I mentioned that. And he corrected "Keelon Doss".

The UC David Allies of David, California

i was reading on a FCS fans facebook page that their defense is really hurting with injuries. LB's and DB's. That would be huge for our pass game. We will need to get a decent run game going, which wil be a challange against their front 7. I thought they looked pretty solid vs. Lamar.

They got a senior linebacker back for Lamar and have their all conference first team corner warmed up last week so I’d count on him playing. He missed several games with a sprained ankle.
Impressive that they have three shutouts in an era where good defense is giving up less than 20 or 25 points

Today's Cedar Falls Courier article:
https://wcfcourier.com/sports/college/uni/fcs-playoffs-uc-davis-has-earned-uni-s-respect/article_015b528f-c58f-50ee-834c-076e38ee2c70.html

Today's Sacramento Bee article:
"No result found"

Last Road Game UNI had @ Youngstown

...this is three years ago (2015), Round 2 of the playoffs...the red hot #6 seeded Portland State Vikings hosted UNI in the rain...got pounded.

UNI is going to bring a lot of steam on Saturday, we better be ready with a response when they pop us in the mouth, because it's going to happen...I can't imagine their game plan doesn't include grinding those little California boys to dust.

I come in peace, but I've just read a bunch of things I wish to comment on

1. Students aren't allowed free tickets. A school can have a someone buy however many a school thinks they need, but they need to be purchased. All playoff tickets must be sold at at least the cheapest regular season adult ticket price. Coach Farley has purchased tickets for UNI students a couple times. Our basketball coach has done the same (and does so for a post season basketball tournament if we are in it an hosting...like the CIT or CBI).

2.Someone mentioned being confused by UNI being mostly happy with play calling that resulted in 16 points and 100 yards passing. It's going to take WAY too long (I mean it's been thousands of posts on our forum over the last decade) to go into it, but the reality is the play calling last week was actually pretty dang good. I'm a pretty big critic of our play calling (this year and past years), and against Lamar I couldn't find a play call I was upset about. The issue that hurt UNI last week was drops. UNI had a WR drop a TD pass (would've been a heck of a catch, but it hit him in the hands) when no one was within 20 yards of him. That same WR dropped an easy 10 yard gain in the fourth when UNI was trying to kill the clock. There were probably 5 or 6 other drops as the game went on. So there were 13 incompletions, and about 7 or 8 of them were drops. That isn't normal for UNI. UNI also had a TD called back on a horrific OPI call - UNI ran a flag post (something that's run a couple times a game in every single game every week for every passing team) - they called a pick 15-20 yards downfield. That wiped out a 40+ yard TD pass. The officials also missed a DPI later in the game, Dunne threw a gorgeous pass to into the corner of the endzone and the defender tripped the UNI WR but it wasn't called. The reality is Dunne was extremely close to being something like 16-21 for 200ish yards and 3 scores. He wasn't, but the stats from that game are extremely misleading. UNI also had 2 backs go for over 100 yards.

UNI's offensive system, as I mentioned, is a major hot button issue for UNI fans. The game finished at a 3 point game, largely because once UNI scored we went into what we call Farley Ball. Our coach is the master of "playing not to lose" when he is up at any point in the second half, no matter the score (also a major hot button issue with UNI fans). Anyway, once UNI took the lead 1 minute in a half into the fourth quarter we went full prevent offense. UNI fan 14 plays - 12 were runs. UNI killed off nearly 10 minutes of the fourth quarter in doing so (one of the passes was the 10 yard drop I mentioned earlier). There was no effort to score again, as dumb as that sounds (trust us, we know it's dumb...we've had thousands of pots fighting about it on PN)

Lamar had 250 of their yards on 6 plays - 150 of them in the first 6 minutes of the game. Their first play of the game was a 73 yard pass TD that was a WR screen that was stopped at the LOS, but one UNI defender lost contain on the sideline and the Lamar kid took it around the edge. Their offense was 100% play action, QB runs around a pocket that has collapsed, wait for coverage to break down and then just chuck the ball up. It's why over half their yards came on 6 of their 70ish plays. They didn't score the last 53 minutes of the game. They averaged 3.4 YPC, and outside of 1 WR breaking a 26 yard run they averaged 2.8 YPC. UNI had 5 sacks, 7 TFL, and pressured their QB about 14 other drop backs (he was just very good as scrambling outside of the pocket after it completely collapsed. Meanwhile UNI allowed 1 sack, 2 TFL, and 2 pressures.

