I think the rosters show the current academic standing for players and, a player's academic standing doesn't necessarily match up with the number of years of athletic eligibility that they have left. So that can be confusing. For example, a player may be a junior in academic standing but still have 3 years of eligibility left and the Covid year complicated matters even more for some players.

Some schools have column headings like Experience where they list years in the program. Others use Academic Year, and others use Eligibility year, which was our default until they gave up last year. The Davis site actually uses a mix. Grant Harper is entering his fifth academeic year but is listed as a junior. No consistency.

Day 8 - HC Tim Plough

Welcome to Shredville - Part 2

Day 9 - Coach Austin Taylor (OLB & Edge) and Jackson Cloyd Sr LB

The Athletics Media folks have really stepped up the the publicity so far this year and that's great to see. I think it will help build on the enthusiasm that Plough is bringing to the program and I think it will help put more fans in the seats this fall.

Jackson Cloud always gives good interviews and Mitchell Dixon’s was very good.

The lack of mention of underclassmen in these previews is noteworthy because it seemed to be good recruiting classes. The running back preview mentioned everyone in the room and Fisher clearly will get some playing time, but thats about it. The other previews and camp reports hardly mention underclassmen.
Perhaps they’ll release a real depth chart prior to the Cal game.

I know it's already been discussed previously, but I do also hope that we get real depth charts. I'm not really sure what Hawk's thing was for doing the (player A) OR (player B) bit with the depth chart.

Not to mention that they put guys that never played in it and didn’t update it during the season to reflect guys who did play.
By the way, they used to put the game notes, which contain the “depth chart” into the schedule, then last year they started putting them into the “media cener”. I went to look at last seasons game notes, only to find they’ve purged the ones from 2023. There is nowhere else besides the game notes where they list who started the games last season. Starters don’t appear in the team stats. The game notes was also a place where you could see what position a player started at for example that Rex Connors was a boundary safety as opposed to a field safety, etc.

Day 10 - Coach Plough:

Lan Larison has been ranked as the #9 contender for the Walter Peyton Award:

9. Lan Larison | UC Davis

Lan Larison is the heartbeat of UC Davis' offense, and that's with an above-average quarterback in the backfield with him, Miles Hastings. Hastings' improvements as a passer should open up the run game for Larison. If Larison can surpass the 1,100-yard mark again this fall and UC Davis makes a run at the Big Sky title, he'll have a compelling Walter Payton Award case.

Rex Connors has been ranked as the #10 contender for the Buck Buchanan Award:

10. Rex Connors | UC Davis

Rex Connors' numbers fell in 2023 after playing in only seven games. He still had 59 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, an interception and seven pass breakups. When he played nine games as a freshman in 2022, he had 88 tackles, five interceptions and 10 pass breakups. If Connors is fully healthy this season, he should be one of the best safeties in the FCS.

Top 10 List for both awards here:

https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2024-07-31/ranking-top-fcs-preseason-award-contenders

Day 10 - 16 photos of the scrimmage to scroll through:

https://ucdavisaggies.com/galleries/football/2024-football-fall-camp-day-ten/fbfallcampday10/2330/131061

I like that it sounds like the defense is playing well considering the key positional losses we had. That being said, I would expect the defense to at least look decent since I doubt the playbook is being totally revamped on that side of the ball. Hopefully the offense gets more comfortable with the return the fast paced offense.

Cloyd’s comments about Blake Antzoulatos going to be great player for us, added to David Meyer who is a proven player plus the guys already here alleviates a lot of concern about the losses at linebacker.
I’m expecting Porter Connors to have a big year.

Plough mentioned Meyer looking good in one of the previous videos too. Filling the shoes of Teddye is still going to be a huge task.

My guess Meyer and Porter Connors are inside linebackers and hence in a different room and the players Cloyd mentioned are outside linebackers in the same room as Cloyd. Team has a ton of outside linebackers.

QB positional preview. Sure sounds like Miles will be the guy, but still a couple weeks until season kickoff.

Maier was throwing the ball when we were running the high tempo offense under Plough. Maier had a real quick release. I don’t think Miles has the quick trigger. Can he read the defense and hit the right guy in the accelerator mode? I’m rooting for him to be successful. And moving forward, it looks like we have some real talent in the QB room.

I also hope Miles is successful this year. I don't want my criticisms of his play last season to be misconstrued as rooting for failure. Maybe a fresh offensive playbook will get him back to his all conference play.

We’ll see if Plough can adapt his offense to the players he’s got. That’s a requirement at this level, where a team doesn’t always have someone who can go on to play pro like Plough had at NAU and here.
Hastings was effective in 2022, so they have that template of what he does well.
Perhaps the biggest reason we didn’t make the playoffs in 2023 was the health of our running backs.

I think that with LL now a known factor MH will have a much better year, I.e. play action and yes mostly 5-10-15 yard passes. This equals ball control football which we all happen to love. Just my humble opinion.

Went to practice today. Lots of insights incorporated into next week’s podcast which will include an exclusive interview with Zach Kennedy. Expecting to have Scott Gordon (ESPN + analyst) on the Cal preview episode.

Plough episode is out tomorrow morning at 5 am! Tap in. Team is deep. A lot depends on Miles and Plough.

It's awesome that you guys already have this much access to the team! I guess that's the benefit of being in FCS and producing a medium that didn't previously exist for our program. I doubt an upstart podcast covering Georgia would be getting HC and star player interviews. Keep up the good work and GO AGS!

Day 11- Rex Connors and HC Tim Plough:

Would have been nice to here about some of the other undeclassmen aside from Souriele and Zaire Collier, who seems to be in contention for playing time after apparently being a walk-on last summer.

Center Peter Povey is not on the team roster. He was a grad student this year. I thought it was good news when he appeared to be going to play this year.

If the Aggies don't win trench warfare then this offense doesn't hum. Looking forward to see how they perform against Cal.

The Plough boys get an oscar! I was watching them through most of the video. Cute kids!

Tubs of Idaho pick UC Davis at 4th Overall in the Big Sky:

https://www.youtube.com/live/j5Xp8i1mmi4?si=oyJMbiWhac8wWVuW

Found our Achilles Heel