I don't think they' would set up the brackets so Davis' first game is in all likelihood a conference rival, especially since they said second round games are not regionalized.

It is a system where committee members discuss but ultimately vote based on their opinion using one or more of won loss record, quality wins, strength of schedule, head to head, common opponents, and ESPN metrics that aren’t published for FCS teams. Great transparency there.

No telling. As mentioned the polls don’t matter, its the vote by the committee, which don’t have the polls as a factor.
Maybe based on won loss record, maybe based on number of quality wins. If the score differential is enough to flip the Massey rating in Davis’ favor that would be an additional factor, but to do that South Dakota State would have to underperform the expected score and/or Davis would need to score more than Massey would predict.

As far as I can see the other metrics (fpi, kpi, sos) aren’t published for FCS ??

The selection committee’s process doesn’t use the polls although the committee members have no doubt seen them. From Hero Sports:

The playoff committee will no longer use the Stats Perform Media Poll and AFCA Coaches Poll on its list of data points that committee members can utilize. They can now consider rankings in the KPI, Massey Ratings, and ESPN’s Football Power Index, although each member can choose what to weigh the most when making selections (record, strength of schedule, quality wins, metrics, etc.)

“The committee was focused on expanding the use of metrics-based tools to replace the polls we had used in years past,” HERO Sports was told. “We were able to get those three on board to give us a good mix of both predictive (Massey & FPI) and results (KPI & SOS) based metrics.”
Link to source article:
https://herosports.com/fcs-notebook-playoff-committee-release-top-10-ranking-bzbz/

I wasn’t aware that playing Boise and Santa Clara were part of a longer running series.
I was at Davis for Biggs’ last year at QB, and Specks first year. Davis lost only one conference game those two years, to Hayward, won one and tied one against Santa Clara. in addition to the narrow loss to Boise, they lost games to Fullerton, Pacific, and UMass.

Santa Clara, Portland State, Cal Poly, Boise, were teams we started to play once Davis starter to dominate their non scholarship rivals. Those teams had scholarships Davis didn’t, they weren’t conference rivals, they were teams we played to get competition and to gain some credibility to potentially get invited to the then new Div2 playoffs.
After the end of the NCAC Davis became a conference rival with Cal Poly in the America West
They only played Saint Mary’s once when an independent.

Saint Mary’s and Santa Clara had their Little Big Game.
I think Davis was the top game for Humboldt and Chico as well as Sac. Davis was the team to beat after they started winning every year. Sonoma State when they were contending certainly thought Davis was their rival.

No chance. Davis seeding will depend on the outcome of the game

Cal Poly was never in the Far West Conference.
Davis was in the Far-west conference from its founding in 1925.
The bigger schools like Fresno State, Nevada, Pacific, eventually left leaving Davis and a number of Northern California schools. Davis began to thoroughly dominate those schools in the mid 70s, and started playing Collige Division scholarship programs including Cal Poly, Portland State, Santa Cruz, etc.Sac elected to leave the FWC in the late 80s after loosing 18 consecutive Causeway games against Davis. Davis and Cal Poly then began to be in the same conference and their games were competitive, leading many to think that was the bigger rivalry., Recently Sac has been competitive and seems the bigger rivalry because they are only a few miles away.

Sac’s conference statistics are middling on offense and defense but their won loss record is bad, They are definitely better than what one would expect from a 1-6 conference team. They gave up 305 passing yards to Poly’s division 3 transfer qb from Mount Union, running back coach Kevin Burke’s alma mater.

Davis is now averaging 500 yards a game in conference play, tops in the Big Sky, taking the lead from Montana State

In the committee’s ranking after games of October 26,, South Dakota was 4th, Davis 5th.
In Massey ratings after this week that the Committee looks at they are still 4th and Davis 5th. I think SD just needs to be within a touchdown of North Dakota State game to remain 4th, unless Davis wins by more than two touchdowns.

Football players are schooled to always blame the other teams success on their errors.
Remember the grief given to the Stanford player who said Davis was a good team?
The coach established a rule that they were not to talk about again.

As regards to what the worst case would be if Davis loses to Sac. There is no telling because there is no definition on how the committee rates teams. A couple of weeks ago, when writers first started doing these playoff projections the assumption was that Davis would lose to both Montanas and beat Sac, and at 9-3 be seeded outside of the top eight. Sac on paper would be a weak opponent and a loss wouldn’t look good.

One area on defense that gets little attention is the cornerbacks. In the Eastern Washington game we had to move a safety to start at corner
After watching the Montana game, Mike Rider who previously coached cornerbacks at Montana State, was very impressed with the Davis cornerbacks, both from a coverage standpoint and willingness and ability to tackle
The last two games the cornerback starters are Verner and McWilliams, Those two guys were initially at Boise and Cal respectively and from high school were the level if recruit we don’t have a shot in getting. Cotton, a starter until an injury caused him to miss the Eastern Washington game is back as well. So that is an example of where Davis is improved and deeper than just a few weeks ago,

Can’t be too pessimistic about a game with a touchdown point spread.
All the common opponents you cite except Portland Davis allowed late scores after having the game in hand. There is a improvement trend in Davis, both offense and defense. On defense they have got guys back form injury, both starters and reserves that generate some pass rush.

You produce great content Colter, much appreciated.

In the “Riden with Rider” episode this week, which I highly recommend Aggie fans viewing, you got the Connors familily story wrong. Rex and Porter don’t have an older brother who was an Aggie, and they are twins.

Once again people think Porter is a younger brother to Rex.

I think the play is to try to score and get a lead, which will make them move away from running as much. As usual Davis will play situational football and run more with a lead.