Interesting to see North Dakota knocking on Folsom's door. Is that a system thing? I know Folsom runs some cutting edge offense at the HS level. Ngata to Clemson, talk about top of the pyramid.

Enjoyable time last night at the El Macero signing party. Visited with Dr. Mike and several folks in athletics. Coach didnt have a lot to say about the recruiting class specifically. Sticking with his MO, he was very philosophical about the kind of players he likes to recruit. He did say that to win a championship, you have to “run the ball and stop the run.” He referenced the size of the N. Iowa line, and that we counter that with our guys being better students of the game. I remember his similar comments at the first reception in that regard. That getting size on the line is a process. He feels this next year we will make additional progress in running the ball better.

Given the youth of our offensive line and their already considerable size, its likely they'll add a even more weight. I don't know how much height is a factor for the offensive line but that's where Northern Iowa stood out., Plus we've added some big tight ends.
I'm not sure we are in a process of getting bigger on the defensive line, unless Suani warrants playing time, Were not adding many big bodies on the defensive line, and were going to lose a few next year.

I'm hoping the continued improvement in the DB crops will help us get to the quarterback (more blitzing, more coverage sacks). As for run defense, i think we have to be creative like we were vs. Sac to run them, rather than rely on size/strength.

One interesting tidbit was Hawk's answer to 'how do you like the early signing'. basically said they love it, and it gives us an advantage since we're 'local' to the california kids. we can build relationships early (and often), while the MWC type schools have to swoop in later. I got the impression that they were very happy with the kids they got, again beating out legit MWC offers (and maybe some Pac12).

Another interesting tidbit : that was the biggest crowd we've had for a signing party. alot of new faces in the audience, along with the usual suspects. interest in the program continues to grow and with that more money is coming in.

they are still working the tailgate situation. lots of push back from the fire marshall and various campus entities. memories of the 'famous food truck fiasco'.

We'll get back De'Andre Morgan, who I think was out, 6'2", 280#s. I believe that injury necessitated playing Cade Peacock.

I cannot find anything on line about the athletic performance center construction project. Usually, the campus projects are available on the administration website, but I see nothing yet. Apparently, someone has noticed construction activity there. Is is possible that this a UC Davis Health project and that it would be the site covering the project? I heard that the football field would be the first stage of the project.

the signage i saw on the fence was the same style as the one on the Rec Pool for its renovation. i've never seen information on who the contractor is for the project (the Rec Pool renovation can be found both on campus recreation site and the contractor (Flint)

I have mixed feelings about the Rec Poll renovations. Love the addition of lanes for swimming. But the new plan looks sterile, orderly, where the previous design had a free flow design, the little island.

Will the new design maintain the grass hills for protection / laying out?

Well, how do we feel about the class? Could somebody post a full rundown of all the players who officially signed up for the Awesomeness in Davis?

From the Enterprise:

UC Davis graduates 15 seniors from what remains a relatively young squad.

“I totally believe this,” Hawkins added. “We could start playing today, without any of these new guys, we’d still be pretty good. We return a lot of really good football players. Talent, experience and depth. Multiply that by our leadership and culture. And that is off the charts right now.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/aggies-introduce-remaining-football-puzzle-pieces/

We added a ton of size in the defensive backfield and news out of southern California is that Sean Harlston is the real deal and a huge pick up for the Aggies. Magdalena was under-recruited due to an injury his senior season. We only added 1 defensive lineman, Kennedy, this year but again he's huge standing a 6'6 245 he still has plenty of time to fill into his frame. Our 2 LB pick ups seem to be under the radar kind of guys. It looks like Monroe was used a lot in the blitz his senior season and Mouisset was a kick blocking specialist. We landed 2 QBs, Hastings who had a good season and Tompkins who had an amazing career. Tompkins was named 1st team All-State. Figueroa RB was a guy that came out of nowhere on the early signing date but from his tape it looks like he has size and speed. We landed 3 TEs, Smith and Thorpe look like big time receivers and Bearden looks like he could be a solid blocker, might play DL as well. Finally we have the WRs. Granfors is the big get in this group. Big body and was a stats monster in high school. Davis also adds size and Ornelas played all over the field in high school and could fit nicely into the slot. I think we have a ton of talent in this class.

It is interesting to see Hawkins making a commitment to running the ball. We had a lot of success with that in spots last year, kind of unnoticed with the big passing numbers. Two out of the three new TEs are 240-250 and seem to have good mobility in the clips, plus the new sizeable receivers could be good blockers. Last year we had such success with offensive line recruiting that I expect we’ll see more from some of the 2018 freshmen pushing for jobs; we had a guy offered scholarships at Fresno and Airforce who didn’t get on the field for example. . We lose only one offensive lineman, and have one who missed most of last year returning. With two freshmen and two sophomores in our starting O line last year, those guys are going to be better, stronger and probably bigger next year. We are going to be tough to stop.
I notice none of our NLI signers are listed under six feet. Several of the DBs are linebacker size. Looks like they went after athletes.
Again this year we recruited only highly mobile QBs all about 6ft, our next QB whoever he is is likely to be a mobile guy.

