Two questions:

1. Does the win over Idaho put UC Davis into the top 25? Seems like this is the kind of marquee victory that should do it.
2. Does it now matter if we lose to Sac State as far as getting into the playoffs is concerned? Or, alternately, does a win over Sac State pretty much guarantee a spot in the playoffs?

I am not at all familiar with how the decisions are made, but if it anything like the NCAA basketball tournament selections, factors like more recent games, strength of schedule, the loss of key players at some point in the season who have returned (Buchanan and Pettek, for example). In other words, how are the teams now as opposed to halfway through the season?

We play in one of the top 2 FCS leagues.

A victory over the Hornets should get us into the playoffs. It is a critical game. Before tonight, we hadn't beaten a ranked (tough) team. We were highly competitive, but three close games (loses) doesn't prove anything.

There is an argument that if we lose to Sac we should be considered, but then we get into three level chess. Who beat who, what league is tougher, etc. One "legit" win is a tough sell. Hawk says it comes down to a few plays. A couple of completed field goals, or a caught pass, and we had a spot.

Tubs at the Club review of the game. I'm not posting this to gloat or to say "hahaha look at how wrong they were", but to support Big Sky content. We've all whiffed on predictions before and from what I can tell, most of the Vandals guys seem like good dudes. GO AGS!

I remember a tough UNI team in 2018 who was 6-5, got in, won a playoff game and fought the Aggies tooth and nail in the second round. They played in a murder conference. We'll see. Davis no doubt wants to go in and break Sac's Big Sky win streak with the perfect game plan, but they certainly need to play Sac to the bone.

Post-game quotes from the Enterprise article:

“The coaches put us in good position to make plays all night long,” said Aggie quarterback Miles Hastings, who turned in his fifth straight lights-out performance by hitting 16 of 19 passes for 206 yards.

“The offensive line did a great job of opening holes for our run game and when I did drop back, they gave me a lot of time to throw,” Hastings added. “I’m happy to hand the ball off when we can run like that.”

“The fast start really helps, but we’re a good football team and we expect to start that way,” said Aggie head coach Dan Hawkins.

“We’ve been on a five-game playoff run with one more to go, so we have to win it to stay in it. But it’s not really so much about winning as it is about playing well and that’s what we did tonight. We were very efficient on offense and we didn’t turn the ball over. Any time you can do that, you’re going to be successful.”

“We knew they had been a strong second-half team,” Hawkins said of the Vandals. “We knew it, but we didn’t do anything about it. For a while there in the third quarter they were blowing through us pretty good, but then our score knocked them off schedule a bit.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/football-aggies-win-fifth-in-a-row/

Outkick: COLLEGE FOOTBALL OFFICIAL MAKES MOMENT ALL ABOUT HIMSELF, PENALIZES PLAYER FOR COMPLETELY TAME MICHAEL JACKSON DANCE

by GRAYSON WEIR

Concluding sentence: "U.C. Irvine went on to win so the penalty was negligible, but that doesn’t mean it is any less lame."

https://www.outkick.com/uc-davis-idaho-trent-tompkins-michael-jackson-dance-penalty/

Orange County Aggies

Didn’t know UC Irvine has a football team. I think the ref was just jealous that Magic does a better MJ than he could. Lol. We do need to be careful in the next game. Impacts of these penalties can be significant Especially when the game is so close.

It was a totally unnecessary call by the ref. Tompkins' little Michael Jackson move was completely harmless and didn't come close to "unsportsmanlike conduct." Ridiculous...

To be fair, watching the full replay, Tompkins waived a little bye-bye to a tackler in the end zone, then carried on. Look, he's a high energy dude and the emotions run hot after a score, but take a page out of Giliam's book...just hand it to the ref, act like you've done it before and head to the sideline.

That's what I said at home watching the replay. I don't think it was just the Michael Jackson dance. It was the combo of that with the bye bye wave. I think he would have gotten away with each one individually, but not both. Oh well, things worked out on the kickoff.

Tompkins was pissed that the defender slapped at him after TD, he looked at the ref to see if anything was going to be called and then did the hand wave and then pose.
We’re do you draw the line on this stuff? You see the flex lots of tackles, and the dance after sacks. The only way calling it makes sense is the wave because that was directed to a individual opponent.

His MJ impression was pretty good. But i also thought the defender could have been flagged. Or maybe off setting penalties.

It appeared to me that, early on in the games, a few of the Vandal players were understandably frustrated with how things were going. There was quite a bit of "face mask to face mask talk" going on after some of the plays and the refs didn't seem concerned about that. They just gave the players the eye and watched that it didn't go too far.

I think the ref who made the call against Tompkins could have handled Tompkins' little dance in much the same way and could have simply warned him that he was close to getting flagged.

