At the time everyone was pretty "meh" about Jon Grant because we were starting to have 6-5 seasons after being dominant for so long. I would absolutely take another Jon Grant now.

Maybe Plough can get Cookus to transfer...

Never happen

Merry Christmas to our new and departed coaches, and to all of our Aggie family and friends. Happy Holidays. And ... Go Ags!

Plough has updated his Twitter account. Looks like he will be coaching the QBs in addition to being OC.

I'm fairly certain Coach McCann has been let go. He has updated his twitter profile and in his description it no longer says "Wide Receiver Coach at UC Davis" now it just says "Wide Receiver Coach". He has also updated his banner picture to basically what is his resume. This is also his latest tweet...

I think it's safe to say he won't be back next season. Shame, he seemed like a really nice guy.

It's really time for the NCAA to allow players to transfer with impunity! The INSTITUTION can change coaches and COACHES can change jobs - with impunity. Time to afford PLAYERS the same accommodation.

I'm kind of surprised about McCann. I thought he did a pretty good job with the receivers, was well like by the players he coached and was our main connection for recruiting in Oregon and Washington. He brought in some good talent at WR also.

It's not about him, it's about Hawkins having his guy. It's very unusual for coaches to remain after a new hire, and you will usually only see a few kept around for continuity. I heard all but three have been let go, and it looks like that was true.

Did the current recruits know they were committing to lame-duck coaches? I know these verbal commitments, however, with 5 weeks before NLI signing day, most scholarship agreements are already in-place. I would hope all discussions and subsequent decisions were made in the light - with complete transparency.

I'm sure they knew, or anticipated, that the guys recruiting them would be gone based on Gould's firing. I would bet teams recruiting against us used that as a factor for not choosing Davis. Frankly, it took a long time to put this staff together, and based on who Hawk hired, it shouldn't have (they were all his guys, really). I'd rather have had Hawk's guys doing the recruiting.

Did I miss something? Hiring seemed fairly prompt, esp. since Dr. Blue moved quickly to land Hawk. You should read the grumbling on other sites with their envy at our quick action. Gould's staff appeared to do an excellent job with early, solid commits.

McCann seemed to do a solid job, but who broke out besides Doss? Harrell shows promise, and better strategy will help.

We could have won 5 games this year without miracles, I hope Hawk and Co can get there this year.

Yeah, a new coach usually has his staff finalized very promptly (within a few days to a week after his formal hiring depending on the schools hiring policies), and we didn't name our OC for almost a month after Hawk's hiring. As a recruit, you want to know who is recruiting you, who is coaching you, the offense/defense they will run, and understand their commitment to you as a player. Every day matters in the recruiting game...almost a month to hire Plough seemed to waste time. A lame duck coach is not very persuasive. McCann was a good coach, and he did a lot with very little. Our passing game sucked, but it was not his fault and that's not why he's not coming back. Dr. Blue's hiring was not "prompt", it's what it takes to replace a head coach and get back into recruiting. Having a dead period (i.e. new coach search) essentially puts a freeze on recruiting, so it had to happen fast. Any "delay" may have no effect on recruiting anyway, but I was concerned it took so long to hire a young FCS OC who happens to be an alumni player and coach.

Yep, I wonder why it took so long to get the OC taken care of too. I mean, we don't know all of the details but there may have be contract details to work out. I don't think our recruiting has taken too much of a hit though. We still have, at a minimum, 14 committed right now and we haven't lost any guys that were already committed to the best of my knowledge. We still have a month before signing day and a lot of recruits make up there minds during January official visits. I do wonder what kind of recruiting setup we will have under Hawkins though. Under Gould we expanded to recruiting AZ and the PNW, will we expand even further?

Not surprised McCann was let go, but still disappointing. I agree with you that he was actually doing a very good job on a staff that never quite got it going. Does this mean the 3 coaches that are staying are Braun, Creighton, and Keane? Or does Nurse, supposedly being moved to an office job, count as one of the 3 and one of the previously mentioned coaches is still being let go?

I'm not worried. Contrast this with Tumey's glacial pace. The most important thing is to land the right people. Given Hawk's history with Coach Speckman, I wouldn'tt doubt he evaluated and strategized needs with him and options. I know Coach Wulff favorited a tweet of Hawk's after he joined us.

Our staff's experience has taken a quantum leap.