Completely agree with the comments on the offense. The staff's ability to identify and recruit perimeter players has been really impressive. In the backfield, Gilliam, as a freshman coming off his redshirt year, was able to do things in space that really hadn't been done before by a Davis back versus top level FCS competition. But as often said, the most challenging positions to evaluate are up front. For Hawkins & Co to take the next step they need to generate pressure without bringing 5 or 6 guys and it doesn't seem like that was addressed in this recruiting cycle or last. The return of the lineman from Concord may help, but the only consistent pressure last season came from Moe and Baumgart and they're gone.

Another year of seasoning, De'Andre Morgan, Cade Peacock, Wilson, Hunkin, Suani ... we also lost some key players, including 4-year man Parenteau ... we also have some youngsters redshirting who are chomping on the bit.

Room for a JC sackman?

If a goal is to get bigger on the d line that isn’t reflected in this year’s recruits. Maybe that’s not a goal, as not only did we not recruit any defensive tackle nose guard types, we apparently didn’t offer any.

I'm honestly kind of surprised how low HERO Sports ranked our recruiting class... #48 in FCS. I feel like by the time these classes are getting significant playing time we'll be much better than that.

https://herosports.com/fcs/football-2019-recruiting-top-50-fcs-teams-rankings-ajaj

They have a rating system that counts the number of offers your recruits have. Since each recruit has at least one, the more recruits the higher the ranking. We only had 15 recruits, a lower number than most others.

Forget the rankings; as long as we punch em hard in the mouth the rankings will look dumb.

Oh I agree 100%. I'm looking at the recruits we landed and I think they will do very well in Hawk's system.

Apparently, NAU just killed it.

The Big Sky teams ranked ahead of UCD have 24-32 signees. I don’t see how a program can sustain that while scholarships are limited to 63 scholarships, unless they have a lot of player turnover. Since most players are around for five years how can you sign 32 in a class like Montana State did??

Didn't UC Davis have a ridiculously large class in Hawkins' first year?

yes they did but maybe that was due to players leaving and some undersized classes prior? Also I think the Hero list is NLI signees, whereas our big class had some walkons
I think huge signing classes indicate a bad program. If you can only have 63 full scholarships distributed over 85 players how do you give 32 to high school kids?

Programs that had large signing classes will rank higher. Also it only included high school players. Cal Poly had a small class of 15 players and of those 5 were Juco transfers and 1 was a FBS transfer so Hero Sports only counted 9 players for a team like Cal Poly.

A program can have a maximum number of scholarship recipients of 85, if some are partial. Since a large percentage redshirt at some point, those 85 scholarships have to be distributed over five years of recruits. That implies 17 freshmen per class plus whatever the attrition level is, as the sustainable number of NLI signees, assuming some are partial.
This is further reduced if walkons from prior years earn scholarships as is usually expected. If teams hand out a lot of scholarships to transfers it can be higher as those guys are soon gone.
So, bottom line, celebrating huge signing classes is misplaced. It’s better to bring in a moderate number of real quality guys.

On a good note, I get to spend quite a few days on campus this Spring, so I'll be checking out practices/scrimmages on a much more frequent basis.

All project related of course.

‘Spring’ starts tomorrow, you know?

According to 24/7sports we have the number 1 recruiting class in the Great West
https://247sports.com/Season/2019-Football/CompositeTeamRankings/?Conference=G-West
If we hypothetically had been in the big sky, we would have been fourth, behind Portland State Eastern Wash and Idaho. This is based on their rankings of the players according to number of 2 and 3 star players

Our first week is 2/25 - so, should be in prime zone.

Walk on offensive lineman Luis Arroyo of Vintage High in Napa:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/napavalleyregister.com/sports/bay_area_college_sports/vintage-high-s-luis-arroyo-to-continue-in-football-at/article_036a995e-f5b8-5434-b595-89aee9799f2d.amp.html

“As I told coach Hawkins and coach Speckman who recruited him, this is a kid that you’re going to fall in love with,” Leach said. “His work ethic is second to none. The environment that he brings to the weight room is second to none.

“Once he gets there, I have a feeling that he’s going to excel and put himself in a position to become a starter and leader on that team. The attitude that he brings to a team atmosphere, it’s inspiring and it makes it fun to go to work every day.”