Psyk with 2.5 sacks and 3.5 TFL. What a find. He and Rex Connors both had 9 solo tackles, Porter Connors adding 5 and 2 TFL.

Have twins ever excelled like this in college football?

Punter Mauro averaged 46.7 yards per punt. Great day for our young QB, glad to see Dobbins w 4 grabs.

It also matters when you win at home. The goal is the FCS playoffs but if a team goes 5-6 or 6-6 and only wins at home especially outside of a place like Montana or thr Dakotas, student turnout will be higher.

That said I just want the playoffs. A bit worried about the schedule with CP, Northern Colorado, and Idaho State much improved and of course the last three games being very difficult. But I do feel okay about the Sac game.

Question about Causeway: historically does home field matter? Do the Ags play better in Davis? If so it's interesting that 30-40 minutes of drive time have an impact. Or just thst more home fans show up?

It looks like in the series history 13 of 23 Sac wins were in Sac, so slightly over 0.5. Sac had our number after Sochor retired and during Troy Taylor but otherwise it’s been a lot of Aggies. Historically I’d say Davis brought a lot of fans to Hornet Stadium while Sac fans didn’t travel so well to Davis. But like any rivalry, there are years where who won doesn’t make sense in context of the rest of the season record.

Note at the bottom of the athletics press release

The 12,238 is the sixth-largest crowd in UC Davis Health Stadium history

I don’t want to be overly negative here and just want to be real for a second. I think we are all surprised this isn’t a true rebuilding year, but we aren’t as deep as we were last year and are likely a half or full step down from last year. Remember when we were down to Montana state and almost made the come back. Our offense could get a TD every drive. Was rare to go 3 and out from what it felt like. Let’s review so far.

Defense: feels as elite as last year. Sure run D has been a little weak but the corners have stepped in to fulfil baines and our cal transfer makes the Meyer loss not feel so bad.

RB: I think to all of our surprise the combo of fisher and Vargas has made this a strength this year when this likely should have been a down year with Lan leaving.

QB: looking solely at last year, miles was an elite passer. Our offense moved down the field with ease. CP no doubt is a different style QB. Love that he’s mobile but he’s missed some throws pretty badly. If we play a team that truly runs a spy and takes away his running I wonder what our offense would look like. Now at the same time, it’s possible our WRs aren’t giving him much he’s also a true freshman that will likely get better with time. The future is absolutely bright through the first 4 games of the season, but we have room for improvement.

WR: no doubt a downgrade from last year. Do you all remember how deep we were? Chaz Davis was a big body stud, Hutton was a New England patriot style possession guy, TT could do just about everything, Gbatu and dobbins were freed up because of all the weapons. While dobbins and gbatu are still here and doing great, no new names have come in to fill the void of those other 3 receivers. Going back up to my review on CP I think it would be unfair to put our throwing woes just on him. He needs weapons.

TE: exact same crew as last year.


What we have to remember is we are a top 10 team and haven’t played a ranked opponent. We SHOULD be winning these games. We haven’t played a team that forced us to come back and score points, that made us pay for not having a drive. What is it going to look like when we are in a tight game and we need 4-5 first downs to score?

Btw I’m a big CP fan. He’s a thrill to watch and will only get better and more comfortable with time. Unrealistic to expect top top tier performance from a true freshman. He is absolutely exceeding my expectations as a true freshman. Aggie football will be in a great spot if he’s here for all 4 years. If we want to be up there with the Dakota’s and Montana’s (which at top 10 We are) our passing game will have to step up.

Correction: Miles was an elite game manager w an NFL RB, and weapons at WR like Hutton and Davis. We had a short field w his arm.

Gripes about the broadcast.
1) don’t want to hear again that the Aggies have all five offensive lineman back, when one of them has yet to play due to last seasons injury. Statement is true but misleading. We are starting a red shirt frosh who only appeared in a few games last year.
2) when Davis was running with tempo,the broadcast decides it’s a good idea to show replays. Lots of luck with that.

Also. Whoever is on the 50 yard camera - it’s super shakey. Whatever they do to keep the camera still on the two 30 yard lines they need to do for the 50 yard line.

There are a number of new faces out there, not the least at QB, WR and RB. Remember last year, we struggled with Texas A&M-Commerce (needed a late pick-6 to seal it), struggled with Southern Utah (needed a late int to seal it), and nearly lost to a weak Portland State game early on. We show flashes of true explosiveness, but haven't had that consistency to march 80 yards. I think the wind played a real big part in the slow start saturday -> allowed them to crowd the box and took away the mid range pass. Maybe this is the week where we put together a full 48 minutes of winning offensive football (and good downfield tackling!).

From the Sac Bee:

Caden Pinnick of Del Oro High School in Placer County passed for 288 yards and two touchdowns, and he ran for 48 yards and had a score, but the UCD redshirt freshman missed some snaps with a sore shoulder that required an MRI late Saturday. He did return to action to fire an 85-yard touchdown strike to Samuel Gbatu Jr. for a 34-6 lead with 8:59 left to play.

