He doesn’t qualify according to the rules but for the NCAA rules don’t mean a lot.
The rule is a player has to play in less than 30% of a teams games. For that to occur Davis need to play 3 playoff games if they don’t count Mercer. 4/14= 28%

Plough got me worried about other injuries with his comments about finding 70 guys.

Neither Nick Afato nor Matteo Perez seem to have played. Afato is listed in the starting lineup in the box score, but Sievers made the tackle on the first play. Afato was listed ahead of Sievers on the 2 deep for the game both at Porter Connors spot.

Mayo and Sievers are redshirt freshmen.
Roster lists Pinnick as a redshirt freshmen, Mayo and Sievers are same class. Both hardly played in the regular season in their first year. Sievers played in five games last year, but playoff games don’t count.

Davis certainly gave up first downs a lot on 3rd and long, often by pass interference. Otherwise a goid defensive game.
I don’t know if any of our recent nose tackles ever had eight tackles as red-shirt freshman Mayo did.
Red-shirt freshman Sievers had 11 tackles.

They are thinking only big fish are going to survive economically in the football pond. Their error is seeing themselves as a big fish.

Sac left the Big Sky, and the Big Sky is adding members and hence 9 onference game. Davis is contracted to play three out of conference games, so no room for Sac.
Sac, being without a conference, would be happy to play Davis, they are going to have a hard time building a schedule.

[
History and all game scores here.
[url] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_the_Golden_Horseshoe[/url]

They said on the broadcast that he was available.

They have been told to expect him to play

Draft Kings has the game at 7.5 which is reasonable. We have uncertainty due to injury and we’re in the road. Over/under is 60.5.

They are fifth year players, used their redshirt year as freshmen. They already played in four games this year which unless they play two games in the playoffs is more than the maximum,

NCAA Guidelines for Medical Redshirting
The injury or illness must be season-ending.
The injury must occur in the first half of the season.
The athlete must not have competed in more than 30% of the season's competitions (rounded up when necessary).
Documentation from a qualified medical professional is required.

I think Afato could be perfect. 247 listed him as a 3 star running back prospect. But not this week, we’re thin at linebacker, he is now a key player,

Maybe a stout D lineman in the Toki FB role is safer for the playoffs / big games?

Plough beat you to it, but its an O-lineman, AJ Hasson, referred to as Paul initially on the broadcast when he lined up as as wideout and then went in motion.

“We have some packages in our game plan for AJ,” said Plough of Hasson. “He’s doing a lot of great things for us on offense and special teams.” reports the Davis Enterprise.
He hasn’t carried the ball yet but Toki and Maae initially were used as blockers.

UCD's schedule so far has been a lot of teams with Massey rankings currently in the 30+ range (including Mercer), which is a borderline awful schedule by Big Sky standards.

Comparing to Poly.with Massey ratings of opponents leaving out losses.
#29 Mercer, #33 Weber are closely ranked near #30 Sac
No one Davis played is lower rated than San Diego. And then there is Western Oregon.

When team record is downstream from how successful programs are at extracting funds from their assets, its not surprising that professionals are sought to maximize the extraction of value.
Private capital could identify undervalued assets the conference owns, agree to pay the conference a guaranteed amount in exchange for the rights to the asset, with them taking a profit from the amount they guaranteed and what they actually get from marketing the asset. They put some investment or money at risk and earn income from the asset. Assets might be broadcast rights, logo’s, images, endorsements. The private equity firm doesn’t need a seat on the board, just a contract to market the asset.

Two of the guys in the top 10 are reserve DBs, who will see more playing time if Rex is out. Batson may be making tackles at near the Rex rate per play, assuming he plays about a third as much. (just a guess). Stanley may also play some safety, with Allen playing nickel.

We haven’t had many play as true freshmen at a level where they project to FBS starters. Freshmen don’t have the investment of time in the degree that makes transferring less attractive.
What is behind the worry about Porter Connors? I didn’t see him injured on the field, and he played relatively late in the game.
Ty Richardson hasn’t played since the Washington game reported here as an ankle injury. Hopefully he’ll be back soon.

The Rush (now $) linebacker position has historically been where good players go to disappear from the stat sheet. Think Nick Eaton.

The simple rating is the comparing the ratings of the two teams and factoring in the standard 5.12 home field advantage which makes davis about a five point favorite
The second uses customized home and away values.Maybe Cal Poly has outperformed at home, and Davis underperformed on road explains part of it. Davis didn’t cover the huge point spread at Utah Tech and got blown out at Washington so appears a weak road team.
Third method is a mystery.

Sagarin has three prediction algorithms, and two of the three predict Cal Poly wins. All have narrow point spreads. Sagarin uses a home field advantage of 5.14 points this year.