Do they know something about our defense we don't?

UC Avis

Maybe the run game will improve with Thomas. After seeing him in the Sac game it looks like he could definitely make the offense much better than last year. Not only fast, but he ran through and over people for extra yards.

We don’t have many question marks on offense. 22nd and third in our conference is not too high.
I think we are nearly back to being as good as we were in 2005, although the defense needs to show improvement to say that. I expect we will see a better defense.

The defense will definitely have to improve over last season, but I think this ranking comes from how potentially lethal our offense could be. Obviously we saw what Maier was able to do in his first season, hopefully he will build off of that success. I agree that Thomas should get looks as the lead back this season, kid runs like a freight train. We also have Modise coming back who could be a change of pace guy. The gimmick plays we tried to use him in last season just became too predictable. We return Preece at TE who was a TD machine last season. Not to mention we are beyond stacked at WR.

Defense is returning 80% of players on the two deep, plus a ton of redshirts plus a few promising freshmen. We will see if the coaches can put something together, they have pieces to work with.

But it was very low in national rankings, #102, #105 ... low.

But if our defense can improve from below average to average we might be looking at a couple more wins. I don't that we have to have an elite defense to be competitive with how good our offense is. Look at last season, if our defense was only slightly better we're looking at wins over Sac and EWU... 7-4 record and maybe playoffs with the big win over EWU.

Nowhere to go but up!
While retuning a lot of starters from a ineffective unit is a mixed blessing; at most positions our worst case scenario is as good as last year but more experienced . Also, the coaches now have more experience with the conference and team. Plus we have a lot of players we haven’t seen coming off redshirt freshmen years and new recruits. We lost some good football players on D but their replacements are likely to be more athletic, for example at inside linebacker. Basically counting on the coaches to get more out of our D, which I think is a realistic expectation. I could be crazy.

That would be a huge improvement. I believe these are some random stats from last years NCAA FCS Rankings for the Ags.

Total Offense #3
Total Defense #113

KO Return Def #120

We actually seemed to be respectable with Sacks. But then well below #100 for Rush Defense, Passing Efficiency Def, Red Zone Def, etc.

I'm hoping for the best! Last year we argued a solid O would help our D, but we still struggle and now our schedule gets tougher. Giving up big plays hurts. Who do you think steps up at IL?

I'm not saying that improving will be easy, but as I mentioned those 2 games ended up being 1 score games. Even if the defense is a little bit better this season, we could be looking at a fairly competitive team.

I hope so brother!

Airey is an example of a young player who immediately had an impact. And Parenteau.

Didn't we graduate a top LB and Culberson?

The Big Sky is looking very tough as usual in the preseason poll:

#4 Eastern Washington
#18 Weber State
#22 Aggies
#23 Idaho

Cal Poly will be back and healthy. Montana also on the schedule.

Welcome home, Hawk!

Having Protheroe and Jenkins healthy will be a big help Cal Poly’s offense. Cal Poly also brought in 9 JC players and 3 FBS transfers. After a 1-10 season there were a lot of holes that needed to be filled. I do not think they have ever brought in that many JC players.

All of this is worthwhile if we're getting turnovers. We are a high scoring, offensive minded team. Get more possessions then pin ears back with the lead or in a shootout. Rushing defense is always at a premium however

Hawk did the same year 1 I believe, certainly felt like more than usual

Surely Cal Poly will better this upcoming season as long as some key guys can stay healthy. I wasn't surprised that Protheroe ended up getting injured after he had like 40 carries in the season opener against Colgate. This is just my personal opinion, but I am always a little bit wary of FBS transfers. Look at when Jimmy Laughrea transferred to Davis from Boise State and he was going to be the QB savior that we needed. He ended up not doing much and rode the bench for most of his time here. All-in-all though, I fully expect Cal Poly to rebound to some degree after last season. September is still looking like it could be a rough month though.

Where was san diego on the pre season polls (tereros)? What about stanford and san jose? Hopefully we dont catch stanford on one of there strong years.

I don’t think San Jose would be in anyone’s poll.
San Diego gets no respect,
Stanford isn’t as up and down as they used to be unfortunately.

San Jose was terrible last year. Stanford excellent with a beast at RB.

If last years teams played, we'd be projected to lose to Stanford by about 5 touchdowns, San Diego would be even, and we'd beat San Jose by a touchdown.
Doesn't answer the question for next years teams, but no better answer exists. San Jose might be better next year, who knows? But it looks to be our most likely early win.

You'd think we could land some defensive studs who could compete for PT right away, supported by a top 5 offense. I think the San Diego State coach said recruiting was easier when he had lots of seniors bc many HS kids think they can play right away.

The good thing is DL Rodgers and Franklon are juniors (and Ocansey), backed up by 4 sophomores.

Five solid linebackers are juniors - Bennett, Leota, Flowers, Anesi, and Jamison.

Will Perryman, Crawford, or Trimble challenge for PT? Suani (330#s) or Kraft?

I’m looking forward to hearing who rises to the top among the guys you mention and others. Gould’s last class was heavy in front seven guys, some of those guys are just sophomores. We brought in some last year and a couple of good ones this year. As others have stated just improving to middle ranking on defense would improve our record. Some have stressed turnovers but any way we can get the ball back including on downs so that we aren’t blown out before our offense breaks a sweat would be great. Looks like we might have depth If a couple of guys step up. Strength in numbers, no name defense kind of D. Lots of room to improve but the cupboard isn’t bare.

That would be a massive improvement.

I don't think injuries were an issue, and our O was blistering.

I think the teams ranking on defense, as well as what we saw in some games has to be eye opening for the coaches. I don't think they are going into this season with complacency, and surely they are looking at what needs to be changed, both in who plays and what the schemes are.. I think our defense last year was less than the sum of its parts. But we have added some new parts in the guys coming off redshirt years and some good freshmen, I think our additions exceed our losses, We'll see if we rank in the 100s next year. I expect we won't, time will tell.

Stopping big plays would help. We also had some special teams problems that put us in bad field position.

I’m hopeful we’ll be better incrementally in all the defensive categories. Also hopeful we’ll have a running game and cut down on sacks. I think being picked to be third in the Big Sky is not unrealistic. We’ll see.

Athlon Sports on the UCD vs SJSU game.

"2018 Weaknesses: The defense struggled mightily last season, giving up 32 points and 459 yards per game. Not to mention they gave up almost 5 yards a carry and 210 rushing yards a game. UC Davis must improve their defense and more specifically the run defense in the upcoming season if they want to continue to improve on their win record. For a hopeful up and coming FCS team, the schedule does not do them any favors this year as along with SJSU they will play another FBS team in Stanford which I think should be looked at as two automatic loses."