SUU Head Coach DeLane Fitzgerald:

"Our offense slept-walked through the first 40 minutes of the game and after that, we decided we were going to play hard and do some things well… These young men are playing hard but just not doing enough to get the win, and I have said that more than I want to this season. "

"I thought we were tight and flat on offense but we played really well on defense and we put our defense in some tough situations and they stepped up."

"We need to execute and play a little more freely on offense, defense, and special teams."

"Our goals for this season are still in play, we can still go undefeated at home and if we can beat all of the teams from the former WAC conference then we can still have a chance to win the conference and play for a playoff spot."

https://suutbirds.com/news/2023/9/17/football-spectacular-southern-utah-comeback-falls-just-short-aggies-edge-t-birds-23-21-in-thrilling-california-clash.aspx

:lol: You've got a lot of company!

I think, more than any game so far this year, this game will tell us a lot about where we stand in relation to the top teams in the Big Sky.

That call was so bad that it's burned into the memory of every Aggie fan who saw it happen...ended the game for us against our arch rival...

I was thinking some more about the two big, missed calls by the refs that actually had a big impact on the game: the no call on the obvious PI deep in SUU territory in the first half right in front of the side judge and the missed face mask call when SUU's Wooden whipped Rex Connors to the ground on their 66 yard TD late in the game. Luckily, we managed to squeak by with a 2 point win. I know stuff gets missed in every game and that's just part of the game that teams just have to roll with but those two missed calls were so obvious that it hard to see how they got missed. I wonder why Hawk didn't use a challenge on either of those plays?

Is there any form of performance review for the Big Sky refs so they can see where they made mistakes and, hopefully, not repeat them again in future games?

Great photo!



https://www.facebook.com/ucdavisfootball

It is surprising how many plays the “backups” are in on defense when the game is still undecided. — Riveraggie

That tells me that they believe that we've got a lot of good depth at those positions and it gives the "starters" a respite and helps keep them fresh.

AGS Poll Week 3:

Big Sky Teams:

#3 Montana State
#5 Sac State
#6 Idaho
#12 Weber State
#13 Montana
#15 Aggies
#29 Tie EWU




https://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?339635-AGS-Poll-Results-2023-Wk3

Ags move up one place in the STATS Perform FCS Poll (click to enlarge the image).

Big Sky Teams:

#3 Montana State
#4 Sac State
#7 Idaho
#10 Weber State
#13 Montana
#15 Aggies
#28 EWU



Others Receiving Votes (schools listed on two or more ballots): UT Martin 96; Southeastern Louisiana 72; Eastern Washington 68; Northern Iowa 57;Central Arkansas 50; Fordham 37; Campbell 33; Abilene Christian 30; UAlbany 19; Tennessee State 11; Gardner-Webb 8; Tarleton State 8; Austin Peay 6; Eastern Illinois 4; Harvard 2; Stephen F. Austin 2

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/football/fcs/stats-perform-fcs-top-25

Oh geez, I'd forgotten that! Damn, we need this one really bad!!

The SUU and Aggie defenses were practically mirror images of each other on Saturday night as they both slammed the door on the running game of the opponent. SUU's D was aggressive and fast. I was impressed with how fast they closed on the ball carrier when we tried to run wide and we were getting stuffed up the middle and off tackle as well. I think that, overall, SUU is just a whole lot better than they're being given credit for. I hope we'll be able to get a better OL push against EWU but, from what we saw against SUU, it's questionable whether or not that will happen.

This is a huge game for the Aggies. We need to get off to a good start in conference play and not put ourselves in the position of being on the bubble for the playoffs. I think there is a "bias factor" by the selection committee when it comes to the likes of Montana and other far north Big Sky teams vying for a playoff spot so we need to simply be in a position where they can't overlook us period.

EWU has had our number for quite a few years also and has certainly squashed our playoff hopes on a couple of occasions. There's not a lot of love loss between these two programs either given how Best likes to run up the score if he has a chance and he's done that to the Aggies in the past. Time for us to get that bitter taste out of our mouths.

Kind of a bummer that he left. I thought he was going to be a promising player for us. Hard to know why...could be a playing time thing but I wonder if academics might have been a problem since he transferred to a JC and not another 4 year school? Who knows, playing athletics at Davis is a tough balancing act between the sport and the academics though.

So they should know a lot about how the Aggies roll. We're going to need to change things up a bit and add a few new wrinkles to our game plan for sure.

Fresno beat Purdue on the road and EWU only lost to Fresno in 2OT. This game is going to be a real challenge and EWU seems to have our number. We'll need to bring our A game and take care of the ball...can't make mistakes against a team like EWU. I'm hoping we'll have a crowd of 10,000+ for this one. Go Ags!

Main's injury didn't look good. He got rolled up and his left leg got hit hard from the left side and it bent inward. I hope it isn't as bad as it looked.

There were 3 other Aggies on the sideline with leg injuries and wearing a boot. I'm not sure who they were but we've certainly sustained a few leg injuries already.

The Aggies dominated play against St Mary's today but lost the game 1-0. The Ags outshot the Gaels 19-6 but couldn't find the back of the net.

San Jose State comes to Davis next Sunday for a 4 pm match which will finish the out-of-conference schedule for the Aggies who are now 2-3-2 for the season.

I just finished watching the TV replay of the game and you do really see the game differently than watching the game in the stadium. The TV coverage was excellent and Scott Marsh and Scott Gordon did a great job of calling the game. Gordon knows his football his comments after each play are very interesting and really adds to the commentary.

This was a very, hard fought, physical football game by two pretty good football teams. Here are a few things that stood out for me:

- I thought Hastings had a good game especially given the fact that he was running away from pressure most of the night and throwing on the run most of the time.
- We've got some fast, hard hitting LB's and DB's. Rex Connors is one of the best we've ever had.
- Larison is a very talented RB and he's a threat every time he touches the ball. Losing Gilliam was big but Larison is up to the task of filling those big shoes.
- Tompkins and Hutton are tough as nails and made some tough catches. Josh Gale and Andre Crump are doing a great job also.
- Ridley Hunter is 5 for 5 now in FG's.

I thought there were a couple of glaring missed calls by the officials:
1. The no-call on the obvious PI in the first half right in front of the official when the SUU DB pushed the Aggies receiver to the ground from behind.
2. The egregious face mask by SUU's WR Wooden on the 66 yard TD pass late in the 4th quarter. Rex Connors caught up to him and, as Wooden tried to stiff arm Connors, he grabbed Connors' face mask and whipped him to the ground at about the Aggie 25. It should have be a 15 yard face mask penalty that would have taken the ball back to the Aggie 40 or so. That was a huge missed call!

All in all, this was a good win for the Aggies over a very tough FCS team.

Big Sky Schedule for Week 4 (all times are PT):

Montana @ Northern Arizona - 12 noon
Cal Poly @ Portland State - 1 pm
Sac State @ Idaho - 1 pm
Northern Colorado @ Idaho State - 3 pm
Montana State @ Weber State - 5 pm
Eastern Washington @ UC Davis - 7 pm

The “no call” interference on the north west endzone where the suu defender pushed our receiver from behind likely would have been a TD. — agalum

We sit in section 124 and we could see that play up close and the pass interference occurred right in front of the side judge. It was so obvious that it was unbelievable that the ref didn't throw the flag. I just watched the first half of the TV broadcast and, yep, it was blatant PI. Horrible no-call.