The Vandals come to town this week. They currently have a record of 1-1, getting blown out by Fresno State in their first game followed by a big win over division 2 Western New Mexico. Their fans on their fan forum are pretty pissed at their QB situation. Apparently their coach is choosing to play his son at QB despite better options being available on the roster. They had a bye this week so maybe they will come to Davis a little rusty. Anyway, this should be a good match up.
Yes, Idaho fans are unhappy with Coach Petrino. They're not happy with his decision to play his son, though there are some fans who think the other contender isn't up to the job either. I don't think I've seen Mason play quarterback; I didn't make it to many Vandal games last year. Initially I thought Idaho would win this game for sure, but now who knows? If we win this one I might go out to Missoula for that game.
Hahaha, I don't think that is likely. We play both Montana and Eastern Washington on the road. I'm not counting us out for any of the games left on the schedule though. I think that this team can compete with the best of them.
Agree that it's unlikely, and I think the simulation doesn't necessarily dispute that. Having a 70%-90% chance to win each game still makes a couple of random losses highly probable.
I was reading on their fan forum that they've noticed a significant drop off in the talent since they announced the move to FCS. Their FBS players are starting to graduate out now.
It's still tough to see where Idaho is actually at though. Blowout loss to Fresno and blowout win against a D2. Neither of those things tell us a ton other than they lost to a team they should have and beat a team they should have. We are their first real taste of the Big Sky.
Idaho is terrible. Frenso State, which is a good team, played average and destroyed them. We should dominate this game. Their offense was completely shut down by Fresno's 1's. The kids need to get up for this one...nothing worse than a letdown at this point. Blow them out, get backups time, and stay healthy.
I think as a program we now get the right to be a little more cynical about the FBS moniker. We were just a few more conversions away from being "in the game" in the second half against the best team on the west coast, and our O already cut through a mountain West defense like a hot knife through butter. So compared to our track record, Fresno's beatdown of the vandals is a pretty bad look.
Zander, I wouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves... take San Jose ... a struggling team, very young, inexperienced HC who has never even been a coordinator, they picked the wrong QB to start, and they came out flat. Hard to apply all those to any other FBS team. After the 1st Q they played us tough, 4th QB moved the team well, then their top running back coughs up the ball and leaves the game.
As far as Fresno and Idaho, Fresno just whacked UCLA 38-14 ... a letdown would be horrible. We can assume nothing.
Home crowd, big game, we need to prove we're real. The old axiom, one game at a time.
BTW, Josh Kelley didn't play, and Jordan Allen has been converted to linebacker and has 2 tackles after 3 games.
Any news on Harrel? And I don’t recall seeing Vaughn after first quarter at Stanford. I remember him dropping a pass, and then don’t recall anything. He made some big plays against USD.
We need to go 3-1 in the first 4 cuz that final 4 games are REALLY tough. Is it realistic to think 3-1, followed by 2-2? 7 might not be playoff worthy but certainly trending where we need to be
The upper limit for this team is pretty high, we don’t know we may be a better team than anyone we play, or not.
We need four quality wide receivers which is a bit of a question mark, as we don’t know why some guys didn’t play against Stanford. Still expect Thomas to make a big improvement to our running game.
Defense could continue to improve. We’re more mobile, have a pass rush, better tackling, good depth, we could be very good. Our JC transfers from last year like Moe and Cloud got some experience and are improved, we got an infusion of talent from our frosh and red shirt frosh, we’ve moved players from safety to lb and from lb to de, so we’re more mobile; we’re dropping DL guys into coverage and blitzing DBs. Net result is we get stops where last year not so much.
Last year I thought we were better than Weber until we played them and our defense gave up a score on virtually every early possession. If we are the kind of team that will do anything in the playoffs beat either Eastern Washington or Montana on the road. I’ll be disappointed if we go 2-2 over the last four unless we upset one of those teams
I think the Big Sky is an "On any given Saturday..." type conference. The spread from 1st to 7th place is only 2 lost games!
I'd be very disappointed if we finished at 3-5 again in conference play this season.
It is up to the coaches to put their players in the best situations to be successful and I hope they have planned for the adjustments opposing defenses will make to stop the Doss and Maier connection.
I can see the Aggies winning all but one of their remaining games. Eastern Washington is now ranked #6 in the FCS Coaches poll and even though they are at UC Davis, I would be surprised if the Ags wiin that one.
Yup, EWU at Aggie Stadium was last yr. But you're right about them being really tough. I think they'd win either home or away, but the Ags could beat any of the other teams. Idaho scares me since they were FBS.