You mentioned hoping that Gould doesn't poach us.....
Me too! Kelley and Doss could probably play at Fresno State tomorrow.
If Gould truly values his relationship with these kids, I don't think he could truly, in good faith, lure them from UC Davis to Fresno State (provided he lands there with Tedford). After all, the recruiting mantra was "College is not a 4 year decision, its a 40 year decision."

Interesting Enterprise article: UCD football? Ask the guy who’s been around the longest

Excerpt: (Bob Dunning comment) “Now that the dirty deed has been done, UC Davis needs to do a critical assessment of the football program and what is expected of the next head coach. Are we giving the coach and athletes every chance to succeed at this level? If not, and if the will to provide such support is not present, then drop the sport and concentrate on the other 22 varsity sports.”

http://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/ucd-football-ask-the-guy-whos-been-around-the-longest/

I had hope after the Oregon game, we seemed to have a winning strategy - ball control passing in the first half, and rammed it down their throats in the second half. ... Did we quickly abandon the ball control passing? ... Coach Gould never seemed to adjust from his desire to run smash-mouth football.

Any ideas why we lost 2-3 Center's to injury?

I wouldn't be so melodramatic after one failed coaching tenure... and I'm not trying to be tough on Coach Gould... but 4 or 5 FCS wins in 3 years is a pretty low bar. ... Dunning was also high on Moroski 4 years ago.

We were spoiled with a soft league for 20 years, and now we are playing in a very tough conference. Is Aggie Pride our motto only when times are easy? ... FWIW, NCAC football died for a lot of reasons. Don't forget gender equity and shrinking state budgets.

1. I think they would have to sit a year; and 2. there is a higher level of risk at an FBS school... 3 and 4 star recruits to name just one.

3. You get a world class education at UC Davis.

When transferring from FCS to FBS, no waiting year is required.

Flip that. When transferring from FBS to FCS , no waiting is required. If you go the other way you have to sit out a year.

To my dismay, I have yet to read one (1) comment expressing any concerns or thoughts for the student-athletes left in the wake of this decision. Hopefully Dr. Blue (AD) and the new coach (who ever he may be) will honor the scholarship agreements in-place with the current players. These were good-faith agreements between the player (family) and THE UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA DAVIS, not with a particular coach. The NCAA is very clear (emphatic even) in affirming this point when restricting player transfers. Do the right thing. Only time will tell!

I'm not sure what's "melodramatic" about posting a quote by Bob Dunning from an Enterprise article. I think Dunning is expressing what many Aggie football fans feel in that, at this level of FCS football and playing in the Big Sky Conference, we are not going to be successful without the necessary support systems and structure in place that the coaches and the players need to have a good chance to be successful.

What we have been doing since our move to D1 has not worked to achieve the level of success we all want. By comparison to the elite teams in the Big Sky, I believe Biggs and Gould were significantly handicapped and did not have the resources they needed to hit the ground running and it has led to a failure to be the competitive program UCD deserves. As a result, interest in Aggie football has declined and fans have become disillusioned in the direction of the program in general.

Blue understands this as he has so intelligently state in his article "The Way Forward for Aggie Football." He has done his homework and I'm optimistic that he and the advisors he has enlisted to help him achieve the vision he has articulated, will get this program on the fast track to success.

The student athletes are always of great concern around here. It sounds as though you are worried about keeping your scholarship. When Gould took over, as far as I know, all scholarships were honored. I can't imagine that a scholarship could be taken away. As you mention, it is an agreement between you and the school. Am I missing something?

one thing i'd like to rebut in the article is the 'we could move up or down' sentiment. hopefully 6th can ring in on this but i am under the impression if any of your major sports are classified D1, then football must also be D1. so, we could have only moved football down if we were willing to do that for all other sports (like basketball and football). that was, as i understood, the big reason for us moving up in football. NCAA regulations say : 'Division I is subdivided based on football sponsorship. Schools that participate in bowl games belong to the Football Bowl Subdivision. Those that participate in the NCAA-run football championship belong to the Football Championship Subdivision. A third group doesn’t sponsor football at all. The subdivisions apply only to football; all other sports are considered simply Division I.'

I think you're correct on all of this, DrMike.

I meant Dunning was being melodramatic...give us everything or we quit. If we had better local writers, we might know specifically what Hawkins or footballers deem necessary... not some arbitrary "more money", "more support"... The budget did go up for football , and recruiting territory was expanded, by $400k or $600k.

Does a local scribe have the gumption to ask if we passed up recruits who weren't big on religion? ... It seems an inordinate amount of our recruits were religious. Just sayin.

As BGA stated, there is always concern about our student-athletes. Without them none of this is possible. I cannot imagine a situation where a coach pulls a scholly away from a student due to a coaching change and I believe the NCAA passed a regulation that prohibits schools from doing so.

With that being said, I am sure there are some student-athletes that will also re-evaluate UC Davis to determine if it is in their future plans. There is nothing wrong with that. For those who choose to leave, I wish them nothing but the best of luck wherever they end up. If they choose to stay, their scholarship better not go anywhere. That's not how we operate and I can't imagine anyone on AST, the athletic department, anywhere on campus, or Mrak that would be ok with that.

The only time schools can have their football program in one conference and other sports in another is if their non-football conference doesn't sponsor football (think BYU and San Diego in the WCC). Because the WCC does not sponsor football, San Diego and BYU are able to play in different conferences at different levels (San Diego in the Pioneer - FCS and BYU as an FBS independent.

The NCAA doesn't allow one sport to be DII and others to be DI. You're all in.

Could you play non-scholarship ball with San Diego / Pioneer Football League? .. not my preference, but it's there.

USD plays D1 in other sports, so i suppose we could do that. save alot of money on scholarships, but lose out on quality players. be really hard to maintain the rivalry with both poly and sac each year. we could probably do very well at that level, but...........i'd rather strive to get to poly's level of success, then USD's.

USD plays non-scholly football because there are 7,509 students and it costs more than $50,000 per scholarship. If you fully fund just the scholarship side of the football program it will cost more than $3 million. No way they can generate that cash when they are competing with the Aztecs, Chargers, beach, weather, and general Tom-foolery.

Blue has a game plan and so far it is going well. I know we're having these discussions because we are coming off our sixth straight losing season and we have a lot of work to do. Let's give it some time before we start freaking out.

I'm cautiously optimistic. The easy part is completed. ... Blue's synopsis is fine, but it's not gospel. ... Neither Foster or Biggs rebuilt programs...

Hi Folks,
I'm new to this web-site!
I look forward to keeping up to date on u.c.d football. My thoughts are Dr. Blue was hired to bring back to life the football program. His experience at Stanford (excellence in athletics & academics) will serve him well in finding a coach that can straddle all the issues with u.c.d football. Our team has the talent to complete in the big sky/fcs

Welcome to the party!

Thank you

Welcome aboard!! We love new voices. YES, we think we have the talent, competitive spirit, and campus to compete!!

Welcome to the board GunRock!

Welcome to the forum. Post up often and tell it like you see it! go Ags!

FWIW. CJ Spencer never got into the Causeway Classic... I know we were happy with the Win and the offensive numbers... just sayin.