• UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow
    I disagree on UCLA and USC. I've pretty connected to both programs and what I'm hearing is there is already and exhaustion factor taking place. People who have never traveled for work really don't understand the wear and tear constant travel does to people. Now you are adding school, relationships. etc. and it becomes obvious its too far and too much money and effort.

    I think USC and UCLA come a back to the west coast in either a renewed PAC or a California Conference. It's just cheaper, makes more sense geographically, and secures academic opportunities for our California kids.

    I'm not opposed with creating football programs at UC Merced, UC San Diego, etc.
  • Transfer Portal
    If I told you Caden Pinnick was going to be our starter next year, you wouldn't have known who I was talking about. Eason is one of the highest recruits to ever sign with Davis. He is a legacy. We are lucky that we have a QB coach in our HC and this is a huge impact on whoever is starting for Davis. This is why I'm not worried about the QB situation at all.

    I'm more interested in the shoring up the defense.
  • Transfer Portal
    Eason. That’s my pick.
  • Transfer Portal
    Agreed. The approach needs to be developing more than 2 QBs a season. Two starters with a RS playing behind. It’s a big change but the quicker we adapt the faster we can overcome change.

    Look, I like CP, but I was never in love with him. He is a great athlete but for every great play he made, he would follow up with a bad one. He still has a ton to develop and I honestly think we have a QB on the roster who is better. Let’s see how this plays out.
  • Transfer Portal
    Teams are just going to have to train QBs in 1 year cycles.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow
    I agree. Stanford and Cal are in a tough position. They are academically elite, but their football teams no longer have USC and Washington to carry the burden of winning big time football. In all honesty, they begged the ACC to take them, but who would you rather have if you were the ACC? Notre Dame or Cal? You see ND is going to have to join a conference and that conference will either be the ACC or a new league will be created to keep the blue blood football teams separate from the rest of the "lower class of teams"...aka Cal, Stanford, Nevada, Texas Tech, etc...So what do they do? I don't know, but I'll tell you what I would do if I were in charge.

    We are in a new age of college sport. It's no longer about kids going to college and playing for their school for spirit. That day is over. College sports is business...a billion dollar business. So what are the assets? Our kids. Look around at the college football across the country, what do you see? I see a ton of California kids on Texas, Ohio St, ND, Clemson, Miami, Florida, Georgia...all those "GREAT" football schools are winning with our kids. College football wants California kids but they do not want California schools to get a piece of the pie (kill the PAC). Look at the list of where the top California kids are attending school:

    1. Kodi Greene, Santa Ana - Washington
    2. Chris Henry, Santa Ana - Ohio St
    3. Tommy Tofi, San Francisco - Oregon
    4. Brandon Arrington, San Diego - Texas A&M
    5. Ryder Lyons, Folsom - BYU
    6. Khary Wilder, Gardena - Ohio St
    7. Richard Wesley, Chatsworth - Texas
    8. Davon Benjamin, Westlake Village - Oregon
    9. JD Hill, Mission Viejo - Washington
    10. RJ Mosley, Pittsburg - Arizona

    Look at that list of the top 100 kids in California, only 20% are staying in California to attend school. Why is that? Why are our kids choosing to attend lower academic schools outside the state? It's not the academics, in most cases we are better. So what is it? I'll tell you, the NCAA and the SEC specifically have turned college football into a business. So what I say is we turn our football schools into a business as well...and we keep our assets at home....except we don't try to buy it by trying to get out of state schools to join California...instead we build our own. We invest in building a California Conference. This will take flushing the "elitism" status we have been taught to believe...aka "Cal, Stanford, UCLA, and USC are the only "real" college football schools. Gotta trash that idea.

    California Conference

    Cal
    Stanford
    UC Davis
    UCLA
    USC
    San Diego St
    Fresno St
    San Jose St
    Cal Poly
    Sac St

    We invest in building a new conference that maximizes our kids opportunities and taps into the largest football talent in the country. We use Silicon Valley and Hollywood to leverage our hand. We create our own TV network. We keep California money in California. We keep our California kids in California. By doing this the rest of the country loses its grip on taking our kids out of state. As the conference grows and money increases, we funnel that into the California schools which impacts all of us. Schools get more funding, business grows, and the overall California economy wins.

    By focusing on building California schools, we create more community and natural rivalries. We have the stadiums like the Rose Bowl, Levi Stadium, LA stadium, San Diego.

