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CA Forever
673Fresh off a victory against Cal Poly, the Aggies now have to head up to the Inferno to take on the Eagles of Eastern Washington. The Eagles have had a little bit of an up and down season so far, but this will be a considerable challenge for the Ags especially since we have quite literally never beaten them. Yep, we're 0-11 against the Eagles with our last match up being a 24-27 loss. EWU's season so far has looked as such:
vs Monmouth - W 42-27
vs Drake - L 32-35
@ Southeastern Louisiana - L 24-28
@ Nevada - L 16-49
vs Montana - L 49-52
@ Sacramento State - W 35-28
So while they currently have a losing schedule, they are also a handful of plays away from being 5-1. The outlier here is the loss to non-scholarship, Drake.
The Eagles have always been known for their high flying offense, but they are actually running a quite balanced offense this season. They are currently averaging 220.83 passing yards per game and 213.3 rushing yards per game. They, however, are also giving up 281.17 passing yards per game and 192.2 rushing yards per game.
The offense is led by Kekoa Visperas who has completed 119/159 passing attempts (74.84%) for 1217 yards and 11 TDs with 0 INTs. Visperas has also gained 241 rushing yards with 3 rushing touchdowns. 2 additional QBs have taken snaps this season, but have primarily been used as runners. Jared Taylor has completed 7/11 passing attempts (63.64%) for 64 yards with 1 INT, but has rushed for 293 yards with 4 TDs. Michael Wortham has completed 4/6 passing attempts for 2 TDs and has added 113 rushing yards and 2 TDs. I'm always worried when the Ags go against mobile QBs as we always seem to struggle.
The Eagles feature 2 different RBs in their offense. The first is Tuna Altahir who has 68 rushing attempts for 408 yards with 2 TDs. The second is Malik Dotson who has 59 rushing attempts for 318 yards and 3 TDs. What is notable about their run game is that so far this season they have only 3 yards of loss between these 2 guys. They just don't get brought down in the backfield. In terms of receivers, the main target is Efton Chism III who has 54 receptions for 580 yards and 7 TDs. There is a sharp drop off in terms of production after that.
The Eagle defense is led in tackles by DB Derek Ganter Jr with 41 total tackles. DB Cage Schenck leads the team in TFLs with 3.5 while LB Ahmani Williams leads the team in sacks with 1.5. Probably the most notable defense stat is DB DaJean Williams with 10 PBUs on the season. The Eagles have only forced 3 turnovers this season, but at the same time they very rarely turn the ball over themselves.
All in all, this will be a tough challenge for the Ags. They are a far better team than Cal Poly or Portland State despite what their record says. Maybe this will be the season that the Aggies get the monkey off their back against EWU, but I'm not going to hold my breath. This is one of those games that I'm predicting a loss until I'm proven otherwise.
GO AGS! BEAT THE EAGLES! -
BaseballAtDobbins
62I thought about going but it may be on the cooler side in th 50s or mid 40s and I wouldn't get home until close to midnight. Hence I'll probably just catch it from home. If this was at Idaho, I'd certainly go. -
CA Forever
673Like I said, even on their down years they seem to have our number. I'm hoping for a win, but I always brace for the loss until the team can prove that they can get over that hump.
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BlueGoldAg
1.3kI absolutely hate that red carpet! It's gotta be the most ugly field in college football. I guess I'm just an old traditionalist when it comes to what a football field should look like. I don't like Boise's blue field either but I'd take it over that butt ugly red carpet in Cheney.
No other team in the Big Sky has ever caused us so much grief over the years. We've gotta find a way to win this one and get the monkey off our backs! -
Wookie
9A good test for the Aggies. I have a friend in Spokane I visit often. I refuse to go to an EWU game in Cheney. Had the misfortune to sit next to one of their fans at a Davis game. What an arse The dude was a real hayseed. I’m sure many of you have had similar experiences both good and not so good.
I sat next to a great Tennessee fan at Memorial. They brought over,10,000 fans to Berkeley. He was the most pleasurable, knowledgeable individual. Even though Cal won, he was very gracious. I always try to engage with visiting fans who come to Davis. It’s part of the game day experience.
Go Ags! -
Riveraggie
251All these stats are Big Sky Conference only.
Eastern Washington’s offense is similarly productive to Davis’ but they are much more effective rushing averaging 5.9 yards a carry to Davis’s 3.7.
Eastern Washington had 286 net yards rushing against Sac State, and 263 against Montana. They average almost six yards a carry. Their two running backs are similar in size to Larison, both 6’ tall 217 and 212 lbs, Their running QB taylor is also 6’ 200+ lbs..On the Sac State broadcast they said the offensive line has over 200 starts. Stopping the run is going to be a challenge.
