The Ags lucked out to play them in California this year. Although as a Palouse adjacent fan, I miss out. May go to the EWU game but that's a bit far and I've heard it's not a great stadium. All the more if at night in October.

Sports Illustrated UC Davis preview.

https://www.si.com/college/fcs/big-sky/2024-uc-davis-football-preview

Davis had two outstanding Freshmen last year who are both listed, I believe erroneously, as playing in 5 games which would eliminate their redshirt status.
Jordan Fisher last game is listed a Northern Arizona, where he is listed as having no stats..
Izaiah Souriolle an offensive lineman is also listed as olaying at Northern Arizona as his fifth game.
Since I can’t believe they would have intentionally burned these players.redshirt year, I wonder how problematic it is to get these errors corrected years later If they want to play a fifth year.

UC Davis football Instagram page combines DL Kennedy stats & bio with WR Kraft. Opps. (Swipe to pic #2.)

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8KrH5SyDDJ/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

I commented on that on the Facebook post

Sports Illustrated:
FCS Football Central's Predicted Order Of Finish
1. Montana State
2. Montana
3. Sacramento State
T4. UC Davis
T4. Idaho
6. Weber State
7. Eastern Washington
T-8. Idaho State
T-8. Portland State
10. Northern Arizona
11. Cal Poly
12. Northern Colorado

I notice the Montana fans seem offended that they aren’t picked 1st. I think they would have a better case if they had a proven QB.

Does MH have it in him?

I don’t know, they’ll have to decide in Summer.
Points to consider;
Davis offense scored ten points a game less in 23 than in 22. Some of that was due to loss of Cody Hawkins, maybe Plough can get Hastings and the offense back to 22 form.
if Larison had remained healthy the 2023 team would have been a playoff team. Team has more depth at running back this year.

I think Miles is going to be the man. And Plough told me we won’t see a 2 qb system. His words were, “if you have 2 qbs and don’t have a qb.”
I’m hoping he opens up the position rooms again to visitors this summer. I would encourage folks to attend. The mechanics that go into the daily practices are totally impressive.

At the very least they have to prepare someone as a backup and get them game experience. Hastings will be gone next year, and we have three three star recruited QBs as true freshmen and redshirt freshmen. Almost every program played their 2nd string QB more than Davis the last few years. Sac, Montana State, Montana, Idaho, Idaho State, Cal Poly, Cal, UCLA, virtually everyone plays their 2nd QBs. Our backup appeared in 2 games and threw 9 passes last year.

Agreed. Same thing when HR was the QB.

Yeah, last year was a good example of leaving the starter(s) in when we had a comfortable lead. One thing that is clear to me, Plough is a competitor. Winning is important to him. I’m anxious to see how this all correlates to play on the field, especially against Big Sky elite.

Montana fans are always offended ……

But I'm told they're hospitable?

If you don't bow down and kiss the ring, you may as well be pond scum for challenging their greatness in the FCS.

Several weeks ago Hero Sports ranked Lan Larison as the best returning FCS running back.
Today, the UC Davis has a press release of Hero Sports naming Larison the Best Running Back in the Big Sky, logically enough.
The Davis site doesn’t include a list to the Hero Sports article but here it is:
https://herosports.com/fcs-best-returning-running-back-in-each-conference-bmbm/

Everybody will be gunning for him. Maybe that opens up the pass game.

Yeah, but who's throwing it? Who's catching it? We should be improved at WR this year, more experience, but any legit transfer guys?

As for Lan's pre-season accolades, I'll bet you a shiny new dime he is only thinking about getting the Aggies into a playoff run.

Hutton, Gbatu, Tompkins, Gale, Chaz Davis and Larison were our top six pass catchers, last season. All averaged over 10 yards a catch except Tompkins and Larison. One of the elements of our offense was unblocked screens or short dumpoffs to Tompkins in hopes he could do some magic.
In my opinion Tompkins best position is running back, but he is not needed there. Someone will emerge maybe the much touted freshman from last season, Robbie Mascheroni. Its no surprise when a freshman doesn’t play much.

Hero Sports rated Josh Gale as the #12 returning FCS tight end
https://herosports.com/fcs-football-top-returning-2024-tight-ends-bzbz/

Can’t run TT between the tackles for a full game let alone a season. We saw how that worked at Poly last year. He’s a perimeter player.

The SID office is full of underachievers. They’re doing less with more than the department had 30 years ago.

i don’t know who keeps stats, but they are not up to the challenge.
Any one know whose responsibility that is?

you’d think it would be automated, tied into the in-game stats/scoring.

There are two or three directors / managers. Robles went to the CCCAA and it looks like they pushed Honbo out. New people.

Will the unnamed contributing transfer have his bio & stats corrected?

TT is no surprise now. They gameplan for him, so he has use as a decoy. It seems like our little speedster wide outs get beaten up as the year progresses. For all our history, we've had predictable play calling going back to Gould.

Soch had one predictable play many were aware of - going for a big strike after a TO. But, that was Humboldt or Chico.

I thought the stats were documented by the offensive quality control guy. That position is now not listed on our website, but they have two quality control persons listed for D.

Dr. Mike it is automated but they have poor data entry, or don’t use the official roster to match names and numbers.

They have Jordan Fisher and Izaiah Souriolle both listed as playing in five games, Fisher’s alleged fifth game had no carries. I don’t think they would burn those two’s redshirt status in a game against Northern Arizona and then not play them again.

The error where Eli Simonson, the transfer from Nebraska gets no credit for playing despite starting every game is because the stat keepers use an erroneous roster to match names to numbers, they have #70 assigned to Luke Roncevic, Luke has a different number.
It is beyond belief that they could go a whole season crediting a defensive lineman who likely didn’t even travel as starting every game as an offensive lineman, and then awarding the guy who didn’t play an All Big Sky Academic award that has a qualification that the recipient played in half the teams games. I exchanged emails with Dr. Collins who is listed as director of athletics communication for FB on the issue of Eli Simonson’s name not being associated with #70 in the box scores stats or players bio statistics. That was a month ago. They could troubleshoot this issue with a simple question for the offensive line coach.

So Dr. Collins still hasn't corrected the online error and bios? The ultimate player to be named later.

Not yet. It would be easy enough to just move Rocevic’s stats to Simonson, but the source error is in all the game box scores, the team stats, and the Big Sky Stats, which will never be corrected.
They owe the kid some recognition. It could be like they did with Shamburger, recognize him on Twitter, and give him a scholarship if he doesn’t have one. It is actually a good story to promote, someone moving 1500 miles for a chance to play and then starting. Who knows, maybe someone else from Nebraska might take I-80 west.

https://x.com/UCDfootball/status/1800355316942704830/photo/1

Interesting that JT O’Sullivan, Khark Jones Scott Barry and Bob Biggs were coaching at the Davis QB camp.