Checking in, just wow. Wish I could have gone. Hopefully this is a huge confidence builder for the team

I wouldn't exactly call them "proven" coaches. We've now had one dream season and two disappointing seasons under this staff.

Yeah, maybe I am a little hasty to let go of coaches. The two 2-win Gould years after which we still kept him for another year are still fresh in my mind. The school and community raised the investment in the program and this current staff raised the talent level, I'll give everyone that. But we also need to raise the expectations now.

I honestly believe that given the name recognition and resources this school has and the associated recruiting advantages that we should not be finishing under .500 against FCS competition. I understand that the academic requirements are a limiting factor, but it needs to be clear to the coaches that they're expected to find a way to win regardless, like Sochor did in the D2 era and like Stanford did for many years in the Pac-12. Especially when you look at what this school offers recruits in terms of environment and opportunities compared to basically the entire Big Sky sans Cal Poly.

For the record, I am cautiously optimistic that we'll show some improvement on the current course -- as I've said before I think that this staff did make some positive changes, and we can't control for injuries, and I'm excited for the new facilities. But even if we improve to getting about 7 wins per year on average (which was probably our theoretical peak this year), that's still underperforming in my books. EWU just got 7, was a bubble team, and this is a really disappointing year by their standards.

I think consistent drive-killing penalties and bad plays are both on the coaches though. When it becomes a pattern, which it is

I've said it before on here -- I think this staff was good at dealing with the low-hanging fruit by getting a few good players on offense and switching to the spread and going for it on 4th once in a blue moon. They also are kinda ok at realizing when something needs to be worked on -- i.e. we saw the false start penalties go away mid-season.

But our playcalling is generally still "play-not-to-get-blown-out". Tackling is still bad. Clock management is iffy sometimes. Lack of focus in key moments. Generally not playing up to competition (i.e. I'm not sure we have any wins against top 10 FCS teams in the Hawkins era)

TD Thompson. I'd love to be proven wrong but it's over and I'm turning it off. If it were me in Hawkins' shoes neither coordinator would have their job by December, but that's above my pay grade.

QB Draw for the 1st down!

Never mind; happy to be wrong

Let's see

I'm predicting the first play after the kickoff will be a handoff to Gilliam out of shotgun for less than 4 yards.

Sac State 51-yd score. Defense is gassed. This isn't on them, not at this point

Pretty sure it is? Otherwise every band would do it.

Another 3 and out. At least the punting team is on fire

Offense is slowly and surely losing us this game. Sac is going to have at least 2 tries to take the lead in the 4th quarter and probably more like 4+

Addition: Or, if you're going to do a super obvious run on third and short anyway, just put Rodrigues in to pound it up the center

In the grand scheme of things I get it, but when it's likely he's only going to play 3-6 more drives in an Aggie uniform the risk-reward ratios for wear and tear on the QB change dramatically. And this is pretty much only an issue of wear and tear, not hugely risky things -- other teams run their QBs on short yardage all the time.

Did the feed just go dead for anyone else too?

Are we so unconfident in the OL that we can't just QB sneak up the center on 3rd and 1?

More terrible tackling. Defender actually had his arms around Thompson in the backfield and Sac still got 6 yards or something out of it

17-10 at the half. Urgh it could have been better than that

HOW did they not review that interception?

Even the Sac State announcers thought it was a pick!!

7-3 Aggies. Barely stopped their O; I'm worried

Vaughn TD!! HUGE catch and run

2OT it is