most effective way to campgain.

is there any talk of them ever getting to play somewhere else? It’s embarrassing for the big sky conference IMO to have a team playing on a stadium that’s arguably worse than most d2 or even many high school stadiums.

yeah this is pretty much what I think. I doubt conversation about it all is just going to disappear

I’m honestly suprised he didn’t just say screw it and leave for another job at a certain point. People showing up at his house, attacking his daughter from personal social media posts, etc. Has anyone looked through the audit/has a better understanding of legal jargon?

It seems from my quick look over everything that much of what was found was similar to what a large portion of people had been saying about the issues being more factually grounded in issues around the universities less than perfect (to say the least) transparency and public relations processes than fraud, personal distaste for the equestrian team or bias towards stunt.

I will be curious to see how folks respond across the athletics space who know more than me, but I’m happy to see the audit come out. I think Rocko and the staff have done an excellent job concerning most things while involved with UCD and I hope to see that continue, but there is always room for improvements and a necessity for openness to different perspectives, both big and small.

Yeah thats my summarized thought basically. I don't think this leak (or the recruit in general) would be giving wrong/false info, I think its more of a matter of the school wanting to try and maximize success while in the FCS to build momentum for that timely move.

Some big commits recently! 247 has seemed less accurate the past few years..

chose us over sac :wink:

I’m curious from a construction perspective what are the steps from the current stuff on the accent ascent website related to renderings to actual construction starting (readings, plans, revisions, etc)? Appreciate the insight

so we’re joining the FBS?! This is monumental news holy shit what

bad wording, more meant it seems like they have more then just renderings.

here’s your Aggie ascent renderings. They seem to already have construction plans.

https://aggieascent.ucdavis.edu/ucdavis-health-stadium

I can’t believe I missed talking about the beer garden section. That was freakin awesome! I also loved the foliage around it and the whole walkway area around that side. Thanks for the pic of it during a game, gives really good perspective compared to my random day of the week visit.

SLO definitely is blessed to have some of the best views from a stadium I’ve seen. Super underrated when we hear people hype up views like that of Montana and UCLA all the time.

I really wish we did a beer garden thing like that on the student side of the stadium. We kinda have a beer section near the big screen, but it’s a bit janky and temporary placed on grass and concrete. Right now in general we have concessions and food trucks that have really long lines, you can’t see the game from there (they have mini tvs with the game but still). I know the suite upgrade also plans to include a big industrial kitchen and bar area, which would probably help with some of that stuff. Hopefully they can do something like that with the renovations, especially when they plan to give so much love to the suite side.

I think the madden center on one end, the beer garden on the other, seating or not, creates a more bowl/stadium like field which is really nice. Davis building the stadium like a sunken bowl has helped us with that. I think poly was smart to put the center at the end instead of to the side, I agree though that it’s kinda weird how they didn’t do seating/a more cohesive design like the beer garden side.

I think most Aggie fans for now think keeping the grass berms and expanding the grandstands/adding suites is a better idea than putting seats at the end zones to close the bowl. With the new suites, potentially more seats on the student side (which would also help us upgrade concession stuff), I think we would end up with a pretty nifty 18-20k or something stadium that wouldn’t be overkill but would be a good upgrade.

The design of the Davis stadium IMO has been one of the better modern FCS (or just smaller college football) stadium designs recently when it comes to holding in noise, creating a “bowl” feel and design that’s pretty timeless. What I think they did an especially good job (partially since it was originally supposed to be bigger before construction costs) with was the expandability built into the design. Being able to expand off of the 360° concourse and on top of the press box gives room for a ton of expansion (without tearing out or reworking campus infrastructure).

Little upgrades like bar tops at the top of the stands, adding lights to the water-tower and having tailgating on the practice field have already been nice to see, hopefully with continued success on the field the bigger upgrades can come soon.

Happened to be visiting slo on new student visiting day or something. I was really confused why it seemed like the entire campus was packed on a random summer Tuesday at first lol.

Checked out a few places (that new rec center is cool, the mountains are gorgeous!) but I’ll focus on athletic stuff:

-the new John Madden Center is really cool (especially from the side facing the stadium). The memorial for the 1960 team is well done. I found the other side of the center to be pretty weird with like no windows. It also struck me as odd they didn’t add much seating facing the stadium side.

-the side of the stadium with suites is world class. Really well done for a smaller stadium and I loved the Spanish style design. The side of the stadium across the way looks like a 1960s high school stadium. I know they have renderings of a potential future renovation which hopefully can be done soon (it reminds me of the bleachers of toomey).

- the swim facilities and tennis facilities are nice. I like how they have the athletic core next to the rec center stuff and dining stuff like Davis.

-the basketball arena was really confusing and underwhelming. You have this HUGE rec center next door and then a basketball court that looks like the high school I went to. It was all retractable bleachers with these tiny doors to enter. It kinda reminded me that while Davis is on the smaller side for the MW, we were sorta an outlier for Big West arenas when it came to capacity.

-the landscaping was amazing!

I’ll bite my words if I’m wrong, but I really don’t think Les is going to work with this move to the MW. I believe it’s going to be a difficult transition anyways and don’t see a stale formula being the thing that helps bring us to the next level. I have personal gripes with how he seems to talk to players and his general demeanor, but I think he’s overall been a good coach, assuming good dude, but it feels like it’s time to pass the torch imo.

Now I can also see a scenario where Les is the exact coach we need to continue providing a sense of consistency in perspective and staffing in a big move, but even then I don’t see this staff (the longest continuously tenured unit) making sense in our new conference long term.

not unprecedented in the widest sense (has happened with qualifying matches) but very bad look and corrupt considering the nature of a head of state-commissioner call, 1 day before the game, in the actual tournament. I think it’s a ridiculous move coming from a commissioner who has already lost a lot of trust.