Not much information came out of spring camp.
The defensive coordinator said that players were moved to new positions and that they simplified coverages for the new guys so they could play fast, so there are new guys coming off their redshirt year who will be factors, but no names mentioned.
We return 80+% of the guys on the defense depth chart.
Here are the guys returning, not counting redshirts. I'm just listing it to show we have an unusually large returning group; not counting redshirts, who are numerous.
The list is from our defense depth chart for the last game, so this is their class status as of this 2017-18:
DE 96 Hunter O’BRION 6-5 280 Jr.
DT 91 Nick FEHRENBACH 6-0 235
71 De’Andre MORGAN 6-3 260 Fr.
99 Bryce RODGERS 6-3 285 So.
NT 57 Terrell CLOUD 6-0 290 Jr.
94 Jordan FRANKLIN 6-1 285 So.
97 Andrew WILSON 6-2 300 RFr. .
RE 6 Anthony BAUMGART 6-1 240 Jr.
48 Brandon JAMISON 6-3 235 So.
SLB 36 Connor AIREY 6-0 215 RFr.
34 Mason MOE 6-0 210 Jr. Human Dev.
MLB 33 Quincy BENNETT 6-4 240 So.
42 Christian LEOTA 6-2 250 So.
WLB 11 Nas ANESI 6-2 225 So.
45 Eric FLOWERS 6-1 228 So.
CB 31 Desmond LEWIS 6-0 175 Sr.
5 Isiah OLAVE 5-10 190 Jr. Int.
16 Erron DUNCAN 5-9 190 RFr.
S 39 Tiger GARCIA 6-3 181 So.
26 Josh JANUSKA 5-9 179 So.
28 Ryan PARENTEAU 6-2 200 Jr.
CB 1 Isaiah THOMAS 5-9 170 RFr.
23 Jaylin WHITE 5-10 158 Fr.
20 Vincent WHITE 6-0 187 Jr.

I hope Moore’s not transferring to UCLA.
Just kidding.

Article on official site about the game. Plough comments on players who made strides. Tucker mentions no one. Plough mentioned Tehran so even though he wasn’t mentioned elsewhere is still around. Harrell stood out, which is promising.
I don’t see Aaron Moore on roster. He did a good job last fall.

If you watched later Stanford games in 2005 they had a 260lb fullback named Nick Frank who was unstoppable, Larry Csonka like. I watched the Stanford UCLA game that year that Stanford lost in overtime, and tackling him was like tackling a whale.
In our game he had 3 carries!! for 17yards. And this in a game where they lose their starting QB early. Is that bad coaching or what?

I think Hunter Rodrigues is the only local QB, not counting walkons. He’s a American River College transfer just a sophomore next season
Movie, time will tell whether D is improved; but I think we will be. I like that the players were quoted that they are trying to be disruptive vs being a containment type defense. I think the underclassmen, redshirts and perhaps a freshman or two will end up being better than the guys we lost to graduation; and the returning starters will be more seasoned. There are many guys who were recruited in the last three years on D that are going to get their chance; I hope we are a lot better,
If you look at our game notes depth chart from end of season we’re not losing anyone who is going to be hard to replace with guys already here. We’ll have some newcomers who will win some spots.

Judging by the Spring scrimage Brock Johnson is our number 2 QB, with Hunter Rodrigues as another contender for that I in the summer; I’m assuming he’s not here already.
On defense freshmen won’t play unless they’re good. We’re not short of defensive players. It was good to hear regarding the scrimage that the corners looked good and the defense was tough to run against. That’s much better than hearing the offense dominated because we know our offense is going to be pretty good. While it would be great to see a new player earn playing time we’re returning a lot of guys off our 2 deep and have a lot of redshirts.

I'm not adverse to gimmicks. Historically Davis has had trouble getting running the ball in short field situations, 1st and goal from the five doesn’t leave much room for passing. I’d like us to be able to call three running plays and score. There are other ways to get this accomplished but having a runner at QB is advantageous because the defense has another guy to pay attention to and the offense has another blocker or runner. You have to have that formation developed enough so that it’s not just a couple of plays and you have to still have some residual threat of throwing the ball, so maybe it’s not worth the effort to keep it for just occasional use. I’d like them to keep it but understand if they don’t.

what’s your opinion on the wildcat that we sometimes used last year with CJ? Keep it or forget about it.

I must have misremembered. I remember the grass being brown on my TV, so that must have fooled me into thinking it was back east,

I remember watching that game in D2 playoffs a long time ago. We lost. That was one of those rare games on TV. On the road.

His accuracy was better when he wasn’t the wildcat QB. Seems like when he was in an offense that was primarily run plays with him as carrier he lost the ability to hit the change of pace pass. Generalizing from small samples here.
He’s not going to be our second string QB but could be very effective in short yardage or short field or running out the clock situations

Did they run fly motion plays? I thought fly sweeps or plays featuring that motion might have featured CJ last year, but it was mostly Montgomery as I recall.
CJ would be more of a running back which I think would be appropriate especially if the play isn’t going to the sideline as it always seemed to be.

I think we have to find ways to get the best athletes involved. Seems pretty basic but not always done I think they had a good idea using CJ as mostly a runner out of the QB position, but he misfired when passing last year so the wildcat stuff was too one dimensional. It doesn’t have to be. It’s a good wrinkle to make other teams prepare for.

Carson Crawford sure got a lot of press in high school. Small, but played QB his senior year and passed for 3000 yards, after staring as a receiver earlier. Point guard with pretty decent track speed and a shifty runner as a QB. Interesting. Yet another receiver to keep an eye on. We seem to have a lot of them.

He’s apparently a pocket passer in an era when a lot of teams want dual threat QBs. And he’s average height. I think he’s here now because Hawkins is here. Georgetown struggled moving the ball two years ago and he got thrown in when they had an injury to starter and replacement struggled. On a team with some weapons he might shine. I think it’s a vote of confidence in our coaches that the kid is here since the decision likely reflects the opinion of his dad, uncle and grandfather.

Its good to hear about new guys making their presence felt. Winning 22 games in a row is a pretty impressive accomplishment. Plus Johnson started at least one game at Georgetown as a frosh. Good depth additions at QB this year.

Brock Johnson transferred here last summer apparently. Grandson of “legendary” mission viejo coach. 2015 Orange County offensive player of the year. Maybe you guys saw this earlier.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ocregister.com/2017/07/05/ex-mission-viejo-quarterback-johnson-now-at-uc-davis/amp/

The San Jose game is a big game for us. They’ll be better than last year in all likelihood. They point to getting beat up with a tough early schedule that took a physical toll on their young players. But we go into next year with our team pretty set offensively while they still need to figure out who their QB is. On defense we need to figure things out, we return a lot of starters and guys on the depth chart, have a bunch of redshirts and some good quality freshmen. If our defense doesn’t improve I’ll start missing Watts.

With the broncos doing what? I’m sure Watts is a bright guy but he had not even been a position coach at the collegiate level when he became our DC. The role, the league, the players, everything was new to him. Same can be said of Gould in his first year.

OldAggie, Tedford promoted Watts who now has experience that he didn’t have when he was named our DC. When he joined our team his experience was as a high school defensive coordinator and a graduate assistant. Tell me that Gould didn’t hire Watts based on personal relationship, same as he hired a the other graduate assistant from Cal. It makes more sense for Tedford to hire him now that he has four years experience.
My point was also we can’t give Watts total credit for Fresno’s defense as he wasn’t defensive coordinator last year.