I expect that anytime a coach leaves for greener pastures his former employer doesn’t have to pay a buyout, is that not right?

I’m not sure the trick played fooled sac. They seemed to be on the lookout for the direct snap, several players pointing into the backfield. Maybe the timing, might have had a clever way of signaling the snap.

Hard to argue they’re wrong.

Smalley still has eligibility if he wants to use it.

Can’t fault anyone who has graduated from moving on.

Where did you see that? The box score on the team site lists him as punting. The box score has other errors though.

that year even with the narrow loss to a top FCS team we were 2-2 against ranked FCS teams and had a win over a Pac12 team. That was by a transitioning team, not eligible for the playoffs
In comparing teams I value most who did you beat rather than what the score was or who did you lose to. That year we defeated two ranked FCS opponents and the FBS team. No other team has done that that I can think of.

The 2005 team should be in there. Beat Stanford, and two ranked teams, #10 CalPoly and #17 North Dakota State. Lost to #7 New Hampshire in the final minute a team which went on to spend most the season ranked number 1.
They were only 6-5 but losses included two games by two point plus the four point New Hampshire defeat. Lost to Stephen Austin and #19 Eastern Washington.back to back on the road; tough schedule.

I think what started this sub thread was a reference harkening back to Hawkins saying this team had the best talent.
The 2018 team achieved more, I haven’t seen an opinion voiced that disagrees with that.
I think this team accomplished a lot by beating Weber and Tulsa, REMEBER Weber was a three time champion and their coach said this years recruiting class was best ever.
The spring team lost to Weber and beat no one of note.
The 2019 team beat no one of note.

I think it comes down to talent and player development. And I think maybe bring in a run oriented offensive line coach.
Historically there seems to be a UC Davis style of line play that involves lateral movement, like for screen plays, and not as much power blocking. I noticed the Boise offensive line got a lot of criticism earlier this year, that they apparently were able to resolve by changing focus of practice. We had two offensive line coaches near end of Biggs era, because Keane, now the Boise coach, being a former UCDavis lineman didn’t coach run blocking well, and needed some mentorship. Now we have a former UC Davis tight end from that era as our offensive line coach.

That’s one way of looking at it.
Another is that we lost that game by getting gashed by huge plays in a way that is all too familiar. Not arguing that they weren’t a better team than 2021 but they shared some of the same major deficiencies.. Very few playoff teams would given up a touchdown 47 seconds after taking the lead with about a minute to play. Eastern dominated us in a game earlier that year so I’m not sure Eastern > Maine implies UCD > Maine.

it’s better than 1982. I’m sure 82 was a better team for its level but not better head to head.
2018 team is arguably better but Hawkins has a better view if talent, so maybe this team more talented but that team achieved more because they won their first playoff game. But SDS is better than NIU was in 2018

The best team in Davis history doesn’t give other teams the shakes at this level.

I assume they’ll have to take scholarships away to get down to limit later.

We basically play three down linemen. a nose guard a defensive tackle and a defensive end. There usually two of the big guys Chuba and Bryce for example and one lighter guy and then a “rush” linebacker. They steamrollered us on the edge more than up the middle.
They play a four down lineman defense and 4/3 linemen are often lighter the the three down linemen teams.

I don’t know the details of the scholarship limit. First I heard of it was Hawkins press conference last week. He mentioned it after the game also.

We definitely did have some bigger interior defensive linemen this year. Elsewhere not apparent progress.

They have more scholarships because scholarship limits waived due to Covid extra year. We didn’t utilize that hence our small recruiting class

he was moved to the “Rush” position which is basically a standup defensive lineman . I think he was a strong side linebacker when he had his impact year. Now he’s more frequently blocked by a offensive tackle rather than a tight end or back.

Regarding size in our lines, we had big nose guards/ defensive tackles but small or at least light defensive ends. The only defensive end with notable statistics is Ambagtsheer with four sacks and 22 tackles. If we consider the Rush position a defensive end, we got only half a sack all season from Eaton. Our linebackers are smallish for college football. Now that they’ve made targeting so commonly called, there aren’t many ways for our linebackers to legally stop a strong running back from getting yards after contact.
Our offensive line seems to want to be light and physically fit. Most actually lost a few pounds for this season, and weigh about what they did when recruited That’s great until we meet the bigger playoff teams and then we can’t handle them.