icy baby blue is an in color for 2025.
apparel vendors design accordingly. Tahoe provides the ostensible reason to issue in fashion apparel.

I was surprised last year to find that 247sports only used “composite ranking” of recruits in ranking signing classes. This limitation results in wildly inaccurate rankings of classes, as it ignores the effect of recruiting a large number of players that 247sports own ranking system ranked highly.
Last year our class had 3 players with “composite ranking” (Cofield, Knoos, Parker, bet you didn’t know those were the only recruits that counted)
In 2026 we already have seven. ( Honebein,,Vercher, Fay, Beverly, Brant, Blocker) and just added McGeilberry)
To what do we attribute this change? Could be the ranking entities are ranking more players, or it could be that were getting commitments from players that have higher profiles. Unless this is a global change affecting other teams classes, Davis will have a higher ranking class in 2026, just based on players committed so far.

Not a lawyer and maybe it is an up hill battle. But I think the NCAA needs a better argument against Sac going FBS than that the two conferences in the region haven’t invited them. That looks like restricting competition. Maybe there are other reasons. Sac argues that that requirement was waived for other schools, like Liberty, so argue the rule is unevenly applied.

It is odd that the focus of moving up seems to be on how the football team performs, when I suspect the conferences have expressed other concerns, and rather than addressing those concerns, whatever they are, Sac doubles down on proving the football team is good. Short of winning a national championship can’t prove anything new at the FCS level, with this years weak schedule.

Marion is a coach, given authority to act and goodies to disburse as if he was at Nevada Las Vegas or Texas, so he does. I don’t know that that shows bad character or dishonesty.
Woods is a pitchman, with the ethics of the marketplace, selling a vision unlikely to come to fruition as a sure thing. Buyer beware.

The difficulty in making Marion the scapegoat is that Sac’s football record is not what makes them unattractive to conferences. Sac had impressive recent success in football. They had a nineteen game conference win streak just a few years ago, had a winning record in 2023 including a win at Stanford and conferences weren’t and aren’t after them to join.

The FCS scholarship limit is the same as FBS scholarship limit for teams that opt into the House settlement, i.e. unlimited. Replaced by a roster limit of 105. There is a Big Sky Conference limit of 63 but i doubt they have an enforcement arm.
The litigation will be whether Sac pays the amount of NIL money promised.and there will likely be litigation of Sac suing the NCAA.

Most kids are still looking to get an education and have a good experience. Most will not get offered big bucks. The free education is still the largest reward schools are offering to the large majority of athletes, and many recruits still value the education and experience. There is a subset of kids that don’t value that, and will treat college like semi pro, and attend colleges that provide the most cash and the least education, the later approach will work for some and fail others.

Denying their waiver at least gives the players some goal for the season, if some are seeking something beyond polishing their resume for the portal.

Do you think FCS or FBS is the driver for recruits? Many had established FBS teams that they passed over, teams that are immediately eligible for the famous potato bowl or other high profile showcases, whereas Sac isn’t eligible for bowls once they get their transition started. I think they had other incentives.

About half of Sacs transfers are seniors, FBS or FCS makes no difference to them.
My question is whether they will want to play in the playoffs games without a bonus.

