my point is that he will absolutely need to trust others going forward for the sake of the team. He needs to conserve “magic”. Will be interesting come fall. There is just too much talent in the receiving Corp. Coaches seemed to try to go more Midwestern football with heavy run game. That is not alright bad but you need to be able to strike quick and go downfield too. I kept thinking I was watching Northwestern instead of UC Davis football.

Not to worry. Tompkins can throw. Frankly, i have always been “high” on him and i think we found a new star.

“ Tompkins ended his high school career ranked No. 2 in Central Section history with 11,743 career passing yards and 138 career TDs… He was the only player in the nation to throw for 5,000 or more and rush for 1,000+ yards in 2018… Finished second in the nation in passing yards, touchdown passes and total yards…”

https://ucdavisaggies.com/sports/football/roster/trent-tompkins/7062

The targeting call was bogus and it took the wind out of our sails.

Ok, so that’s the season. Very disappointing we couldn’t beet Weber or Eastern.
I don’t think we either exceeded or fell short of expectations. We finished about where projected.
Pluses are that we have found two offensive stars in CJ Hutton and Lan Larison. At QB, we now have the QB controversy. We have to remember that Rodrigues is still the guy who completed his first 16 passes, and was an effective scrambler. Tompkins is certainly a dynamic athlete. It’s a plus that we have two guys who have upsides. Run game was best of the Hawkins era, and we might have had a better performance with Gilliam in addition to Larison. Play calling was creative, we were obviously emphasizing short passes and the run game. The fly sweep plays worked better than ever, Crawford Babb and Hutton are pretty good ball carriers. We took some downfield shots but not many. I think they were trying to not put too much of a burden on the QB. Maybe this will change now they have some experience, I think they’ll be forced to.

While the defense is improved it’s not near good enough. Multiple long drives against it in this game, high percentage of third and fourth down conversions. In the first half, our offense had the ball less than 9 minutes and had 5 first downs, it wasn’t just three and outs. Meanwhile the D was giving up long time consuming drives ending in scores. While the offense bears responsibility for giving the defense a break, the defense has to get the ball back for the offense in some way other than a kickoff. Our interception bounced of their receivers hands so can’t take too much credit for that.

Some good points. Erron Duncan and Suani would help on D. Our yearly stats are morphed bc of the ridiculous blowout of Cal Poly. It still seems we don't pressure the QB enough. Frosh Jacob Horne and RedFrosh Sean Harlston - both 6'3" DBs - might add some needed length.

Some bigtime young offensive weapons, but I didn't find our play calling creative - not today, not a previous 9 rushing plays in a row or running 80% on first down. Where was the bang-bang no huddle? Why not roll out HR more, and few shots downfield. The fly sweep worked. Will TE stud Castles return? TT taking a shot w such limited reps shows the risk of a TT-type runner.

Today's QB a nightmare. We have to handle Weber, EWU, Montana and Montana State to compete nationally.

Davis Enterprise: "Hawkins may have been unhappy with the result of the penalty, but he defended the call afterward.

“It was close, but I get it. We’re trying to make the game safer,” he said. “If it’s the rule, you enforce it. If it’s close, call it. I’m in agreement with the call.”

Even the EWU fans on their forum thought the targeting call was horrible:

https://bigskyfans.com/eagles/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6855&start=60

Drat! Back on the horse next fall everybody.

I think it’s possible to be creative while still playing conservative. We got nearly 400 yards of offense against a pretty good defensive team and had no turnovers. We had a variety of rushing plays. We averaged nearly 14 yards per completion. We threw the ball 9 times on first down vs 20 rushes but we got over six yards a carry when we ran on 1st down,
What led to our defeat were drive killing penalties against us and drive sustaining penalties for them combined with our inability to get stops in the first part of the game. By stops I mean drives not ending in a score. Three of their first four drives, they scored. And of course our failure to get into the end zone where we turned it over on downs. Even that play where Larison didn’t get in there likely was an option for Tompkins to keep that ball and he chose not to.

There were plays to be made in the pass game. HR did not make them today and when he drifts backwards bad things happen. TT has a wealth of potential but is currently a project and not an every down QB. Hastings is good but needs to play faster. Playing without Gilliam is tough. Most of the "seniors" are done, with unceremonious exits thanks to the NCAA. There are a few posters calling for specific freshmen to play -- the guys that learned the system got on the field this year. The ones that did not (except for a couple of injuries) will not be back.

Since you seem to be plugged in to team roster issues, do you think any players sat this season out and will play in the fall? It seems like this year would have been a good year to miss as far as college life goes.

Lots of positives from this short season. We have plenty of depth so they will push each other to get better. Need a little more speed in the secondary. I am looking forward to fall ball.

