Totally agree now that I know more about our RB corps from these past weeks' injuries and media coverage, I wrongly assumed starting the season that there was a room of 4+ guys behind Larison and Perez ready to go back there. It seems like we have talent at receiver, but the ball just isn't being spread around that much compared to the squad Maier was throwing to, which I admit is more of a gut feeling than keeping track of the stats

I seem to remember Plough's offense still running a lot of halfback dives up the middle, but with the difference that there was 1) a lot of talent available at 1st and 2nd string RB and wildcat QB and 2) really solid short passing options to very good receivers and TEs. Maier -> Doss bailed us out of a LOT of 3rd and longs.

So I'd argue it's partly a rushing threat recruiting problem, but also a receiver shortage as well. Except for maybe Hutton I would say there isn't a downfield guy as reliable as even Harrell or Crawford on the roster this year, let alone an all-star like Doss available to bail us out.

Part of my optimism comes from thinking that these games aren't going to be independent events. I'm thinking that if the Ags figure stuff out on offense / get the personnel back in order to beat Weber on the road, then I feel much more confident against NAU. If the Ags beat both Weber and NAU, then barring another injury I think it's looking very achievable to go 2 for 3 against PSU, ISU, and Sac.

If the Ags show some improvement before losing to Weber but then solidly beat NAU with a semi-healthy offense, then I feel somewhat better about building momentum and picking up PSU/ISU wins then everything comes down to the Causeway, and anything can happen there.

Flip side of course is that I'll be much more pessimistic if we get blown out at Weber and there's still no sign of at least one of Larison, Tompkins, or Perez returning to form.

That's a good point, I was really frustrated by the third and long failures. I felt like the D was trying or hoping to force them into some risky situation to make a big play but that only really happened once by forcing the fumble on the long QB run early. I'll admit I don't have a very good eye in a live game for things like missed coverages or getting fooled on QB draws so I don't know where the individual errors were on those plays though

OK, had time to catch up on the forum to digest.

1. I thought defense was relatively skillfull this game/this year as opposed to previously, in terms of (most) tackling quality, finding the ball, contesting a lot of catches, etc. They're still being burned by just faster and stronger athletes making plays but hey, that's going to happen against Montana. And of course they're just on the field too much.

2. Arguably penalties kept the Ags in the game but hey, that's an area we DO expect to significantly outperform the Big Sky on. (I checked FCS stats today, UCD is the second-least-penalized team in the nation). Penalty differential actually matters in matchups with similar offensive stats.

3. I felt the playcalling wasn't putting our guys in a position to succeed, frankly. From my untrained eye it looked like there was a lot of (relatively) slow-to-develop runs or screen passes behind the line of scrimmage on early downs, leading to minimal yardage and frequent 3rd-and-8+. Miles being his old self doesn't fully compensate for him not having the same squad of athletes to dump the ball off to in key situations and not being a running threat himself.

4. Still possible to get to 7 wins and therefore an at-large bid (I think a Big Sky team with no bad losses gets the nod at 7, like Idaho last year). The window of opportunity is getting smaller, but if we win 4 out of 5, we're in. Two of those wins would by necessity be out of Weber, NAU, and Sac. At least we have Sac at home and the magic of a rivalry game introducing some wrinkles there. We absolutely need Tompkins and Perez back to get to that record I would think, and obviously hoping for Larison.

Loving this music of South Korea halftime Band-Uh! show. It's really interesting.

Last year I got to see one of the groups they covered; the Korean artists put on fantastic, catchy shows. Glad the band is still being creative in finding source material to appeal to newer students

I think we win this game if Lan is still in the full game, that said, coughing up the ball three times against a team that can score as fast as EWU isn't something we can expect to happen in a win.

Positives were a close, competitive game, good turnout, and good halftime show (I've felt for a while that the band should try a k-pop show to appeal to the undergrads). I also quite liked some of the food options; I had a good (by stadium quality tri-tip plate).

I heard some (presumably freshmen) walking behind me on the way back through campus talking after the game about how they were pretty satisfied with the team's performance and didn't feel it was a bad loss, so I hope that's a common sentiment. I also saw some older students filling up the bars downtown after the game so hopefully gameday becomes an "event" once again now that we have more outgoing post-virtual students on campus looking to have fun on weekends.

Montana losses to NAU 28-14

“We’ve got to keep Montana in the top 15 because they just had a quality loss to an NAU team that’s good enough to beat Montana” — the STATS poll voters, probably

NAU up 21-6 after a forced fumble and nice double pass

Depending on whether you count him as a Big Sky player, Joshua Kelley is arguably a bigger contributor to his team than some of the players on this list. He had tied for the most carries, 91 yds, and a TD for the Chargers in their loss to Miami

As of this comment, two different sentences on the game writeup on the Athletics website indicate that the Oregon State game was the first game of the season (one directly, the other implies it). C'mon people, you still need to proofread ChatGPT before posting it

The Aggies dropped their first contest of the 2023 campaign at nationally ranked Oregon State. Lan Larison rushed for 55 yards and Rex Connors posted 10 total tackles in his season debut.

