Won the ToP battle and had both more passing yards and more rushing yards. I guess "turnovers are the difference" might be the takeway but even that isn't really much of an explanation because I think they only got 3 points of TOs and one of them was essentially a punt equivalent

defense played very well. Much better than in recent years. The one int. Was essentially a punt but Rodrigues was throwing into some tight coverage. That 4th down conversion on their first second half drive absolutely turned the game.

CN Whelan punt or what?

Weber is very, very good on defense but I think Weber may not be a no. 2 team. In any event the Ags shows well and outgained Weber so it should not be much of a setback if any. Should be able to hang a lot more points on Poly next week. SUU scored a bunch on them.

I’m trying to figure out how they got 18 on 247 yards. First TD drive was a long one. FG was off a pick. Other TD after the long punt return?

Yes, Whelan can boom it. He had a massive high punt, and our special teams allowed a 32 yard return when we had about 8 defenders in his hip pocket.

Coach Hill said the 4th down conversion changed the game. Rodriguez only completes 40% of passes... I thought they had a poor pass defense? Second time we stopped their RB (71 yards). When they went uptempo, we couldn't sub personnel.

Random stats

Rodriguez rushed 18 times
We lost 38 yds rushing
Punting average: 51.5 vs 38.1
They put 5 punts inside the 20 (vs 1)
We blasted them on 3rd down conversion
Our two top WR, and TE, all had 1 reception
In Q3, we ran the ball 10x in a row


https://ucdavisaggies.com/sports/football/stats/2020/weber-state/boxscore/18202

Those are meaningful stats
We had bad field position to start a lot of drives., as you point out 5 punts inside the 20, and the initial kickoff where we started on the 3 yard line.

18 QB rushes and just one catch by Harrell, Vaughn, and Castles show they were able to take away, or we abandoned what is usually a big part of our attack. Our offense relied a lot more on runs by slot backs and the quarterback than we usually see. Maybe that’s by choice or maybe the usual guys weren’t open.

What’s the story with Nick Eaton? 2nd start with no tackles according to the stats. This position switch isn’t working out.

I thought I heard Eaton’s name on the radio broadcast a few times. I thought with a sack. Maybe it was just a hurry

Yeah, Eaton has been quiet. We sure could have used him as a pass rusher. They better figure it out before Barrier comes to town.

He's been almost exclusively rushing the passer and has not been able to get home. Gutsy effort by the defense but Weber abused some of the freshmen. Cody is too reliant on the Plough playbook. When Harrell has a 12 yard cushion, rather than running that jet sweep just toss him the ball and take 8 free yards. Too much reliance on misdirection.

I think we’re digging deeper into the Speckman fly playbook. Seems like I’ve seen more fly action in 2 games than the past 2 years combined

Seems like coaching staff is treating these games / play calling more like Spr. practice than ana live season. We've only attempted one(1) deep/vertical pass in 2 games

. CJ Hutton got four carries in this game and hardly appeared in Idaho game. Crawford and Babb also got carries. It worked ok initially although we had the one play where Hutton’s timing crossing in front of the QB contributed to a mishandled snap. But it was essentially his first game. I hope they keep using it with those three getting the ball occasionally. We gained 33 yards on seven carries with those guys, although some of those may not have had the fly action.

Seems like they had a nice plan prepared for the first few drives in the first half and decided they would adjust at half time which turned into a bunch of sweep plays to the short side of the field. Rodrigues is good but he throws a little too late often leading to blocked passes. He was getting a lot of hurries, so we needed more shorter routes and not just on 3rd and 6. Our receivers are one of our best assets. We need to use them more and that frees things up for Gilliam and Larison who is nice surprise. This was overall a good game and our team has a ton of potential. If we can figure a few things out, we can make a nice run in the playoffs.

We may need to run the table in the rest of our games to have a chance to get into the playoffs since there will only be 16 teams selected for the playoffs this year instead of the normal 24.

Did our Wildcat QB really have on gloves? Weber announcers felt this was part of a sure indication he'd never throw.

We don’t know if Tompkins is one of those guys who throws wearing gloves. He’s been reported as unusual in that he doesn’t need the laces on his fingers to throw, so maybe gloves don’t hinder him.
He has been in for four plays, only one of which could be called a wildcat, and he wasn’t the guy who got the direct snap, so he’s never been the wildcat QB so far., he wasn’t a QB on the play.

We were talking about Davis be a old guy; their frosh QB graduated high school in 2018, so 21 year old frosh! If he plays his complete 4, starting with 2021, he’ll be 25 or 26.

JT O’Sullivan endorses the use of gloves by QBs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgXIOT7JpnM

We have the talent to win the rest of our games. Our defense is improved over prior years. We just need to figure out our offensive scheme. We have always had a pro style offense I would hate to see us doing a bunch of wildcat run plays.

Wildcat has so far been just a rumor as they’ve only had one direct snap run in two games, and Gilliam took it.
Personally I’m curious what Tompkins can do, not so much out of the wildcat formation but with the same plays where we see Rodrigues run, assuming Tompkins can be a credible passer as well.

Exactly. He’s an excellent passer. His HS numbers, running and throwing, were tremendous.

The Mormon missionary redshirt program. It is an advantage for physical maturity.

I was impressed by the UCD defense. I can’t remember the last time we held 2 consecutive teams to less than 20 points. If the offense can gel further, I think the Ags will be a real team to reckon with- and I attribute much of that to a defense that is by most measures considerably improved.

Rodriguez rushed 18 times
We lost 38 yds rushing

The Aggies had 192 net rushing yards, 70 more than Weber, so you must have parsed out just losses.

Weber had 49 points and 638 yards of offense the prior week against Idaho State. (although Idaho State D is not good.)I think Weber was a bit cocky and not ready for the improved aggie defense. I think their yardage total was only 247 against UCD. The interview with Hill featured numerous mentions of how many games they were going to play this calendar year with the not too veiled assumption of going to finals on both spring and fall.

I would hope there would be consideration for a close away game loss to a number 2 ranked team in the rankings. There was a lot of bias in the early polls, including Illinois States ranking ahead of Davis at 0-2 (they are now 0-3) when Davis was 1-0 and a win of a 19th ranked squad.

The bias in these polls is embarrassing at times. Just gotta keep improving and winning.