"The University of California Davis, believe it or not, once was a football school. The Aggies won 20 straight conference championships. They regularly made the national playoffs. They beat an undefeated North Dakota State team in the playoff semifinals and advanced to the national championship game...."
[Jake Maier] "He's 6-feet tall, maybe not quite tall enough for the NFL. He'll go and get a cup of coffee with an NFL team and if he's good enough he'll be Drew Brees," Hawkins said. "I always tell him he'll go spend a weekend with the 49ers and if that doesn't work out he'll spend about 10 years in the CFL and win about six Grey Cups. He's a baller."
"Whether Davis' defense can stop anybody is an open question — "Can anybody's defense stop anybody in college football these days?" Hawkins asks. "I'd hate to be a defensive coordinator." — as is how the Aggies will fare against the Big Sky's top teams. They have a three-week stretch in October when they play Montana, Northern Arizona and Eastern Washington."
To me it’s too negative on our FCS past, it’s not that we disappeared, but that’s sports writing.
But it illustrates that you need to beat the name Big Sky teams which we haven’t done. And I’m not talking Northern Arizona, which we beat a couple of years ago and no one noticed.
Coach Biggs had five 6 win seasons, and was nudged out after one 4 win season.
AD Tumey and the Chancellor increased resources, and there are indications Dr. Blue / alumni have stepped up more. Some say Hawkins demanded increased support to return. New game, changing times. Maybe with the same support earlier, we could have won a few DII championships.
Ok, I admit I lost interest after a couple of Gould seasons... But in our transition years we smoked Montana State. We won the much underrated Great West, and we finished third in the Big Sky one year. Not satisfying but not “disappeared”.
I imagine that from the perspective of someone writing from Fargo, not going to the playoffs and not recently (ever?) beating any perennial FCS powers effectively means your program is invisible.
I'm in a really active FCS fans group on Facebook and there are basically tiers of chatter, with NDSU and James Madison getting by far the most notice, then a tier of EWU/Montana/SDSU/SHSU/NCAT/quite a few other easterly schools I'm forgetting, and then everyone else. Davis is only getting some attention on there this year because of the FBS win and concern from other Big Sky fans.
If one is myopic one can’t see California from there. I’ve said for a while that we will always be low in polls until we beat Montana, EWU or when we play them Montana State. Montana is the media hub of the big sky. Doesn’t matter much who you beat in California, Arizona or Oregon,