After taking a night to reflect, here are some of my thoughts on this season as a whole

- I'm not sold on Rodrigues and neither is the coaching staff based on their willingness to pull him not only from the EWU game, but in critical moments of previous games as well. Tompkins may not be a total complete package for D1 football at this exact moment, but hard to deny the fact that the offense just moved better yesterday with him at the helm.

- The defense looks improved. Yes, they struggled somewhat against the number 1 offense in the FCS, but as a whole, the unit looks better than I was expecting.

- We have a whole lot of youth that look like they will be significant impact players for a long time. Larison, Hutton, Tompkins, Maae, Cloyd, Budgett, etc. are all either freshmen or redshirt freshmen.

- Weird clock and game management decisions continue to plague us. In yesterday's game when we're down by 2 scores and have 5 minutes left, you can't use 3 of them and then put up 0 points. At least attempt to keep yourself in the game with a FG and an onside kick. I'm not the coach though, so what do I really know? lol

- I think this team will continue to be incredibly competitive in the fall. We have EWU on the schedule again so we get another crack at them and I'm looking forward to it.

GO AGS!

it certainly is interesting to have a guy like Tompkins. He makes me think of Joe Kapp, a 6’2” QB known to run over linebackers
Good to see Tompkins finally throwing the ball a few times.

I don’t think it’s correct to say that pulling Rodrigues in prior games reflected lack of confidence in him. He was pulled to get Tompkins in for a specific situation, no reflection on the guy replaced any more than pulling a slot back for a tight end. I don’t think coaches are wedded to anyone at QB. Let them prove themselves, and play the guy in situations were they are most likely to have success. I think they took a walk before you run approach with the QBs this spring. Hopefully that doesn’t mean they can’t do more. I was somewhat disappointed that our senior wideouts Vaughn and Herrick didn’t get more balls thrown their way. Was that because of lack of ability of the QBs, conservatism of the OC or the way teams played us, I don’t know

I feel good about this team and I think the outlook for the fall season is very positive given how we played this spring. It appears that we have not suffered any devastating injuries and the break will give us some time to heal up, get stronger, iron out some wrinkles and get ready for a very tough fall season in the Big Sky.

We have so much young talent and many them got some good playing time this spring. We appear to have good depth and that is critical for success in the tough Big Sky Conference. There are no easy outs in the Big Sky. It will take a great team effort along with some luck to make the fall playoffs with the kind of parity there is among the top teams in the conference. The Montanas, the Idahos, Weber, EWU, NAU and Sac all look to be tough this fall. Staying healthy and having depth will be very important.

The competition at QB will be interesting. Rodriques, Tompkins and Hastings all showed that they have their strengths. Who will win the starting role in the fall will be interesting to follow. Perhaps we'll end up seeing a couple of them getting significant minutes like we saw yesterday. Who knows...there doesn't appear to be a clear winner forging entirely ahead of the rest at this point.

It's nice to see that the defense is much improved and that our running game looks to be a strength for us. I'm hoping that we find a way to break open our passing attack as well. We have speed and talent in our receivers. So I hope we'll see us open up the mid-range and deep balls. If we can do that along with our good rushing attack we could be a very dangerous football team.

I'm really looking forward to this fall and watching us continue to get better.

I was listening to 1140 in the stands during the game. They made a comment that Rodrigues was injured during practice last week. EW D kept him on his heels and did a good job containing him when there was a busted play. On the flip side, Barriere had plenty of time to pick our secondary apart. And when things collapsed, he gets real dangerous with his tremendous athleticism. Tompkins brings some of that to us. I wish Tompkins was put in earlier.

I wish 1140 didn't have the 2 minute delay between the action and the broadcast. When kdvs did the play by play, there was not a delay.

Next season brings some fun opportunities for travel. I will plan to go to SD and SLO for sure.

@agalum: Question- on TV, the UCD Marching Band sounded god awful. Was it that bad in real life? They haven’t been close to good since the real Band-uh was murdered, but what I heard on TV was a new low if it was at all representative.

The band had what appeared to be plastic bags on the exhaust end of the instruments. And there were just a handful of them socially distant from one another. I was just glad to hear them again, but i had the radio broadcast going so i didnt really pay attention to the sound quality. BTW, tried the Bose sun glasses out for the radio broadcast. Nice to lose wires and the ear buds. My wife just bought the aeropex bone conduction headphones so i might try those out next season.

FWIW, I did a quickie statistical comparison of this offensive numbers year vs 2019 (5-7 team), including backing out the blowout numbers from the depleted SLO team.

2021* ::::::::::::::: 2019

PPG 23.25 /// 28.67 (- 19%)
R/APC 4.2 /// 4.2
R/APG 185 /// 123.8 (+ 50%)

P/YPG 191 /// 309 (-38%)
A/YPG 376 /// 433 (-13%)

* minus UCD-SLO game.

