Also, oof

Blocked PAT return is 2 pts yes

Someone tell me what happened online score didn’t update lol

Can’t watch or listen today but it sounds like our defense has taken a step up but is just utterly not being put into a position to succeed

we beat Idaho in HR’s first start and Weber last year and I THINK they were both ranked barely in the top 25. That said the point could easily be amended to that we’ve never beaten anyone who conceivably could be a real playoff contender on the road.

A win today would massively outpace most other FCS wins I can think of in the Aggie program history.

It seemed like we ran tempo some percentage of the time -- admittedly some of that was 2-minute offenses at the end of each half -- but there definitely wasn't that unrelenting speed of the first couple of years. If I was paying more attention maybe I would have noticed a pattern where Hastings was only running a no-huddle offenses after prolonged breaks or something where multiple plays were hashed out on the sidelines.

I noticed Cal started picking up the pace against us to great effect mid game.

Summation of things that didn’t go the ags’ way (not all of which were controllable, like the interception call) led this to be a somewhat less competitive game than it could have been, but still frustrating. Kicking concerns me, and I thought I saw Hastings staring down receivers too much from the nosebleeds. Also do we just not have the speed at WR to throw deep at all? It’s a bit conspicuous that the go to people both in long situations and special team ball handling positions seem to be RBs/TT

For the positives, I liked the majority of playcalling and the general commitment by coaches to stick to game plan and personnel . We were in this game at the start of the fourth even without particularly lucky breaks, and that’s something. (I’m not going to call UG’s run a lucky break, you need your best player and senior captain to make explosive plays to win big games). Some good wrinkles thrown in with three different people capable of passing all in the same packages.

Im of the opinion that BSC defenses will generally not have the manpower to stuff the wildcat snaps the way a PAC team can. I’m thinking there will be more low risk but med/high reward options on the table once conference starts, which will be a relief because we might be going for a lot of fourth downs and 2 pt conversions.

SJSU is up a score at the half against Portland, but the Vikings look like the better team. PSU can seem to move the ball at will vs SJSU except for a few miscues in the end zone.

Ironically the Cal writer is higher on Hastings than most of this forum.

He happened to play in the games we lost but I'm not sure how much is on him -- those games included Sac State, EWU, and part of the SDSU game as I recall (and SDSU made life brutal for HR as well).

I'm of the opinion he could be fine -- in this offense in particular given where our known talent and experience is -- if he's making throws when he needs to and otherwise the talented backs, TT, and Hutton are mostly advancing the ball. I'm thinking back to to grad school where SDSU's QB (the one who started against Davis) was a pocket passer whose job was understood to be 12 attempts a game and otherwise let the backs take turns grinding down the defense.

Problem with that is if Hastings' job is to hand off 3/4 of the time, why not have someone more mobile primarily take the snaps in order to add another threat?

The video is difficult to watch because it gets blocked by the automatic tracking blockers on web browsers.

I disabled some security features in Edge and watched it. The interviewer leads with mentioning Hastings won the job and Dunning gives a take on what he likes about Hastings and a bit of the "QB U" history at Davis.

He says the day before Hawkins was insisting that there were multiple candidates from camp and the starter would be revealed Saturday, but that "it kinda leaked out that Miles is the guy, which I don't think surprised anybody".

So not clear to me if Dunning was responding to the interviewer's leading question, or they both had a mutual source, or it was something Dunning mentioned before the camera started rolling, or what.

The Write For California author confirmed he also wrote the 2019 preview for a different site, meaning this author is 2 for 2 for writing the most thorough game previews I've seen for Davis games.

Quickly becoming something to look forward to whenever we play UCB

Important to keep in mind that this particular graduating class had a pretty mediocre entire UCD experience seeing as a significant chunk of it was online or with the campus partially closed. (Also wildfire smoke closures, PE classes cut, housing prices shooting up, to name a few things).

20 minute drive to an AC'd arena probably sounds pretty good for the students who didn't get to walk at all after going through all that

Agreed, and script Davis is such a classy logo

Huh, you're right:

https://ucdavisaggies.com/documents/2020/2/7/UC_Davis_Athletics_Brand_Identity_Guide.pdf

I wonder if this is a mistake with the rendering or there's some reason they felt they needed to shrink the logo

I disagree. Some folks didn't get to walk at all, or got told they wouldn't get to walk and then didn't attend, or didn't have their families get to see them walk because they got inconsistent/wrong messaging from the university. It's shameful, to be blunt, especially since Class of 2022 had a very tough experience with COVID and wildfire closures and such.

If I were in the class of 22, I couldn't see myself donating, joining the alumni association, going to games, anything really if this was my last memory of Davis instead of a day of recognition and celebration.

I assume it's to prevent alcohol being smuggled in

Today had its own problems based on reddit and Twitter buzz. Allegedly the university emailed out that there would be NO walking at all, just speeches, in an email at midnight. Then in the morning, after a fair amount of families and students bailed or were considering bailing, the university changed course and announced on social media that they WOULD in fact have students walk starting very early. So there are some livid students talking about how their families didn't bother driving up to Davis because they didn't think their grads would get to walk.

Also anecdotes from this morning said that the students walking took 2+ hours anyway, meaning that the university's original timeline may have always been unrealistic.

This assessment and Dr. Mike's qualifier below it are correct per this site: https://www.on3.com/news/ncaa-tournament-selection-committee-sets-minimum-game-requirement-for-eligibility/

(25 games with tourney counting as one). However there's a case-by-case waiver process. I would hope that UCD has already done everything possible to secure such a waiver and it would be weird to keep fans in the dark about it if the AD did/has not going into the tournament.

I've done my share to support this team through good and bad via other social media, donations, purchases, and trying to spread word of mouth to my friends, on top of going to dozens of losing games.

I'm not a student anymore though and my time and money have value; the program doesn't get to claim either for free without accountability

I went to pretty much every game, the whole game, as a student during the Gould years where we were lucky to pick up a D1 win. Unlike most of this forum, I didn't get to experience any sort of football success as an Aggie fan until Hawkins came along and I'm certainly thankful for not being terrible every week anymore. I get very testy at being called a fair-weather fan after the abject disappointment this team kept dragging me through year after year with me keeping coming back for more for some reason.

That being said, now that the school seems to take football seriously now I expect the coaches to do everything they can to play to win. Good programs don't play for .501 seasons, they play for championships. That's what I want us to strive for, so it's really frustrating to see the program not seemingly striving for it.