Two linebackers is our base defense. Three if you count the “rush” linebacker who plays on the line of scrimmage. If the nickel position is more of a safety than a corner you have three safeties. Last year we had some good sized safeties.
I’m sure the DC is a very sharp guy, but we have always fallen short of being a dominating defense, even when we seem to have quality players. If you look at last season before the Connors’ injuries they gave up 549 yards to Southern Utah. Thats with five all conference players on defense.
On the related subject of depth or lack there of, it is puzzling when a team has 105 players on the roster, has injuries in the high teens or low twenties, and doesn’t have 60 players to take on a road trip. Thats a lot of guys on the roster not trusted to play. Some of that is the players aren’t good, some is that the coach is conservative about letting guys on the field, some of it is that almost all the games are close so there is not the same opportunity to play reserves, but the bottom line is not a very deep team.

At the end of the season, opponents were having success rushing against Davis. Sac state almost exclusively ran the ball and came close to winning. Rhode Island which only rushed for 83 yards against Central Connecticut had 173 yards at over six yards per carry. Illinois State had 266 yards rushing on 42 carries again over six yards per carry. Rushing defense was Davis’ Achilles heel, and defensive injuries were the arrow that killed us.

I wonder if he'll bring some players with him. Really the only reason to announce this just a few days after his resignation.

These guys argued that they didn't play four seasons as defined by the NCAA, they arent questioning the rule itself. The Connors case argues the definition of what constitutes a game.

Southern Utah is going to be a tougher opponent than Sac State would have been had they remained in the Big Sky.
Still lots of good teams in FCS. Davis was projected 13th for 2026 on ncaa.com’s way too early projections.

I don’t see how they recruit at all they have zero chance of making playoffs or being relevant in any way until or unless they have a full schedule. The schedule they have is a long way from proving they deserve to be an FBS

I wonder how they can recruit as well as they have with no affiliation and an incomplete schedule.

Schools are getting commitments to stay as a condition of receiving revenue sharing. Washington QB Desmond Williams signed such a contract and when he tried to enter transfer portal Washington and Big 10 threatened to sue him for breach of contract.

Once the courts defined the issue as the NCAA colluding to deprive the players of their right to earn, it put the NCAA in a situation where they had to negotiate the settlement, The resulting settlement has terms the big programs can live with and some even profit from and the small programs not so much. The interests of the fans and other sports were not at the table.

Paying the players by sharing revenue and NIL was decided by the court settlement as was the 105 roster limit, no scholarship limit. (The roster limit was necessary as allowing NIL made the scholarship limit unenforcible). That spilt milk can’t go back in the bottle. Judges make decisions based on the parties in the case, they don’t decide what is sustainable for smaller programs, fans, or student athletes in other sports, but the precedents set by those cases set the new rules.

[ Plough is more willing to burn freshmen’s redshirt year than Hawkins was. I think the new transfer rules make it likely that if a freshman is talented, that fifth year is going to benefit some other team. The top two 247 rated freshmen in this years class are edge players, i wouldn’t be surprised to see one not redshirt. Same for any other position if a freshman can get on the two deep.

Posted a link to todays signing day list but they took it down
23 signees no surprises seems same as CA Forevers list

Now here is an article
https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2026/2/4/football-aggies-welcome-nations-fifth-best-fcs-recruiting-class.aspx

It looks like Cal Poly lost more, at least in quantity, than they gained. It's hard to tell because the sites that track these signings do a poor job. Do you feel Cal Poly's transfers were a loss, a gain or a wash?

The Caden Pinnick signing was noted in a lot of articles including the Seattle Times, Sacramento Bee sports illustrated and social media. It is just On3 that missed it,

Weird that ON3 which is supposedly the best source for transfer portal tracking has not listed Caden Pinnick as either transferring from Davis or to Washington State.
247sports.com rates Pinnick and Jaden Rashada about the same as transfers, which seems obtuse.

Pinnick as a first year starter, led an offense that was marginally more effective than the prior year where we had an all conference QB and an all american running back. I feel like rooting for Pinnick but I’ll have some mixed emotions. I hope he does well because if he doesn’t the narrative will be that this FCS star can’t play at FBS level. The whole FBS/FCS distinction is the most irritating yet omnipresent theme in college football.

It was USC. Davis scheduled Tulsa as a replacement where Davis got paid for winning.

You are always going to have students that don’t care but thats not where the revenue is anyway, given that students get in free. The recent demographics of UC students includes a large percentage that have no prior exposure to football, let alone Davis football. There is a multigenerational fan base in places like Tennessee and even Montana. Still Davis has a large alumni population and potentially a large number if people in the region. People would be interested if they got more coverage which they would get if they weren’t covered in the media as the out of town member of a pair of college division teams.

When UCLA was started as a campus they intentionally preferenced the initials over the full name because they didn’t want to be thought of as a branch of UC Berkeley. To this day they still stress using UCLA for most usages. As you say most people don’t get the connection to the UC system, or care. Mission accomplished.

My error. The top recruiting target in the 2024 class was the tight end they lost to Cal, but got as a transfer from the portal.
At linebacker the 2025 recruiting prospects are Cory McEnroe who was second on the depth chart at an inside linebacker, and Christian Knoos who didn't play due to a hip injury.