Let's see.... putting the English minor from UC Davis to work:


Dear Jeff,

This letter identifies you as a top prospect for the 2019 Football Recruiting Class of the University of California, Davis. We feel that you are an exceptional player and person and that your talent will help our program ascend to new heights. We have completed a thorough evaluation of you as a student-athlete and we are absolutely confident you possess the ability to make a game-changing impact on our program.

We know of your desire to receive a world-class education from one of the finest institutions in the country as you possess great character qualities. We also know you have a limitless future as a football player. As a result of these characteristics, our staff would like for you and your family to join our football program and Aggie family.

We are pleased to officially offer you an athletic scholarship to UC Davis. This is the grant-in-aid permitted under NCAA regulations. This award covers -- per NCAA regulations -- your tuition, room, board, course-required books, and miscellaneous fees. This offer is contingent on the following criteria:

- Admission to UC Davis
- Meeting all NCAA and UC Davis eligibility requirements
- Ability to maintain high standards of personal conduct
- Availability of remaining scholarships at your position

As a verbal commitment, we are thoroughly excited that you feel that UC Davis is the best place for your academic growth and that Aggie Football is the best program for your growth as a player. Congratulations on your football achievements up to this point and best wishes to you on your season.

Go Ags!

Dan Hawkins

I'm leaving more and more towards getting fully behind shooting for the top of FCS and staying there for a while. We wouldn't get into a power conference so ending up in mountain West or independent or a resurrected WAC would still contribute to a "small time" image. (Heck, I had a UCLA friend ask me if San Diego State, a top 25 team, was D2.)

Let's have football join the ranks of MBB, WBB, and MSOC at getting respected as a top team at our level while not compromising on recruiting principles. Churn out 4 years of winning seasons in all the spectator sports and then reevaluate where we are in terms of stakeholder engagement and national interest.

I imagine that from the perspective of someone writing from Fargo, not going to the playoffs and not recently (ever?) beating any perennial FCS powers effectively means your program is invisible.

I'm in a really active FCS fans group on Facebook and there are basically tiers of chatter, with NDSU and James Madison getting by far the most notice, then a tier of EWU/Montana/SDSU/SHSU/NCAT/quite a few other easterly schools I'm forgetting, and then everyone else. Davis is only getting some attention on there this year because of the FBS win and concern from other Big Sky fans.

The last three years of our FCS past before Hawkins really deserves all the negativity it can get. 7 wins total over three seasons.

Urgh, I cancelled my ESPN+ subscription after I did my Business Strategy final project on it. That would have been a good one to watch, but not worth a resubscribe right now.

I'm keeping tabs on Austin Peay leading #8 JSU right now; what a feel-good story AP is:
https://sports.yahoo.com/12-year-old-meet-countrys-unconventional-young-coach-212251713.html

We do, but it would really help if Eastern could pick up a random loss somewhere

I think it was part regional rivalry and and also frustration that Idaho thought they could drop down and immediately be competitive in the FCS.

In that regard having Davis instead of Montana/EWU beat them was particularly gratifying -- just 2/3 years ago Idaho would have been a runaway favorite in a matchup against the Ags.

Also, Hawk is now 8-7 with the Ags and has more wins than the last three years under Gould combined

Makes sense on the enclosure. It did feel like a more complete "bowl" than what I remember. And it's hard to tell how much the environment would have been different with a losing team.

Re: first year turnout, I noticed in the general admission section there were a lot of parents sitting with their first-year kids, who looked like they didn't run or sit with the Aggie Pack. I think generally speaking having the game exactly on moving day might not be the best thing -- I noticed people still shuttling suitcases from their cars to dorms at Tercero when I walked through campus after the game.

Also, cool Aggie moment: in the 4th quarter some first-years from Shanghai sat down behind me in general admit until the game ended. Despite not being familiar with the sport they seemed to be having a good time and it was really important for them to watch it all the way through.

I think that's what they wore for USD, so it's in the arsenal.

Oh, did I double-count the gold helmets? The helmets looked flatter during the USD game but that might have been the product of the stream quality

I don't know how to describe it, it just felt very comparable to my memory of SDSU games except with a smaller grandstand and tailgate area.

Although I can pin down that the video board and greater variety of food options really added to the apparent production value

Best gameday experience I've had at Davis. Being gone since 2016 meant I didn't get to see incremental improvements, but the program feels more energized by leaps and bounds than when I was a student.

That's what it looked like at the USD game, at least from TV.

The shiny helmets have script too, but just the outline. Last year I remember the shiny helmets had solid blue script so that's what leads me to believe the text is a sticker

My understanding is that pretty much all the logos on helmets are stickers. I can't recall the last time we saw the gunrock helments so I think they're either retired or restickered. So to my knowledge the equipment on hand is:

White Helmet (SJSU game)
Blue Helmet (currently the practice helmets based on practice photos I've seen)
Standard Gold Helmet (USD game)
Shiny Gold Helmet (Stanford game)

Blue Shirt
White Shirt
Grey Shirt

Blue Pants
White Pants
Gold Pants
Grey Pants

We have a nice blend of retro and modern unifiorms right now; I'm not sure what we could even add to go for a fourth option.

Also, we're fortunate that the colors tend to go well together. There a lot of combinations of existing equipment the team hasn't explored yet, like gold-blue-gray, white-blue-white, blue-gray-blue, etc.

I hope they keep the gold-blue-gold for Homecoming and Causeway -- and maybe keep at least hte gold helmets and blue shirts for one or two more games -- but it's cool to see them try new things otherwise

they also had a deal for East side tickets a few weeks ago of 3/$30, the other two games being ISU and NAU. They really want to sell this one and homecoming out seems like

I see, I forgot what the deal was with Moore. So it looks like Montgomery is out for the season?

Weren't effectively our #2, #3, and #4 receivers out vs Stanford because Harrell, Montgomery, and Moore weren't playing?

Hopefully we pull out all the stops: uptempo, long bombs, trick plays, the new uniforms, zany Band-uh show, anything to make gameday a wild experience for the freshman

I think as a program we now get the right to be a little more cynical about the FBS moniker. We were just a few more conversions away from being "in the game" in the second half against the best team on the west coast, and our O already cut through a mountain West defense like a hot knife through butter. So compared to our track record, Fresno's beatdown of the vandals is a pretty bad look.

Agree that it's unlikely, and I think the simulation doesn't necessarily dispute that. Having a 70%-90% chance to win each game still makes a couple of random losses highly probable.