Look at prior years and you’ll see the same thing. This is from 2024 class

- DL Rayne Mayo Jr. *** 6'3 285 Valley Christian High School (San Jose, CA) Tweet
Offers: Air Force, Army, Bryant, Colgate, Columbia, Cornell, Idaho, Murray State, Navy, Portland State, Sacramento State, UC Davis, Utah State, Weber State
- LB Kyle Hill 6'5 220 *** Xavier College Prep High School (Palm Desert, CA) Tweet
Offers: Army, Fresno State, Montana, San Jose State, UC Davis
- OL David Porotesano *** 6'5 280 Oceanside High School (Oceanside, CA) Tweet
Offers: Adams State, Army, Brown, Bucknell, Cal Poly. Columbia, Idaho State, NAU, San Diego State, Southern Utah, UC Davis, Weber State, Wyoming
- OL Jezniah Thurston *** 6'4 274 Citrus Valley High School (Redlands, CA) Tweet
Offers: Cal Poly, Eastern Washington, Georgetown, Northern Arizona, San Jose State, UC Davis, Utah Tech, Weber State
- QB Damon Wrighster *** 6'3 185 Inglewood High School (Inglewood, CA) Tweet
Offers: Arizona, Florida Atlantic, Fordham, Grambling State, Liberty, Memphis, Middle Tennessee State, Nevada, Old Dominion, San Jose State, UC Davis, Yale
- RB Carter Vargas *** 6'0 200 St. Joseph High School (Santa Maria, CA) Tweet
Offers: Army, Boston College, Nevada, Northern Colorado, Pennsylvania, Princeton, UAB, UC Davis

This analyst says he looks mostly at upperclassmen. He devalues them if they haven’t put up statistics.
Since Davis lists players who were recruited here out of high school by academic year, red shirt sophomores are listed as juniors. (Oddly, Caden Pinnick is listed as a redshirt freshmen, while all his classmates are sophomores)
Jordan Fisher, Sam Goligoski, Trent Carrade, Izaiah Souriolle are examples are guys that got a chance to tiptoe into playing last year as redshirt freshmen. They didn’t generate stats because they didn’t get much of a chance as Davis had a veteran team, yet they are listed as juniors, whereas on most rosters they would be listed as red shirt sophomores.

Scott mentions a lot of holes on defense, but not mentioned was that the defense has added quality transfers.
One of the interesting stories of this years team is that there may be as many as six or seven experienced new faces on D, including 3 players who were all conference at the FCS level, and 3 FBS transfers who played a lot at that level.

Honebein probably be a rush linebacker, maybe a defensive end who knows what he’ll weigh in a couple of years.

Quite a run of Marin Catholic players at Davis. There are 6 on the 2025 roster., and a few more in recent years.

They have put the 2025 Roster back up on the web site.

I don’t see what has changed since it was there last.
Good news is that Davis’ entire starting OL for games 6-12 returns. This includes tackles All Big Sky second team Eli Simonson, and honorable mention Ernesto Nava. Good depth too, including RS Freshman transfer Hasson. None of the FCS previews considered that the entire line returns, Sports Illustrated said Davis returned 4 “contributors” which means players that played 180 plays or so.

The roster inexplicably doesn’t list the year players graduated from high school, which makes their eligibility hard to decipher. In most but not all cases, players who came to Davis as freshmen are listed according to their academic class, not their eligibility. Players who started elsewhere are mostly listed by eligibility. But they are inconsistent even in that,

Number of scholarships is why Sac is leaving the BigSky, they want to build an FBS roster, They claim to have a schedule for next year, probably including some FBS teams. Being FCS independent allows them to build a FBS roster, with the same schedule they would have if they were FBS Independent, no difference. Strengthens their future court case.

So the 2022 12-1 season with the only loss a narrow one in the playoffs. didn’t move the perception much, but this season will?
i don’t know if people appreciate how weakened most FCS teams are from transfers. Anything short of a national championship won’t be a better showing than Sac’s showing of just a few years ago.

Interesting that he says the school committed to 105 scholarships.
(The House settlement sets roster limit of 105 but doesn’t require 105 scholarships. The SEC limits there members scholarships to 83.)
Scholarships is likely why they are leaving the BigSky. As an FCS independent they can recruit just like an FBS team, and schedule as they would have if the waiver had been granted.

I think the goal was to liberate NIL money, and a prerequisite for that was painting the picture of Sac being FBS. The Woods brothers see the future as one where big football programs thrive and small levels and programs suffer, and want to get into the big category. They apparently feel the Mountain West is on the wrong side of that divide. They got their NIL money and they made their pitch with success.
Now they have hit an obstacle, but the NCAA is toothless, and is on a long losing streak in the courts. It wouldn’t surprise me if the NCAA encourages a conference to invite Sac to avoid a potential law suit. They haven’t failed yet.