The Lumberjacks boards are dead, absolutely zero activity.

Coaches show tonight. I got an email for football alum urging them out. 2 for 1 tickets for them. Fill the place up

i frankly would be surprised if it's not a sellout.

NAU has the top ranked pass defense. DBs are the strength of team. We’ll need to get the running game going. They are struggling to score, so critical to have solid special teams and NO turnovers

So Cookus is a maybe/probably not, but their stud WR is definitely playing?

sounds like Cookus is out and its down to the 3rd string guy (true freshman), but i haven't seen anything definitive about Cookus.

by the way, apparently there is a weekly 'open' breakfast on Thursdays at 7:00 in Cindy's for locals who want to mingle with the staff.

The last time I was at Cindy's...man...

Cookus has a broken collarbone suffered vs in wk 2 vs EWU. It's been 8 weeks probably close to the point he could return if all went well. (HUGE IF) I referenced in another thread I wasn't sure b/c i haven seen difinitive but my guess is the Ags will see Campiotti who has 3 picks in 41 attempts. Worth noting NAU turned to Brandon Porter (RS FR WR) at one point during the Poly game to play QB (a surprise to everyone) and Souers hinted he could see more time at Qb vs UCD. He was 2-6 passing w 1 pick but ran it 11 times for 119 yards.

So in summation the Ags will see either Cookus (highly unlikely), Campiotti, and almost assuredly some Brandon Porter at least to mix up the looks and run some wildcat. The latter are freshman.

To Cookus, or not to Cookus, that is the question...

For us it's " the oven is preheated and now it's time to cook'em!"

Bake It Up!

:up: :up: :up:

Send that pic to the Athletics Department. I'm sure they'll post it on the social wall on their website.

NAU like most of our Big Sky rivals seems to rely heavily on FBS transfers. They have a running back who was at Boise and had a qb who is no injured who was from Washington.
Meanwhile we have players who start with us now with UCLA who is their leading rusher and a DL at Arizona.
With the new more transfer friendly rules are we going to gain or continue to lose players?
Are there any self inflicted obstacles to us getting transfers from the other UC campuses?

My mistake on the coaches show..its tonight at 7:00. probably have to work around Kings basketball to get a slot. Breakfast at Cindy's sounds like its still a go on Thursday!

And you can catch the coaches show on 1140 tonight if you’re not by a computer

For those interested, Massey is currently giving the Aggies a 91% chance of winning this game on a neutral field, bumps up to 94% at home.

https://www.masseyratings.com/game.php?s0=300937&oid0=8200&h=0&s1=300937&oid1=5620

http://www.compughterratings.com/CFB/simulations

Pretty close to what Massey is predicting. They have it at 44-21 Aggies. If the Aggies are playing at the top of their game I don't see a NAU on a 3rd string freshman QB scoring 21, but we will see. I'm hoping that the Aggies come out guns a blazin and get out to a nice 1st half lead, as fun as the comebacks are.

Like Dr Mike said, N. Arizona has a dynamite pass D. If we drop 47 on them, that would make a huge statement going into EW. But for now, need to take care of business Saturday

I think their passing defense numbers are a little bit misleading by playing UTEP (currently rated the worst FBS team by massey with the worst offense), Weber (have had an anemic passing offense for a majority of the season), and Cal Poly (who doesn't throw, but still managed to put almost 100 yards up on them with 3 completions). Good teams like EWU still put up 300+ passing yards on them.

NAU was picked third and still has the surrounding talent, just lacking QB. They played a freshman who didn’t even have fall practice due to injury then. So he’s obviously got a learning curve.
He might be much improved after a couple of weeks practice.
So assuming the defense is tough against pass in particular, and knowing they have good running attack, if qb doesn’t blow it for them, they might be better than these projections.

@Riveraggie I am with you. I think this team has suffered without Cookus the last couple of games, but they lost to Eastern Washington Sept. 8 by only 26-31 and beat Weber State on October 6, 28-24. I would love if we drop the hammer on them, and think we are capable of doing so. But this is a good team that's had a bad couple of weeks. I'm sure Hawk is drilling the players on that fact.

their pass defense looks pretty legit. ISU was 15-32 for 179 yards, 1TD/1 INT. EWU had big numbers, but that's about it. They have given up alot of rushing yards (248 v EWU, 297 v Missouri State, 315 to ISU and 343 v Poly) so that might explain some of it. Completion rates are less than 50%. MIght explain why we tried to run it and run it and run it against them last year.

It would be nice to know the status of Cookus for certain; else, I think they are hurting at QB. Their run game has been okay, except vs POly (356). ISU held them to 77 (but passed for 356!).

Nothing is easy in the Big Sky. Need to play a very solid game.

To each their own. I don't think there are wrong opinions here. Just from what I've seen from the Aggies and the Lumberjacks this season, I'm not particularly worried. Got to take each game seriously though.

I’m not worried, it looks like an easy win. I wouldn’t put money on us winning by three touchdowns, we might, we might not.

New Aggie Pack T-shirts for the NAU game:

@CA Forever To be clear, I'm not worried. Ags are never worried. I just respect this opponent and believe that their recent record doesn't their strength (particularly if Cookus is back).

Weather could be a factor on Saturday. The forecast is calling for very warm temperatures and significant wind:

the high in flagstaff has been in the 50s, with lows in the high 20s :).