Plough said of Connors’ injury, “We don’t know the extent of it. It is the knee. It could be a couple of days before we know anything. Never want to see your leader go down.” Plough added, “We’ve been working on a goal-line package for Rex the last couple of weeks. The guys were excited about it. Love Rex. Thoughts and prayers for him. Hope that’s not the last time we see him.”

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/sports/college/article312287512.html#storylink=cpy

Wally is the guy!

That last sentence. ^^^

your post made me feel better about our current situation. I’m not feeling 3-1 right now.

The Barber twins were pretty special. Also the Pouncey twins.

I had to google the second one

I thought the Lekkerkerker brothers, our offensive linesmen during the Division II to Division I transitional days, were twins until I just googled them.

This is a good Aggie team for certain. Like every other top program in college football, it will come down to health and quality depth. The Ags are beat-up. Prayers for Rex (and the Weber QB), that was not good. Plough probably hasn't slept since, but it's part of the game. Porter left for the locker room before Rex did. The Middle LB #8 also left the game in the 4th quarter so they finished with two back-ups at LB for the last 6-8 minutes, but his didn't appear to be too serious.

Our offense is explosive at times. We are really running the football well with the two RBs. The play action game can be expanded as another way to get CP onto the perimeter and to give him the option to pass short or run, which seems to be the M.O. outside of the deep crossers Plough loves. Keep feeding those RBs; a power run game with tempo is extremely effective and probably wears a D out faster than throwing with tempo.

Kickoff coverage is a glaring issue. We're fortunate the D played so well, we were giving up great starting field position to Weber (and SUU if memory serves me well). They have to have a wind plan for kickoffs, you can't kick it to the 25 or so and expect the ball not to be returned for great starting field position. Both big returns came when we kicked into that wind. The Punter adjusted, why not the Placekicker?

Winning is hard and we're doing a lot of it. Plough is spot-on in keeping the focus on the week in front of them, and he doesn't like the team from the south so he'll have them ready. Kids need to execute at a higher level more consistently to get where we want to be. The next four before the Top 25 gauntlet are improved and all inspired.

I thought Ian Simpson had a good game. He is the best YAC guy the Ags have at tight end in my opinion and is a bigger target for Pinnick. Good to see him more involved

have not seen anything, he was in the tent for a long time on Saturday.

Whatever happened to that sailor guy?

He’ll be back in December

Nick King is the last potent sackman I recall. He had 8 sacks in 2013.

Jacob Psyk already has 4.5 sacks.

A whopping 8, and yes, it was quite memorable -- Psyk and Sam could both get into double digits this season, looking forward to the chase!

The Rush (now $) linebacker position has historically been where good players go to disappear from the stat sheet. Think Nick Eaton.

A big question for me is do we repeat the pattern of past years, attendance-wise? Big "Back to School Day" attendance followed by disappointing attendance the following home game:

2022
San Diego 14,394 (Welcome Back Week)
#12 Weber St. 8,822

2023
Eastern 14,724 (Back to School Day)
#13 Montana 9,576 (Homecoming)

2024
Utah Tech 14,832 (Back to School Day)
#5 Idaho 8,921

2025
Southern Utah 17,217 (Back to School Night)
Weber St. 12,238 (Ag Day)


There has to be a way to get the students to show up for more than 1 game a year. — SochorField

Look, I know it was an old Toomey tradition to run games deep into the night at 7 pm because of the September/October heat (dare I say, the student of the day were allowed to get pretty hammered before heading into the stadium) -- but do night games hurt student attendance? Or is the lack of sustained student turnout a prevailing issue due to the gentle decline in younger generations not having major sports as part of their daily lives?

As a now middle aged dude who has to drive back to the Bay Area after games - I'd rather drive back at 7 pm than 10:00 pm.

The students filled four entire sections (3 middle and one south of the band) on Saturday. It was the general admission areas and the end zones that were less crowded than Southern Utah. With work, you could maybe expect to fill one more section with students, but I have been impressed in these first two games with how active the student section has been and the turnout was better than the games I attended last season. We've already out-drawn both the opener and game 2 by nearly 4k fans per. It's more of a community/alumni attendance issue thus far, the students have shown up. I agree wholeheartedly, the late starts can be rough but I think they're entirely necessary in September.

Home attendance for the first two games:

2025 - 29,455
2024 - 23,575
2023 - 22,666
2022 - 23,216
2021 - 21,487.

So far, attendance numbers are looking pretty good.

Good trend for sure - I think with the announcement to jump to the Mountain West in the coming years, attendance has to be a prime focus (why was it never before) -- not just talking about it, but actually doing something to see it through and get a better result. Like SochorField says though, not just In September for every home game that we don't play Sac - need to be bumpin' UCDHS with the home crowd!