Both teams complete a high percentage of passes, but Eastern throws less than half as many for less yardage per attempt. Interesting that Davis trails only Montana State in yards per pass attempt, and Montana State throws only about a third as much. -
DrMike
744Eastern feels more dangerous to me than Idaho did, mainly because they can put up points. Conversely, they seem to be able to give up points at a healthy clip. We're going to have to get off to another fast start, and play a smart, clean game on offense. I feel better about the fact that they don't seem to like to heave it down the field (not exactly a defensive strength of ours). -
NCagalum
276In watching the EWU - Sac game-
Sac had only 7 possessions. Their downfall was really the third quarter. Eastern took the kickoff, went tempo, marched right down the field and scored. They then had a successful on-side kick and again tempo for another score. That was followed by a pick of a Conklin pass. Sac could just not get off the field. EWU rushing game seemed to wear them down, and vesparas got key escapes of rushes, and the running QB, Taylor, gashed them. Conklins stats looked good but he was not super sharp, with a real bad INT and some missed throws.
Keys - keep Vesparas in the pocket. Sac seemed to overrun him in the pass rush and he just took the opportunity to escape and run. Otherwise he throws almost exclusively shot passes like slants to Chism.
Stop the rushing QB. He is only going to run. Only 1 pass from him. In the same vein slow down the run and just get off the field.
Gonna have to score. Hopefully some of the momentum from poly will carry over.
Win the turnover battle. This will be crucial if it gets to be somewhat of a shootout. There were only 3 punts in the sac game all others were scores with the exception of a short missed field goal by Eastern. 9 possessions for Eastern to 7 for Sac was the difference. -
CA Forever
673Hopefully the game against Poly gave the team confidence to execute throughout the game. If we play like we did against PSU, we will lose to EWU. The Eagles benefit from having a lot of guys who can run the ball effectively from the RB and QB positions and can wear a team down. The defense will need to keep an eye on where Chism is and make sure he's covered because he's target #1 for the QB, but we also have to be ready for the QB to take off. Shut one of those things down and make them 1 dimensional.
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agalum
335Wow, game notes are already up!
https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sidearm.nextgen.sites/ucdavisaggies.com/documents/2024/10/14/24FBGameNotesEWU.pdf -
SochorField
170Second half of the season started last Saturday, and the Aggies played their best game.
I think the Ags go to Cheney and break the curse. Confidence must be high in the locker room this week. -
CA Forever
673Massey giving the Ags a 55% chance of winning for what it's worth. Essentially a coin toss.
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NCagalum
276My weather app (weather underground) shows 15 mph winds at kickoff. That could affect the passing game somewhat. Certainly not like the winds in Brookings during the playoff game a couple years ago.
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CA Forever
673This is kind of off topic for this thread specifically, but did anyone else notice that we've started doing the helmet sticker thing? I don't remember them before this season. I have to be honest that helmet stickers are 1 of 2 BIG uniform pet peeves of mine that I have in college football (along with alternate uniform colors that have no relation at all to the schools colors) so this is not a great development for me personally, but at least as far as helmet stickers go they are fairly tame.
As opposed to
I don't know, maybe it's just me. The lady at home is a FSU Seminole and she says she likes their tomahawk stickers. -
fugawe09
195first time I saw it too. I guess name plates are out but stickers are in? FSU helmets have more stickers than the back of a VW microbus. -
SochorField
170Man I love the traditional gold helmets.
I hope we keep rocking those. The script Davis and the CA look great on gold. -
Riveraggie
251Seems impractical with all different helmets. If Davis does it they should mention what the sticker signifies, great game, games played, games started or what. Maybe someone here knows.
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Aggie Pride Podcast
150We were invited on the eastern Washington football podcast for those who want to listen from the opposing team’s vantage point.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/55jLKeSQCAQseovvn87j6A?si=14Z2mBr4QgSEgUzhAXq1UQ&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A66cXd5i6GDpuyHIpdtPQQt
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Toke69
328Despite being an 8 year member of this chat group, I confess that I was not following Aggie football anywhere near as I am since I was able to see the games on ESPN+. I know the sa state of our series with EWU, but would you folks surmise that the game tomorrow is our best chance, ever, of beating the Golden Eagles? -
NCagalum
276Agreed. Last year was the first real chance. Had Lan not been injured no way the Eags win. He had about 250 yards rushing when he was injured mid 3rd quarter and EWU was simply unable to stop him. At the end of the third quarter it was 24-20 UCD. Aggies did not score after Lan got injured. Of course it’s all ifs and buts.
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ucdavisaggie05
131Have we done the storm trooper look but with a blue script Davis instead of the CA logo? If not…that would look pretty slick as well. -
movielover
536In the great 2018 season we were 10-3 - two losses to EWU, and one loss to Stanford.
They buried us the first game, but we went toe to toe w them in the playoffs, eventually losing 34-29 in frigid weather. They scored 20 points in the 4th quarter keyed by Eric Barriere.
We had Ullonzo Gilliam (143 yds rushing), Doss (9 receptions, 143 yds), Jake Maier, but we threw 2 picks.
Arguably our best FCS team.
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