We were 3-2, but easily could have been 2-3, with one win coming over the depleted SLO. Two wins over mid tier teams. We don't face the Montana's next year, and the Big Sky appears to have great parity.

Regarding specific players, we don't know who is injured or might have had academic bumps in the road. Regarding our QB controversy, both HR and Hastings completed about 67% of their passes, Tompkins 50% (5 of 10), and Gunnor Faulk 100%.

God awful is a very good way of putting. As agalum said they had the old plastic bags over their bells so everything sounded muted and out of tune. Plus only one trumpet so you couldn’t here much melody. Glad they were there but it was cringe worthy.

NCAA v. Alston argued Wednesday before SCOTUS.
Bad call on the “targeting” but we will get over it.
So Alston was argued and the justices were all over the place in their questioning. Liberals disagreeing with liberals and conservatives agreeing with liberals. Basic question: can the NCAA prevent schools from giving “compensation” above and beyond a mere athletic scholarship? This would be in the form of computers, grad school money, education abroad money and internships, etc. But, and it is a big but, could the court just blow up the whole NCAA monopoly on college sports because it is a monopoly? Yes, but not probable. Could it effect the transfer portal? Possible (see blow-up scenario). Not likely. One interesting question from one of the justices was: what if a recruited player was offered a $500,000. “Internship” with Nike? Would that be OK? So Oregon could offer that and Oklahoma could offer a $500 internship at McDonalds. Aggies could offer a volunteer internship at the CoOp or Coffee House. Is this Fair? I find this stuff absolutely fascinating. SCOTUS is the last place that these questions should be answered. Not one of them played in the game. Nerds one and all.

you have to county the Cal Poly game, you can't pick and choose. 2019 also included terrible Lehigh.

I think the offense was largely improved, mainly in the running game, and would have been better in Gilliam didn't go down. Defense also improved, especially against the run.

I think Hawkins would agree that the targeting call was bogus. He just can't say that without getting into trouble with the league. I also think the officiating sided with EWU. There were at least 3 and most likely 4 times that calls were made against the Aggies on crucial 3rd down plays. The interception in the end zone was not a PI as you could argue both went for the ball. Obviously the Aggie player did since he caught it. What proof do the officials have that it was not the case? You cannot assume he wasn't going for the ball, since he did catch it. I think the officials were favoring EWU by league orders. The rule says targeting a player is hitting a player from the NECK up. Worse call ever. Every fan who is non bias would agree. But bias officials just need to do what the league says. Get EWU into the playoffs. Now, I think EWU outplayed the Aggies, but there were many calls that went EWUs way, and the Aggies were not given the PI calls when EWU players grabbed Aggie receivers jerseys

I still can't quite wrap my head around Thompkins throwing the ball with a gloves on. We haven't seen much of his ability to throw yet but we'll need more from him than his athletic ability to run and scramble. He certainly had the numbers in high school though so maybe his unorthodox style of passing simply fits him. He's exciting to watch that for sure and he's tough as nails.

The rule is a mess. It goes on about intent to injure head and neck etc. But then it says without reference to head or shoulders:
“Lowering the head before attacking by initiating forcible contact with the crown of the helmet“
It also says when in doubt its a foul.

Launch — a player leaving his feet to attack an opponent by an upward and forward thrust of the body to make forcible contact in the head or neck area

A crouch followed by an upward and forward thrust to attack with forcible contact at the head or neck area, even though one or both feet are still on the ground

Leading with helmet, shoulder, forearm, fist, hand or elbow to attack with forcible contact at the head or neck area

Lowering the head before attacking by initiating forcible contact with the crown of the helmet





I originally thought the call was wrong, but I looked up the rule (above) and I believe he did lowered his head and initiated forcible contact with the crown of the helmet (last point above).

I’m booked San Diego and Poly. Thought about Tulsa BUT it’s hard to get there. Also talked to people in department who said Tulsa wasn’t a great place when they went for NCAA basketball.

Run game and defense were pluses. Coombs,I think, did a nice job as DC. Kept us in games when the offense struggled and did a good job of making adjustments during the game. Little Hawk is still work in progress. Not having Gilliam limited the pass game, in my opinion.

QB picture is still murky. I like Hunter especially when they roll him out. Tompkins has a lot of skills, but we’ve not seen him for a full game leading the pass game. Seems like we have a wealth of good receivers, with speed and quickness, but we couldn’t exploit that (besides the fly)

I’m excited about the present and future. We’re bringing in top notch players and the more we have, the more competitive the environment and the better we get.

what frustrates me is that they reviewed for about 5 minutes to make the call. There weren’t THAT many TV angles, so how many times did they look at the ‘definitive’ end zone shot before that swayed the decision

Did you notice that the Eastern QB wore gloves?
JT O’Sullivan liked playing in gloves especially if it’s wet. He says the major drawback is cost since you go through several pair in a game.