To be frank, I think/hope we're entering an era where 7 to 9 FCS wins will be par for the course each year. This is Year 2 of the rebuild after all, and it's not like our funding and recruiting will fall off after this season. So I'm not worried about the playoff impacts so much.

We're in a bit of a different situation from Montana, in that we have a ton of nearby FBS schools of comparable institutional profile and 3 of them are in an area with a high concentration of Davis grads (the Bay). If the interest picks up in the program it's a bit of a disservice to the California-based alumni to make the options an Aggie Stadium game, a SLO/Sac game, or none at all. So it would be understandable to get a pretty consistent alternating schedule of at least SJSU and Nevada on top of regular USD games and this new Cal series we have going. SDSU and Stanford maybe shouldn't be a regular thing, though I enjoyed those experiences.

that's what SDSU does, the athletic facility is next to the practice fields and football has just about a whole floor, but the gym, academic tutoring center, and some meeting rooms are for the whole department. And there's a lecture hall on the ground floor that has classes.

I imagine that kind of setup would be an easier sell for the Aggie stakeholders

I know we're probably a bit overrated and the real test is yet ahead, but just for a moment I'm enjoying sitting back and marveling all that Hawkins has done for the program. I know for many on the forum this is a return to form, but I've never been an Aggie fan in an era where UCD Football got an ounce of respect, so these past few weeks have been absolutely blowing my mind.

I did not expect a 2-year turnaround at all. Heck, I was skeptical about any turnaround even last year. But 100% hats off to Hawk, Blue, Hexter, May, the players, the boosters, Pint, everybody. This is crazy and I have to think based on the recruiting and money inflow that we'll get that this is just a warm-up act.

I will say that SJSU is looking somewhat better than their abysmal record indicates. They've had a lot of close games against FBS opponents and SDSU barely beat them 16-13 on a 51-yd field goal on Sat. So it does say something that we put over 40 on a team that is hanging with decent mountain West opponents

Aggies basically clinched a winning season at this point!

Some serious chaos would have to occur in the 6-6 lose-out-and-make-playoffs scenario

Until the EWU game later this season!

Interesting that the stats are so close-ish compared to the scoreline. Then again, the Stanford game was kind of like that too in favor of the Cardinal.

That was a joke, mostly

... though a man can dream

Gotta get the margin of victory higher than NDSU's over the same team

All right Aggies, just uh do what you've been doing

TD Preece!

We're getting stops, ball's moving, should get at least 3 at the end of this drive. Feels like the bleeding has stopped

Two 3 and outs, ick. Gotta get a stop here

Ahh I get it, it's the "Maiercle Moment"

I'm listening to the KHTK pregame show today and Hawk called the game the "Miracle Moment"

ok this is my favorite so far

Miracle in Gray

Prayer on 4th

Overtime in October

October OT

Looking at the film, I really like how Hawk showed the Wildcat with CJ but didn't try to force it when it didn't work. Hopefully that will make defenses spend time preparing for it, without prematurely revealing every wrinkle or variation in this year's version.

Every year we keep up a home win streak is another generation of students who've never seen an Aggie loss. Exciting times!

Regarding the admissions thing -- there probably is a cutoff below the average for non-athletics incoming students, but it's all apples to oranges when you think about it. Picture a high school senior who didn't have the hottest grades but was also a music prodigy who spent several hours a day practicing and wrote a convincing essay about it -- he probably would get strong consideration, and that situation really isn't much different than a football player who racks up a ton of extracurricular hours and probably had a lot more personal contact with the school than the average applicant.

Like somebody mentioned, yield is another important consideration for college admissions, especially since US News ranks based on lower admission rates. It's not abnormal for colleges to preferentially admit students who have a higher probability of actually enrolling (though public schools might be more limited in what tactics they can use), so in that case one can see how a recruit who's already verbally committed again trumps a random applicant who's applying to a bunch of schools.

Then there's a host of other factors, like requirements for different majors, out-of-state vs in-state, local context admissions (doing well at one's high school, regardless of how competitive it is), etc. And then there's the essay wildcard. While some athletes certainly are in impacted majors, also many of them aren't, and that will also play a role.

Anyway, the point is that the whole system is holistic to the point of being arbitrary. So there probably is a cutoff lower than the average admission stats, but that doesn't actually mean that the athletes are less qualified or that they're unattractive candidates by standard admissions schools of thought.