Glad you are excited. I'm hopeful, but only cautiously optimistic. I'll get excited when we have a winning season...although the prospect of a new offense is a little exciting. I might start getting more excited if we see some changes in the admissions policies or any of the other changes I have suggested to Dr. Blue. Without significant changes, we will be in the bottom half of the conference.

We're'nt we middle of the pack with Biggs and a much smaller budget?

Edit: I agree OA, cautiously optimistic.

New facilities also in the pipeline, brother.

The key thing is to turn the perception of being a loser around. The coaching change has created some excitement, but we need some wins to recruit kids who want to play for a winner. I think winning counts for more in recruits minds than do facilities. Wins means better recruits, better attendance which then pays for facilities.
Gould's key failure was not being able to improve the record his first year, even when Manzaneras fell into his lap. People were excited and then nothing improved. Hawkins needs to show improvement, and not in year 3. I'm sure he gets that, hence not a bunch of grad students for assistants.

Winning helps recruiting, fundraising, and attendance, but don't expect much more next year. I think we should have 2-3 more wins with a new offense, and anything more than that will be a massive success.

More is the key word.
This year we are rated about a two touchdown underdog against teams like Cal Poly; Yet for the last several years I've read here about our stellar recruiting. I don't buy that, but I think we have the same level of talent as before Gould. We expected to beat Poly half the time then, and I think they're not better than they were a few years ago, as San Diego showed. We need to beat those guys this next season. Not saying that the season is a failure if we don't.
My expectation is we beat Poly we beat Sac and end up near .500 against FCS teams. Then we look like the place to go for a good student athlete in California. Aim small miss small.

I am counting on at least 6 wins next year. I disagree that our recruiting wasn't better under Gould - that is one area I think Gould did well. He and his young staff just didn't do well with the talent they acquired. With improved (read: experienced) coaching and some key JC transfer talent, we will surprise people. Hawkins may not quite be Harbaugh, but remember Stanford went from 1-11 to 4-8 in Harbaugh's first year, 49ers went from 6-10 to 13-3 and Michigan went from 5-7 to 10-3. Don't underestimate the ability of solid coaching to substantially improve results in a short period of time.

Big issues.

1. QB

2. Injuries

I did see we are advertising for an Assoc. AD for Athletic Performance. New addition?

I don't know anything about our QBs behind Spencer, but I thought he did some good things when given a chance. But depth there and elsewhere are concerning in light of the injuries issue you raise. I am not sure whether that will be as big of a problem in the Gould era. I have no statistics to back this up but am fairly certain pre-Gould UCD experienced a more normal level of injuries than the past 4 years. Hopefully, Hawk has some secret-sauce plan for reducing injuries.

Only see an ad for Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Performance; can't find the Associate Athletic Director for Athletic Performance info. Also, while perusing the UC Davis Athletics webpages, I couldn't help but notice a conspicuous absence of diversity among athletic administrators. Not something I paid much attention to over that past few years, however, this could prove problematic in future recruiting efforts.

but the AD is Blue; that is some serious progressive diversity

N. You need to be much more specific when you make these points. Yes, we lost TG and she was great. I don't see any other vacancies. Are you including coaches? We are way ahead of the pack with our women's sport coaches being women. If you are talking about racial diversity i think you should just say so. Maybe there is a conversation to be made there. See above: Associate Athletic DIrector of
Athletic Performance. This is a work in progress.

Sorry to follow my own thread but the actual job recruiting title is: "Assistant Director of Athletics for Communications and Public Relations"- a far cry from "Athletic performance", but an area we need help with. Is there another job out there that I missed?

Huh? I believe we have checked all of the diversity boxes , if that is what you are after, with not much to show for it the past 10 years. I Don't really focus on such issues, just get results in an ethical way. TT and ST were here for a short time, and not sure what TG accomplished beyond a steady hand. For the record, I believe we had such a "diversity" figure subvert our academic process and redecorate her office with fancy furniture (not ST or TG), so what good did that do?

I don't care if Hawk is X,y or z and Blue is "diverse" being young and Canadian.

Two open jobs.

Also... Jeff Tedford @ Cal: from 1-11 in 2001 to 7-5 in Tedford's first year (with the same kids the last guy had). Motivation, excitement, attitude, and COACHING make a huge difference in a program. Cal hadn't had a winning season since 1993. By the end of Tedford's 3rd year he had them ranked 9th in the country.

This can happen at Davis. Cal was perennially neglected as a football program by Pac-10 standards (lack of facilities, and 'academics' not on board with football). There are some similarities here.

This made me chuckle....