Day 16 - Lan Larison:

Now that we hear from the Aggie Pride Podcast that Tompkins is injured here is a guess who starts.
This is far.from definite.

WR Hutton, Gbatu, Davis,
TE Gale,
RB Larison
QB Hastings
LT Simonson
LG Souriolle
C Collier?
RG Main or Mirabella
RT. Nava

DT. Bearden
NG. Toki
DE Kennedy
Rush Sarac
Nickel Verner
SLB. Cloyd
MLB. Porter Connors
WLB. Meyer
BCB. Alexander
FCB. Cotton
BS Rex Connors
FS Shamburger

Based on everything that's come out, that looks about right. We should have a pretty stout defense, but can that offense get the production Plough wants?

Do we want to broadcast injuries to Kal?

Leaving aside the fact that they’ll likely hear about it elsewhere, Tompkins isn’t that distinctive as a wide receiver that Cal is going to plan differently if he is or isn’t playing.

We'll miss him. He's extremely versatile, can be creative and explosive and plays hard 100% of the time. He has the ability to make a play that energizes the team when we need it too. I hope he isn't seriously injured and we get him back soon. He got pretty banged up last season too.

We are deeper at that position this year from the looks of it. Took in another practice today. Season is close! The Del Oro QB was making plays.

I think he is a key player, i just think that Cal wouldn’t game plan around him as a wide receiver. Would play him the same as most receivers. If we were doing the wildcat QB thing with him then it would matter more if he was out.

Hear me out........SHREDVILLE stenciled in one of the endzones.

Gotta start winning 9-10 games a year to drop those kind of stones though........

Also, I've wanted to see "Aggie Pride" on the field somewhere.....

Made the practice today with Dr. Mike. They did a scrimmage. I didn’t see Miles or Harper take a snap- it was mainly the younger guys. Pinnick (Del Oro) looked good. Rasor threw some bullets and is a good scrambler. Freshman RB Vargas looks solid. TT was working out on the sidelines with a brace but looked ok to me.
How many universities let fans stand on the sidelines visiting with the AD and after practice the head coach? A very enjoyable morning followed by a great burger at Plainfield!

Only sort of related but I've resigned my self for hoping for running up the score on the FCS games this season. Committee feels free to disregard SoS and H2H so Ags need to be ready to truly shred the PSUs and Cal Polys on the schedule so that they can't help but use the eye test.

They care about wins and rankings. Win 9 games and you’re good.

How about #17 Damon Wrighster. Isn't he supposed to be mobile?

True, but 9-win season requires us to play perfectly outside of our games against the FCS top 5 -- and that includes on the road at a top-10 team. Not sure any team outside of the non-marquee teams of the Big Sky and MVFC would be held to that standard just to lock in an at-large spot.

“ agalum How about #17 Damon Wrighster. Isn't he supposed to be mobile?”
I was looking for him. If he took a snap i missed it. But the practice roster was goofed up. Some of the numbers didn’t correspond to the position.
Tons of energy, excited for the season.

i think the 2 QB's you mentioned were the only ones to get snaps. Apparently, they are in the battle for #3. I think most of yesterday was 2's and 3's, but not having a roster makes that a guess.

I didn't realize that Logan Kraut had made the transition to LB.

Aim small miss small. Even 8 wins might get them in.

If they beat the teams they are supposed to beat, and I include Idaho at Davis in that list they’ll will have 8 FCS wins before the final 3 games. If that’s their only wins they need Idaho to come into Davis ranked high so they have a quality win. Otherwise it will be like last two years, out of their hands . If they are beat in any of those first 8 FCS games they will need to offset that with a win in their last three games.

Montana, Montana State, Sac State to finish the season is tough. + Eastern in Cheney.

7-4 (FCS) obviously doesn't cut it. Aggies have to win at least one of these 4 games...time to get over the hump.

8-4 or don't bother, that's what it seems to be in the Big Sky.

Here's an interesting spreadsheet put together by a member of the anygivensaturday.com FCS forum. It compares the teams according to the cumulative stats as a whole on offense and defense for each team's returning starters in every FCS conference. The Aggies look strong in the Big Sky.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wAC-Ok4L6KmuRzrZj-F5NvAgQa7ATZmSnEWrY9KTsW0/edit?gid=692475703#gid=692475703

https://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?361594-Keeper-s-2024-FCS-Returning-Starters-amp-Stats-survey

8-4 should get them in. Yes, it's a 12-game schedule

So 8-4 to get in means we have to win two of

at Cal
vs. Idaho
at Eastern Wash (they haven't been good the last two years but we also lost to them in 2023)
at Montana
vs. Montana St
at Sac St

while not blowing some other game in there. Going to be tough with the four Big Sky teams (besides EWU) being ranked in the top 10. I assume the Montana's will be good again. Sac took a step back last year so with the coach having left so who knows what they'll be. Idaho was really good last year but we'll see if it's a one-off.

Idaho voters in polls are in denial about their losses to transfers and graduation. Davis is at home
Davis beat Sac last year more soundly than the score indicates.
Davis has never beaten E.Washington, but they would have last year except Larison’s injury in that game. Three very winnable games.

Obviously it's unlikely to happen, but it would be quite nice if we were 8-1 going into Mont, Mont St, Sac St.

It is not the only path to the playoffs but it is the easiest as it doesn't require an upset. It is doable if the offense gets back to 2022 level and the defense can play at 2023 level, and key players stay healthy.

8-3, unless you are Montana …….

There is no way UCD would have lost to EWU if Larison had not gone down middle of 3rd quarter. He was absolutely going through EWU defense like a hot knife through butter.

I always wondered if there was some dirty play going on in that pile at the north end zone when Lan came up hurt.

When I was watching live I was like……