Could be that Coors is sold at the snack bars but the independent food trucks/stalls including Sudwerk (if they feel like coming) can serve whatever they want provided they have the license.

So glad I made we made it out to this game, one of the most stunning finishes I've seen in the Pavilion.

This team feels March-ready, obviously blowing the lead was not fun but I was so impressed with the poise down the stretch.

Him being a Colfax grad jumped out at me the most honestly, could be helpful to have someone connected to the smaller SJS schools to grab some underrated recruits in our backyard. And if he turns out to be a star then it might help us keep him a little longer, like Troy Taylor and his Folsom connections

Ooh good call. I think it's beyond issues of simple audience confusion though; it wouldn't even show up properly on searches on ESPN's website

Vols twitter take / their impression of NFL scout thinking is that he's an elite blocker who can be pretty athletic as a receiver, but was underutilized this year due to our reliance on the run game and sheer amount of pass catchers available for when we did air it out. He did have a few drops that I remember but otherwise I'm inclined to agree.

Starting to get a maybe overreacted sense if existential dread for our athletics program as it’s becoming clear just how much Sac has been held back by bad coaching and institutional support in its revenue sports.

Not looking forward to getting out-recruited and out-supported by Sac in FB, MBB, and WBB for the next decade or two until the next realignment

Yup, though worth noting that there's some causality here. We've been so consistent in racking up wins against the lower Big Sky that any team that beats us gets a minimum-decent win for their playoff resume and any team that loses to us is usually a bubble team at best (unless it's their only FCS loss, which hasn't happened yet). So our conference losses are more likely to be playoff teams and our wins are more likely to not be, partly because of the outcome of our game.

Biggest example I can think of recently is Weber in 2021; they would have been a 7-4 at-large team if they somehow figured out how to stop our freshman QBs in the 4th quarter. Instead my heavy-handed sorting puts them in the same category as the Cal Poly win that year.

cmt brings up a good point in a specific criticism of one of Hawkins' years that I just expanded a bit -- almost all of Hawkins' losses across his whole Davis career were to FBS teams (specifically Pac teams except for SDSU) or FCS playoff teams. All of his losses in 2018, Spring 2021, and 2022 fall into that category.

2017
FBS record: 0-1
Playoff-team record: 1-3
Other FCS record: 4-2

2018
FBS record: 1-1
Playoff-team record: 2-2
Other FCS record: 7-0

2019
FBS record: 0-1
Playoff-team record: 1-6
Other FCS record: 4-1

2021S
FBS record: 0-0
Playoff-team record: 0-2
Other FCS record: 3-0

2021F
FBS record: 1-0
Playoff-team record: 0-3
Other FCS (and transitioning D2) record: 7-1

2022
FBS record: 0-1
Likely playoff-team record: 0-3
Other FCS record: 5-0

If I did my math right, then Hawkins is a bonkers 30-4 against non-playoff teams. Ironically including FBS doesn't hurt that number that much, he's 32-5 against non-Pac, non-playoff teams and 32-8 against everything but FCS playoff teams.

However, he's essentially never won against playoff-caliber teams not named University of San Diego; the only time the Aggies have beaten a legit playoff contender under Hawkins was our actual playoff game vs Northern Iowa coming off a bye.

Ooof, down 11 at the end of the first.

There are some positives, Turner is killing it from the arc and I've liked the Ags' hustle in forcing tie-ups and getting to the line. But Washington got hot late in the quarter

Brutal. I think it's good to have a contrary perspective but this is probably a bit of hyperbole on the contrarian side.

A couple of things stood out to me:

• Only a few of Hawkins' seasons were winning seasons -- the piece misstates that it's been 2 of the last 5 when really it's been 3 of the last 5, and there are decent odds of this season as well (if you take Massey's 45% chance to win tomorrow plus some small chance of winning @Sac). 3/6 with potential for 4/6 is far better than the 6 years preceding Hawkins.
• It was interesting to break down where Hawkins' wins have come from but I bet if you broke down a lot of BSC teams' records you'd see a substantial chunk of their wins coming from the bottom half of conference and unnoteworthy non-conference games. Sac also has a protected rivalry with Poly, and EWU has one with Portland State, etc. Not to mention the other schools get D2 teams on their schedules which we pretty much have stopped doing.
• We used to lose games to the above teams, sometimes badly. It's not clear to me what other hire except some bonkers signing like Petersen could satisfy admin and fans alike and also drag us from being one of the worst teams in D1 to a team that's actually going .500+ with our recruiting limitations.