That's true, we did take more shots, though I'd say that was partly due to the risk-reward ratio of the long ball being different (or perceived by the staff to be different) with Maier and Doss making most of the connections. Plough's offense's preferred play was still handoffs to Gilliam up the middle as I recall.

I've liked some of what I've seen this year, especially earlier in the year, with serious attempts to simply get the ball to the best athletes and mix up whether we were going to the side or up the gut. Hard to tell with the quality of some of the early competition but it did feel like the team was running the offense that needed to be run with HR at the helm and when opponents didn't understand the full scope of TT's abilities. Then it certainly did get more stale and transparent, especially with the feeling that relying on Hastings didn't add anything to the offense, just no longer threatened some of the things that Rodrigues brought to the table. I'm not convinced Plough would have done better in the back half of the season -- it's still fresh on my mind how lackluster 2019 was once Doss graduated.

(And as others have said, no knocks on Hastings, I expect him to contribute for years because Hawkins is good at getting a ton of guys in for specific purposes, but I don't think his role will be to play the majority of downs)

Was with family and took time to sort my thoughts on the game

• I don't feel comfortable inviting family and friends to big games after this and last week. Hawkins' teams have just not shown up for big games at home. His signature home win is far and away the playoff game vs UNI -- where we were clearly favored -- and after that, maybe the 2018 OT win against an decent-ish Idaho State?
• C. Hawkins might actually be okay as an OC -- I think he's a step up from Plough's playcalling tbh -- but "okay" doesn't cut it with the optics of hiring family. AD needs to step in and have a long talk with D. Hawkins about whether it's appropriate to even give Cody more time or just admit a mistake and move on with a national search. I don't think Daft or any prior OC is the answer, but I do think it speaks volumes that this forum is starting to get nostalgic for an OC who was from the team's least effectual years.
• I was willing to believe the whole game that HR was injured or something that made him nonviable because that was the most rational explanation for why he wasn't given a shot when the freshman QBs were struggling. But when he did come in, he looked like the readiest player on the field for the Ags (admittedly against the 2s, but still, a lot of poise and game sense).
• Defense has gone from perennially disappointing to kinda acceptable but that basically doesn't matter when the offense is in this shape and our conference is filled with high-octane offenses.
• We're still very, inexcusably sloppy. Not that it would have won the game this time, but a few better tackles and fewer penalties might have made the score a much more swallow-able 17-3 at the half or something, which changes the game plan, keeps crowd energy, etc.

Larison is a legend

Memories of 2018 playoffs. When all is said and done, no matter how much the program improves, we don't have an answer for the fact that EB3 is a better athlete than pretty much anyone we can put on the field

audio is out of spec on the PA and the graphics are consistently going off where they interrupt other things on the screen.

We're one of the top STEM schools in the world and yet when anything is athletics related we just generally give off the vibe of being very mediocre at anything tech. It's befuddling.

Actually OK with that drive because it completely flipped field position. Using TT as essentially a decoy to allow Hastings to run up the middle is a nice wrinkle, though it didn't do much. But that's the kind of adaptation we didn't see in previous seasons IMO

The season might still be okay but more games like these makes it more and more likely that this team's ceiling is getting a first round draw @ Stanford again

Really cool to have Nagel -- I'd argue one of the key players who built the juggernaut -- still involved and providing mentorship. I think Hall may be the only current player who saw the floor with the Splash Sisters? The seasons are blurring together, in a good way.

My WBB season ticket membership has not disappointed. I'm actually not entirely sure when was the last time I attended a home WBB game where UCD lost, might have been in Bertsch's first year or something

Re: basketball streaming, all non-Hawaii MBB and WBB games will be on ESPN+ unless on a main ESPN network
https://bigwest.org/news/2021/6/9/general-espn-plus-faq.aspx

The 2013 upset was actually one of the coolest sports games I've been to at Davis (in terms of product on the field, not the stadium experience at Aggie Stadium which was cavernous). It was a golden goal in extra time if memory serves.

It's a pretty fun sport, but it is weird that UCD is one of the three or so west coast teams that have a team -- and apparently some investment, too, given the dedicated stadium

They went from having arguably the best one to the worst when the Timbers and Thorns apparently kicked them out. Very unfortunate.

Technically yeah, I think it's fair to defend Hastings there because his incompletions and pick were situations where he wasn't in a position to succeed with his skillset. But I think you touched on a bigger problem that Hastings, while good, is not a modern college QB and he's sharing snaps with 2-3 guys who are (since Faulk is mobile as I recall).

He can make it work like Maier did but he'll have to put up 2018-Maier kind of stats (throwing to pretty much the same receiver corps + Tompkins) to do so. So I guess I'm saying that it's not unreasonable to have higher expectations for him in terms of his passing stats and how he handles pressure in the pocket, because that's simply what's necessary for him to remain the starter in this offense

neither of these are the current "official" one, which was recreated a few years ago after the original was lost or damaged or something.

Here's the one that started appearing a few years ago
https://www.davisenterprise.com/files/2017/10/1029horseshoeW.jpg

Good we're already in 4th-quarter mode, we should start it before 4th quarter every game

nm apparently the refs didn't really know either

stream died on my, what was the flag?

Beautiful set of downs at tempo with the same TD play that got us on the board last week

Lol it's almost like Hawkins responded to them. Commentators cast doubt on the #10 ranking; Hawk immediately pulls out a trick play and then skewers them with Tompkins

Commentators are not complimentary about UCD's defense but they're actually doing pretty well, just not being given any breaks