    Do I think this is possible? Yes, however the rest of the nation will not like this at all. They will fight hard to keep it the way it is. They will do everything possible to keep it status quo, because if this did happen, the top talent will stay home and every conference will fight us.

    Just my opinon.
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow
    I think instead of New Mexico and UNLV, you might see Cal and Stanford instead. Those are traditional FBS schools but they geographically stunted and if the next deal gets reduced, I’d expect the ACC to push them out because the ROI will not be good enough. If that happens where does Cal and Stanford go?
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow
    You make some good points. However, I'll be honest, I'm not sure the current business model even works anymore. There powers that be, who are hell bent on creating a top tier league consisting of only 50 or so football teams that can bought and run through a VC. The idea of course is to create a league where JMU and Tulane are not eligible to even play in this playoff because they are not in the right league.

    1. Traditional TV is dead. Let's face it the way people watch football today is radically different then how it was watched even 10 years ago. Streaming is the new cable, which begs the question, if nobody is watching on traditional outlets, where is the ad money going to come from? Prime, Apple, HBO, Paramount, etc. will all be bidding against each other which means the overall cost will drop. I think when the new TV deal comes up, there is going to be a huge shakeup in college football.

    2. Bowl Games are dead. Bowl games served a purpose years ago, but the concept is dead. You can see many schools pulling out altogether. The days of waking up on Jan 1 and watching the Rose Bowl game later is gone. The Rose Bowl now is just another bowl with teams that would never be allowed to play in this game.

    So what does this mean? I think it means the VC's are going to create a 50 team "Super" league and it will only consist of: USC, Alabama, Ohio St, Miami,....you get the picture. When that happens there is going to be a whole lot of teams like Stanford, Cal, SMU, Vandy, Oregon St's of the world who are going to need a place to play. This is where new conferences come about. UC Davis is smart to just sit back and see how this plays out for now. Just MO
  • UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow
    You know, I'm not so sure I want to move to the FBS anymore. I watch the FBS and its just not even college football anymore. It's semipro ball with too much money involved to be honest. I like the FCS playoffs. I like actually getting a chance to play for a championship. Am I not thinking clearly? I'm watching the way JMU and Tulane are getting treated and I keep thinking, "geez if they treat them this way..." I don't know. I think there might be an interesting development with conference realignment once the tv deal expires. Maybe waiting on this is the right move.
  • Transfer Portal
    You see the kids all leaving USC,

    Walker Lyons the TE from Folsom. Maybe the kid wants to come home. I’d reach out to him.
  • 2025 FCS Playoffs
    Wow, you see the Montana/Montana St tickets sold out and are reselling for $3K? Pretty incredible.
  • FCS Playoffs Quarterfinals: Illinois State (10-4) @ #8 UC Davis (9-3)
    The game easily could have been a 41-17 Davis win. We just ran out of bodies. The DL was running on fumes. It came down to ISU seniors OL against our Frosh/Soph DL.....

    Next year is going to be fun....
  • Transfer Portal
    I think we should look at raiding transfers from the west coast who get recruited by USC, UCLA, Cal, and Stanford but get jumped by new recruits. There are a ton of Cali kids who don't want to leave the state but are not good enough to play at those schools. We might find some gems that were never given a shot.
  • Transfer Portal
    Looking at the portal for some help there are some good names:

    DL Thaddeus Gianaris - Dartmouth
    DL Ezekiel Larry - Yale
    DL Alex DeGrieck - Harvard
    DL Carter Janki - Penn
    DL Ta'Kai Chisom - Maine
    DL Jake Davis - Penn
    LB Matai Tagoai - USC (CA Kid)

    what do you guys think?
  • Transfer Portal
    I'm working on it, but I'll tell you the city of Davis is not very business friendly...
  • Transfer Portal
    I love our school. So cool.
  • Transfer Portal
    There were a couple D1 coaches from SoCal who were sitting in front of me during the game. They drove up to game after doing recruiting in the area. They also said this was the first time they had ever been to Davis. They were expecting Davis to be more like SACST or CalPoly, but they were shocked at how big and nice our campus was. I really think we are really turning a corner with perception. If we can keep up the momentum I think a championship is in our future. I really do.
  • Transfer Portal
    Is it strange that today after digesting the game and watching Coach P's press conference, I'm actually in greater spirits for next year? I'm really upbeat about the direction of the program. Thank you Aggies for a heck of a season.
  • The offseason - Looking forward to 2026
    yeah, they were from Novato. Said they saw the game on ESPN and decided to watch playoff football live so they drove up. Pretty cool IMO. That shows this program is gaining momentum.

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