Hope the boys take the day to celebrate the win, but then it's right back to the grind against Idaho. The Vandals come into this game sitting at 1-2, but fresh off a bye week. They've been man handled by both Indiana (2-2) and Oregon State (3-1) who just trounced USC and beat up on Simon Fraser. They will definitely be coming to Davis hungry for their first FCS win of the season. Tough to know where the Vandals really stand as they beat a lower division team and lost to higher division teams.
The Vandals have had 2 guys take snaps at QB so far this season. Mike Beaudry has gone 39/60 for 359 yards and 2 touchdowns. Beaudry has 83 rushing yards on 14 attempts. CJ Jordan has gone 14/31 for 198 yards and 2 touchdowns with 2 interceptions. Jordan has 139 rushing yards and a touchdown on 21 attempts.
The aforementioned CJ Jordan is the team's leading rusher, but he is joined by Roshaun Johnson who has 91 yards on 11 attempts with 3 touchdowns and Elisha Cummings who has 98 yards on 22 attempts with a touchdown.
In terms of receiving the go to target for the Vandals has been Hayden Hatten who has 200 yards on 12 receptions with 3 touchdowns, but is only listed as playing in 2 of their 3 games. Terez Traynor has 99 yards on 10 receptions while Michael Noil has 98 yards on 8 receptions.
On defense their leaders so far this season are Tre Walker with 24 tackles (12 solo) with 2 TFLs and Fa'Avae Fa'Avae with 22 tackles (12 solo) with 1.5 TFLs and .5 sacks. Idaho has prided themselves on their depth and talent at LB so I expect them to make the middle of the field a dangerous area.
Their punter Caleb Lightbourn is averaging 48.3 yards per punt off of 10 punts while their kicker Logan Prescott has only attempted 1 field goal so far this season and made it (21 yards).
I think the Aggies have a decent to good shot of winning this game if we can get healthy. Big question this week is if HR will be ready to go or if Miles Hastings/Trent Tompkins are going to be leading the offense. GO AGS!
Their version of Trent Tompkins, Zack Borisch a 3a Washington state Player of the year who is an international judoka and rushed for 205 yards against Eastern Washington this spring is now an essentially unused running back.
I agree with Finn, dangerous game. They're coming off a bye and certainly did a thorough job scouting us. They look fairly balanced on offense, as was Weber. My main worry, passing yards.
Against Tulsa, 311, SD 390, Dixie 152, Weber, 149. Get our passing game back on track and we have a full arsenal. HR was so awesome in the first 2 games with plenty of pressure. Hopefully he gets back to 100%
I'm putting a disclaimer before the rest of my post so no one takes it the wrong way.
I am by no means implying that it is a sure thing Davis will win this game. Idaho proved to be a tough opponent last season and they return mostly the same team and gain some of the players they had out with covid-19.
That being said, I took a look at the Idaho forum and several of their posters are oddly confident that they are going to win for a variety of reasons. They seem to think that for whatever reason Davis is going to be overlooking Idaho as an opponent. I would counter that our guys are more dialed in than ever. This is our first time starting a season 4-0 since 2004. They know more than anyone that they could make it a special season and that means being locked in to going 1-0 every single week.
Another poster indicated that their offense and defense are simply better than ours. Now I will concede we don't really know what our offensive situation is at this moment considering HR's status, but Hastings proved he could put a drive together when things were on the line and we know how deadly TT can be with the ball in his hands. In terms of the defense, who knows. Most metrics that I can find indicate that our defense has been better so far this season and we have the best turnover margin in the country. Tough to say though when their only opponents have been a 0-4 Simon Fraser (division 2) and then 2 FBS teams.
As I mentioned previously, I'm far from saying that this is a guaranteed victory. The Aggies are going to have to come out hungry to bring the W. What I am saying is that some of their fans have more confidence than I would if the roles were reversed. I wouldn't feel confident at all going on the road against a consensus top 10 team, but more power to them I suppose! I hope the stadium is packed and loud!
Agreed, we should be favored. They didn’t come close to stopping us in our first game with a new OC and new QB. We were very tentative in that game with HR making his first start, he didn’t throw a pass until late in the second quarter If my memory serves. Then they were helpless to stop him. Our running game ran through them at almost 5 yards a carry.
There is more parity in the Big Sky than appears in the rankings and we have to respect Idaho. But we were better than them then, and we’ve shown way more this year than they have.
I visited their forum as well. One guy claimed Hawk hates the Vandals. I asked him to clarify but he didnt. Is there some negative history between the Vandals and Hawk?
Maybe the “hate” is not from Hawk but from some of the Vandals. I dislike that term anyway. I have disdain for a few teams, like Sac, and Best. Not so much EWU, just their jerk of a coach.
I hope the Idaho fans who are making the trip to Davis have read about the proof of vaccination or negative test requirements for entering the stadium.
Only 41% of Idahoans have been fully vaccinated which is the lowest percentage in the country. Hospitals in Idaho are so overwhelmed that they have begun triaging care. Many sick Idahoans are traveling to Washington in hopes of getting care.
One very impressive thing about the Aggie offense is the way we finished the Tulsa and Weber games where we had to string together first downs to either end the game or put us ahead. Those were clutch drives against good defenses. It looked like we wore them down.
I found this comment in their forum funny, "Speaking of -- most of these guys don't even care about their alma maters. They are businessmen/coaches first and last." Not that it matters much, but I'm guessing they don't know Hawkins played at Davis.
That thread was an interesting read. joeyvee is awfully confident, and dislikes their coach quite a bit.
Their whole fan base hates their coach which is totally understandable. Petrino has a 31-61 record at Idaho over the span of 9 seasons. In those 9 seasons he has a singular winning season (9-4 in the Sunbelt Conference). So far in the Big Sky he has led them to records of 4-7, 5-7, 2-4, and 1-2 so far this season. So it is true that the coaching is objectively terrible which is why I find their confidence in winning this game so interesting. Hawkins indicated in an article in the Enterprise that HR should be fine. Now I don't know if by "fine" he means he'll be good to go this week or if he means we'll see him again in a couple weeks. That would be the only thing giving me confidence if the roles were reversed, that our QB might be out.
I’ll be the devils advocate.
They have the same record this year as we would likely have if we played their schedule.
They see that we were outgained by Weber and were lucky to win.
They see that we gave up 27 points to a team that was averaging 5
They see that fortuitous turnovers led to our win over Tulsa
They see that just like them we were 5-7 in 2019, and while our 3-2 was better than their 2-4 they have excuses, like playing Eastern the second time with no quarterback available.
They see they were competitive in the spring game.
I hope HR returns and is 100%. He’s a real daisy when he is on track. But if he’s not hitting the mark, i hope hawk makes a change sooner then later. Gould was the guy who liked to “stand by his man” regardless of the outcome. I think HR was left in too long against Weber, and many of us were crying for a substitution.
I was watching the game with my brother and we couldn't believe that HR was left in as long as he was. Something was off long before he was pulled. We were seriously wondering why TT didn't get more snaps even from the beginning of the game. When against a very good defense like Weber you got to make plays happen... and just making things happen is his specialty.
I think HR got beat up in that game, but played his heart out. We need to be little more conservative with his running, he only weighs 170lbs, he can’t use Trent Tompkins as a role model
I agree about TT, it was cool that they had him in for first series of the third quarter and the last play of the third quarter. They might have been giving HR a little more rest in addition to half time. Kind of like the warriors used to do with Curry, adjacent to the quarter break.
I'm wondering if we won't know about HR until game time. Not that starting HR or Hastings would really alter Idaho's defensive scheme, but Hawk does like to keep opponents guessing.