Feel free to list all your program specific topics, or Big Sky FB topics in general for Brock and Dwight's upcoming Aggie Football Podcast. Exciting Stuff!
I for one think we should start with the obvious. Cody gets the Idaho State job, Hawk steps down, Plough comes in, then late in the off-season, Hawk signs that advisory position in Pocatello alongside his son. Plough has full reign. Curious everyone's take on the process, seems relatively healthy to me. Recruiting is an Always Be Closing thing, but the recruit season for '23-'24 is basically done now, so seems Hawk was ready to bounce and head back to Idaho.
Off season topics:
Season preview
Positional previews
I think the big question a lot of us had over the last season was "what the heck happened to the offense?" Outside of Lan, the offensive production was not spectucular. Now Plough has touted the return to shredville, but do we have the guys to make that happen?
Plough, what is he like? You both overlapped with Plough when he was a player and/or assistant coach. Why is he the golden boy, adopted by Sochor, Moroski, Biggs?
And I’ll repeat the idea I put in the other thread about interviewing players who contribute in significant ways but don’t get recognition. Transfers that contribute, Guys who used to win the end of season team awards that they didn’t award last December.
This is such a cool idea -- gotta admit I was always envious of other Big Sky programs that have regular podcasts and would sometimes listen to those just for their brief coverage of the Aggies. Thank you both for doing this! I'll definitely be listening each week.
On that note, something another team's podcast did (I don't remember which one unfortunately) was to dedicate a part of each week's show to a "fantasy" segment in which they made player picks at some of the offensive positions. Each host would choose a different QB, WR, RB, etc. playing that week (they would rotate who got to "draft" first) and then the following week they would compare stats (TD = X points, yards = Y points, just like fantasy) and actually maintain a season-long ranking for how each host was doing week after week. With only two of you it might not make sense to keep a running tally for who is doing better overall but it could still be a fun way to showcase/summarize the standout players of the conference each week. I think anything that attracts other fans to listen to the podcast makes the podcast better.
I totally realize that putting something like this together is probably a lot harder to execute than it is to share in a message board so I take no offense if you ignore this idea or shelve it for a future season. I'm just excited to know we'll have more coverage of the Ags this season! They certainly deserve it.
You guys could always give us your top 5 or 10 Aggie moments, memories, games, etc. Either during your playing days or all time. Once you guys get things up and running it might be cool to do some collaboration with the guys doing podcasts from some of the other Big Sky schools. These guys from Idaho pop around the forum during game week we when play UI
Recorded our first episode last night and will post sometime next week. More of an intro about the who and why of the podcast so y’all get to know us and the inspiration for this. Big Sky media interviews are on Monday which should provide some talking points for episode 2!
Nice! One of my old mentors, a brilliant, gregarious, slender man from Manchester, England once told me, "Once you start in on something new...it's best to do just that, START. Then you solve one problem, then another, before you know it you've built a cathedral."
Athletic department has given the green light for player and coach access. It’s been great to hear from a number of football alumni and fans listening. The best is yet to come. Aggie Pride.
I doubt Plough will really want to get into the X's and O's as to not give away the playbook or give opponents any real advantage, but I think the big question is what can we expect from "shredville" and will it be significantly different from his time as OC under Hawkins? From what I understand, Hawkins was pretty hands off from the the coordinators. I think a lot of us are pining for a return to a high flying, fast, creative offense that we strayed away from the last several seasons.
As Plough stated at the Big Sky Media Day, Lan had opportunities to go to bigger and more prestigious football programs over the offseason, yet chose to return to the Ags. What were the factors that went into that decision? Simply the Aggie Pride factor? I do believe that UCD instills a certain level of pride that other programs may not have.
CA I think you are right to bring this up regarding LLs decision to stay with the Aggies. and yes there is no doubt that if he had gone into the portal he would have gotten a lot of interest. So the real question is why. I think it has to do with character and loyalty. LL has that. One of the former
Posters criticized me for not giving Cal’s leading RB, J. Ott, more credit as a player citing many statistics etc. so here we have a sophomore RB at cal who did have very good stats who then jumped into the portal for his personal gain only. Versus someone like LL who was willing to stick with his old team over personal gain. So I think character
r matters. Loyal teammates matter. OL guys will block better for guys they love and respect. That said, I hope LL and JO both have good games and don’t get hurt.
that was me who posted about Ott, 69. It wasn't so much a criticism of you or your post. I was just saying that the kid is a monster and has 2 more years of experience since we saw him last. I think we will have a tough time containing him.
Anyway, that's not really what this thread is about. I agree with you that Lan is a special player and I'm happy he didn't jump into the portal.
Ask Plough :
Was he surprised that a few of the offensive assistants he worked with in his prior time here were still around? Most of the assistants are new to him, but he retained a number of them. What are his impressions of the staff?
Is he going to be able to spend some time coaching the QBs? Lots of young QBs being added this year and next.
Well, here's a topic, as a lot of the board is giving updates on it already - looks like Davis landed 7 solid transfers from the old Pac 12 and from the Mountain West...as well as Cal Poly's top tackler in 2022 and 2023. Is this the Plough effect? Flood the recruiting zone, make yourself known to the top FCS talent.
It's definitely an interesting development, as we don't recall this many transfers from years past. Impact players from the past that come to mind are Castles (Cal) and.....anyone else? Most of the transferring has been the opposite direction even going back to Gould's days with Josh Kelly.
Davis had two transfers show up at fall camp and both started, Simonson in every game and Shamburger in many. Simonson never got his name in the stats due to confusion on who wore #70.He is the invisible man here after never seeing action at Nebraska.
LB Tattersall and Smalley transferred from Cal and UCLA and each started but didn’t play much in their first year, likely due to injury in Tattersall’s case. Semaj Verner from Boise played frequently last year and is a grad student this season.
I met Dwight through a few partnerships our group did with AIA and was in a few of his CRD classes. He was always so humble and kind. I didn't have the pleasure of knowing him well but was were able to chat a few times and following on social media. Glad to hear he's doing this for Ags fans.