3. PantherNation being quiet is a longer story than our offensive hatred story, but very closely tied. As a fan base we forget how good we have it compared to 97% of the FCS. Our standard of what is acceptable is very, very, high. The last 9 years has been one of the worst 9 year stretches in program history and we still have like 6 playoff appearances, never lost the first game in the playoffs, multiple trips to the quarters, finishing second or third in the MVFC almost every year. BUT in that same stretch we also have more season with 5 losses than we had in 40 years prior. No conference titles. We went from going 21-1 at home OOC against FCS teams and 19-0 vs FCS OOC teams between 1997-2013 to really really struggling OOC since. Our coach has something against starting a season well. In 7 of the last 8 years UNI has started 500 or worst through the first 6 games of the season - 6 of those seasons are 2-4 or worse. The last 9 years on our website have been very contentious. Our fan base has fractured big time into fire Farley and keep Farley. We've also watched our basketball team become our schools flagship sport. Our football fan base is shrinking, and out results have greatly hurt it. Again, results that the extreme majority of the FCS would kill for. The contention on PN has driven people away, the results alone have driven people away. Our board is very quiet when it comes to football, has been for about 3 or 4 years now. I've seen some schools come to our board only during our game week and go "They aren't even talking about the game, they don't respect us! Already looking to the next game!". That's simply not true. It has nothing to do with "seeing the writing on the wall with this game". It took until Thursday of NDSU and SDSU game weeks to get a thread even started for those games. That's just our board these days.

3. I have no idea what UNI team shows up. UNI has been really bad on the road the last 9 years, but I wouldn't look at the YSU road game a couple weeks ago as proof as to who UNI is.

4. UNI plays both a 3-3-5 and a 4-3. It rotates a ton during games. It depends on what is needed. You might not think UNI is that big, but the reality is UNI isn't small. Awareness isn't really an issue. UNI is just a very aggressive front 4/7. UNI's DL is really damn good, especially at getting to the QB. The number of sacks, TFLs and pressures the front 4 causes, even without blitzing, is very high. Our DE's live in the back field of most every team. Iowa's LT will be a top 10 NFL pick. He's given up 2 sacks on their season - belonging to UNI. UNI also isn't slow. There's plenty of speed on the team. Weymiller (#8) isn't fast. He won't run away from anyone as a RB, but he's a small clydesdale. Our other back has some good speed. Our WRs were state champion sprinters - same with our secondary. We are a big team at the LOS, but we aren't slow.

5.10k won't seem really big. 4k is the smallest crowd we've ever had...and it's because it was Thanksgiving and the team was 6-5. We still play in a stadium that we can get over 17k in, we average like 12-13k at home. We play at Iowa, Wisconsin, Iowa State, etc. in front of 70+k. Crowd size is nothing.

6. We appreciate the polite corrections to our beat writers. With that being said, it's UNI. It's not NI, NIU, N. Iowa, No Iowa, etc... It's UNI. Per our trademark policy there are two allowed ways to say our school - UNI and Northern Iowa - and per the rules UNI is the only option about 95% of the time. Also on the media note and UNI forgetting how "good" we have it when we complain compared to most of the FCS. UNI hates our coverage. The guys that do it are great, but we feel we get greatly slighted by local media. Then I read here and see how there's been literally nothing in your market and it's a "nice" reminder of sometimes it's not quite as bad as we think.

I hope we get to watch fun game. I don't know what UNI shows up. I don't know that UNI wins. I don't care to guess either. UNI finished 6-5 this year. I didn't think UNI "deserved" a bid, but we got one. I was ready for the season to be over. So at this point anything that happens simply happens.

Welcome! I hope that we get a great game Saturday... with a Davis win of course :grin:

Great insight into a team most of us know very little about. Your coach made a comment in an interview about the challenges of playing a team outside of the home conference. This is something I have missed since our D2 days when playoff appearances were the norm for us. Excitement is brewing out west.

So I can't revert to my long ago childhood in Iowa and call it SCI? Or, even ISTC?

tickets were purchased and will be distributed to students, first come first serve.

Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier 'UC Davis Has Earned UNI's Respect'

Sioux City Journal 'Farley Impressed With UC Davis'

Thanks for coming over and writing such an informative post about UNI. When I think of the dominate programs in FCS history I think of UNI being right up near the top with NDSU.

Quite frankly, I'm not sure how we will fare against the Panthers for many of the reasons that you noted about the talent you have. I'm worried about the battle in the trenches with the size and skill of the UNI offensive and defensive lines. The Panthers could control the tempo of the game if we get pushed around a lot at the LOS on both sides of the ball.

How well our O line is able to protect Maier will be a key for the Aggies. Maier is a great field general who makes good decisions but he isn't particularly mobile. He does have the uncanny ability to throw the ball with good accuracy from just about any position his body is in when he is under pressure. However, he will also throw the ball into tight coverage when he's under duress. Luckily for us, it results in a completion more often than not since our WR's have consistently made great catches in traffic this season. However, throwing a pick or two against a team like UNI, who likes to control the clock when they get ahead, could be very tough for the Ags. We thrive on moving the ball quickly and scoring a bunch and we'll need to do that to win on Saturday.