Frankly I was worried the reffing was going to be a total sh*tshow early in the game with the phantom face mask and then the targeting call that got picked up.

What a fun game! Went with a couple of friends, one of whom was at Davis when I was in the '80s, though we didn't know each other. It was fun to meet BaseballatDobbins and Boyd, and Boyd's son, who was all decked out in Aggie gear. I was surrounded by Larison's family and got to enjoy the game with them. Go Ags, beat Sac State!

A lot of driving this weekend but it was worth it to see a big Aggie win with junior. Great meeting you and Idaho Aggie too.

I enjoyed the Idaho band at the game, they have some of the best seats in the house and their sound dominates the Kibbie Dome.

From the Bobcat nation board referring to Davis in an FCS score thread and Aggies leading Idaho in the first half - “I’m glad we played them when we did, I do not want to play them now”

Congrats to MSU and Bozeman landing College Game Day. It’s going to be chilly there at the 7:00 am local start of CGD.

To piggyback off of movie's response a bit.

If we beat Sac, we're in for sure. I would bet literally anything in the world on that. Additionally - and we'll get a better idea this week when the polls come out - if we beat Sac I think we get a home game in the first round (though no bye). All you have to be is top-16 and you get a home game. Take it FWIW, but Sagarin has us as the 6th best FCS team. Massey has us 13th. Bill Connelly's SP+ has us 11th. If we beat a top-3 (by the computers and polls) team regardless of how ugly it is, we're moving up.

Live movie said, we're in a top-2 conference, we've hammered every bad team we've played, we just beat a ranked team on the road fairly easily and our only losses were to FBS, #1, #3, #7. Plus we'd be riding a 6 game win streak capped off by beating an undefeated team.

A loss and I think it depends in part on how we lose. If we get blown out it becomes tougher. But a close loss and our only bad loss was by 17 to Montana State which isn't even that bad of a loss. We were within a TD with 6 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. Northern Iowa got in at 6-5 last year. They had one bad loss to a 4-7 team in OT but otherwise only lost to playoff teams. However, they had three wins over playoff teams including 2 on the road. 2018 Northern Iowa probably had a worse resume than we would this year with two losses to sub-.500 teams though they did beat South Dakota St by 15.

So to summarize, win and we're in for sure, maybe with a home game. Lose and we sweat it out.

What did you think of the hotel? That pool is amazing. Did you check out any other places in Moscow before heading home? Glad that your son inspired the trip.

@Idaho Aggie It was so cool finally meeting you since we're both local and we had been talking about this game for the last year or so. Next football game in these parts (other than playoffs) is Oct 19th 2024 at EWU.

OSU game in Corvallis next year is tempting but a bit too far. I hope they play at WSU at some point. But then again I usually take my WSU fan kindergartener to the FCS games since they are early season (price, weather, and time announced are all positives) so maybe not.

So what’s the worse case scenario for J street? Does it matter in the playoff picture whether they lose to us by 1 or 30?

Not an expert by any means but I think it could matter. We'd absolutely be on the bubble with a loss so every part of your resume comes into play here. We've seen it happen at the FBS level for the 4th spot in the playoff where Ohio State got left out of the playoff in part because their one loss was by 29 to a 6-6 Purdue team while Oklahoma lost by 3 to a 9-4 Texas team. Not to mention that it will be the most recent result the committee sees. If UCD loses by a FG to an undefeated Sac that the committee is going to give a top-3 seed, to go along with two other close losses to two other likely seeds, it's going to look much better than losing by 30.

Maybe we're in no matter what already. Maybe any loss to Sac and we're out no matter what. It would probably be valuable to check out one of those FCS boards where people follow it more closely. If the season ended now, I think we'd be in the playoffs.

Hope the folks that made it had fun and people were polite. saw a good amount of Davis swag walking around. We sure ran into a buzz saw. Best of luck against Sac (i really dont like them for some reason).

Stink we dont have a matchup in the regular season again until 2024. But it is in Davis and i cannot wait to see a game there! Best of luck, hope we avoid you in playoffs

Good luck with the Bengals, you guys should easily handle them, but anything can happen in a rivalry game. They surprised the heck out of us last year.

Full Game from Wally the Bronco Too on YouTube:

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2022/11/14/football-ulonzo-gilliam-jr-garners-national-recognition-after-big-game-at-idaho.aspx

For his monster game @ Moscow, Gilliam Jr. is FedEx Ground National Offensive Player of the Week...of course, he's only Big Sky co-Offensive Player of the Week sharing honors with Montana State RB/WR Marqui Johnson who had 4 TDS and over 240 yards rushing @ Cal Poly. To me the more meaningful performance was from Gilliam, but whatever, nice accolade.