Defensively, we tend to be a bend don't break team. We'll be severely challenged to slow down the Panthers' running game. We've been decent in our run defense this year but we haven't faced many teams with size and talent of the the UNI O line. I would think that the Panthers would be happy as a clam to run the ball at 4-7 yards a pop. Even though we bend on defense we have done a pretty good job of creating TO's this year and our LB's and DB's are very capable of making big plays.

On our behalf, we have great talent at the skill positions and we can score with lightening speed through the air and on the ground. I expect Maier will be pressured and will have to get the ball out quickly to our receivers and RB's. We have a bevy of players who can catch the ball and gain yards after the catch. We love to get the ball to our RB's in the flats and then let them do their thing in space. I don't expect we'll see many bombs attempted by the Aggies. It will be more of Maier finding receivers in the flats and in the seams on quick hitters and short to medium routes.

We also have a good stable of RB's who have speed and quickness. Gilliam is especially elusive and can cut and juke on a dime. Thomas has great speed for his size and can break tackles with his power. Modise hits the hole fast and can accelerate quickly. If we can establish a good running attack we'll be tough to stop once the offense gets rolling.

With all that said, the key of the game for me is who will win the battle of the lines in the trenches and who will make the fewest mistakes.

This game has all the makings of a good one.

Since the YSU game was posted, here are highlights from a few other games. They are all about 3 minutes

Missouri State
https://youtu.be/8MKLDjX_1g4


Illinois State
https://youtu.be/MTFLS-YiMGs

SDSU - what uni really can be
https://youtu.be/1C2PIYvJcrQ

USD
https://youtu.be/CEyrgjiUBgo

Indiana State
https://youtu.be/WFUStW4YiP4

A ton of clips in the CAUSEWAY thread as well

http://www.aggiesportstalk.com/discussion/853/week-12-causeway

Just another comment on press coverage. The articles are the same, but the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier article was picked up by the Sioux City Journal. These towns are not neighbors. Waterloo and Cedar Falls are in the eastern third of Iowa, Sioux City is on the western edge. Would be like Fresno or Redding picking up an Enterprise article on the Ags. (Or a Bee article if there was one.)

I did notice that after reading both.

Nice to read about the Aggies twice....

:cool:

From watching the press conference clips, I like their coach. Comes across as an honest, down-to-earth coach. In the clip where he was talking about Doss, its the first time I have ever heard an opposing coach talk about an opponent's high character. That was kind of cool.

Farley is a mind f for us UNI fans.

His story at UNI is the stuff of legends. He graduated HS and went to work full time. Went to watch a UNI football practice one day, was asked if he wanted to try out. Became a multiple time All American and earned the nickname "The Walk-on from Waukon" (his home town). He then joined the staff as GA, then position coach. In 1997 he followed the UNI coach that was hired at Kansas. Was there for 3 years and was hired as the HC at UNI in 2001. He's spent 31 of the last 34 years in Cedar Falls with UNI. He had 2 sons come through and earn multiple All American honors at LB, just like their dad. There isn't a "better" guy to lead UNI.

That's what makes the last few years so hard on UNI fans. It's a constant internal (and external on the forum between fans) fight between wanting to move on from him as a coach, but seeing his passion for UNI, hearing him talk, and everything else about him.

Seems like the kind of guy that would be a good mentor and friend to the student athletes. I agree with Dr. Mike, seems down to earth but maybe a bit too laid back. I have to wonder what he has up his sleeves come game time :).

I wouldn't call him laid back. In his pressers, sure. In games and practice? No. Even now he's known to step into a full contact drill and take plays on to prove a point or show technique.

I agree. The trenches and TOs, which is why Modise having a couple recent fumbles is a concern.

As explosive as Modise is, I don't want to see one Aggie turnover on Saturday.

Thanks!

Looks like students voted for a DJ.

And maybe our pestering The Aggie helped wake them up.

Cal Aggie Sports@CalAggieSports
·
Nov 26
"We’re right with ya! A special playoff preview story is in the works... #GoAgs"

Accuweather saying temps in the high 50s, 30-40% chance of showers.

Bob Dunning: Come on out for the Aggies’ big day

Aggie Stadium seats nearly 11,000 people and it would be shame if there were even a single empty seat come game time Saturday … game time, incidentally, is 4 p.m., which gives everyone a chance to shop till they drop at the Farmers Market, attend your kid’s soccer game, then pack up a picnic lunch and bring it to the stadium … yes, they allow outside food these days, so you may as well take advantage …

The game will be over around 7 p.m. if you wish to save your appetite for your favorite restaurant or prefer to go home and order a pizza … tickets are just 10 bucks, which is a steal by anyone’s standards these days … UC Davis officials have intentionally kept the cost low in the hope that a loud, raucous, sold-out stadium will give our local heroes the oft-cited home field advantage against the visitors from Northern Iowa …

https://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/dunning/bob-dunning-come-on-out-for-the-aggies-big-day/