Sac State probably has to be one of the biggest disappointments of the season for all of FCS. I believe most outlets had them as a preseason top 10, but oh boy have they struggled this season. The combined records of the teams that they have beaten this year is 10-23.

@ San Jose State - L 24-42
@ Fresno State - L 30-46
vs Nicholls - W 34-7
@ Texas A&M Commerce - W 34-0
@ Northern Arizona - L 16-34
vs Eastern Washington - L 28-35
vs Weber State - W 51-48 OT
@ Idaho State - L 27-30 OT
vs Portland State - L 38-58
@ Montana State - L 7-49
@ Cal Poly - L 23-26

Now part of the Hornets woes comes from the fact that their starting QB, Kaiden Bennett, apparently quit the team in addition to his main competition, Carson Camp, hitting the transfer portal leaving redshirt freshman, Carson Conklin, to pick up the reins. By no means has Conklin really had a bad season despite being thrown into the fire. He's completed 61% of his passes for nearly 2500 yards with 23 TDs and 7 INTs. The Hornets have 3 main receivers to look out for Jared Gipson with 744 yards and 7 TDs, Anderson Grover with 680 yards and 6 TDs, and Danny Scudero with 527 yards and 4 TDs. Sac's run game is led by Elijah Tau-Tolliver who is closing in on 1000 rushing yards this season with 7 TDs. On defense the Hornets have been led by LB Will Leota who has been their do it all guy. He has 86 tackles, 9.5 TFLs, 2 sacks, 2 INTs, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery.

From the folks over on the Sac forum are saying, the Hornets are marred by injuries and many are calling for the heads of the coaching staff. It looks like things are kind of coming apart at the seams down the stretch for them which makes them dangerous in this Causeway Classic. They aren't making the playoffs and while Davis is a lock to at least make the post-season, they would love nothing more stall momentum and end their season on a high note.

GO AGS! BEAT THE HORNETS!

I look at that Hornet schedule, and I just see inconsistency and potential. Sac can be dangerous, but if Davis pulls away early they could also self-destruct, and it could get ugly depending on the emotions on the field.

Keys:
1. Play fast and error free
2. Defense shuts down the run, and limits the quick passing game
3. Turnovers
4. No injuries, work the rotation

The Aggies should have no problems scoring on the Hornets. Their defense has been pretty dang bad especially the 2nd half of the season as they've sustained injuries.

Sac will be like a wounded animal fighting for its life next Saturday which makes them a very dangerous team. Their season has been a huge disappointment and many of their fans are calling for the heads of the coaching staff. They have speed and athleticism at the skill positions with the ability to bust a big play and they will be playing with their hair on fire. They have nothing to lose and a win over their biggest rival would be the highlight of their disappointing season. We need to be ready to match their intensity and play smart, error free football. A lot is on the line for the Aggies...

We need a repeat of 2018 - bounce back from a tough BSC conference showdown with a playoff level performance.

The Sac State fan board is imploding. A lot of frustration, finger pointing, hostility directed at the team, the QB who left, the coaches and each other.

As many here have noted, they have only one thing left to play for this season.

Beat Sac! "People should know when they are conquered!"

I mean, I kind of get where the hostility is coming from. Troy Taylor built that program into a national powerhouse and left an awesome roster in the hands of Andy Thompson. They came into this season as a preseason top 10 team and to now be sitting at 3-8 is all but a flop of a season. I think it cuts particularly deep given all the Sac12 promotion there has been. Now, I'm not saying that they aren't still a candidate for moving up, but of all the seasons where you would want to display a positive resume... this would have been it.

Agreed...but Slack has a bit of a history of this. As I recall, (always a big "if" at my age) when they moved to scholarships and to then D-1AA they were cocky about it. Again relying on what passes for my memory I recall Coach Mattos saying there may come a time when Sac could no longer play a program like Davis.

Don't let your mouth write a check your butt can't cash.

(Do I have to explain "writing checks" to the younger members here?)

Beat Slack State! Beat Slack State! J Street Tech is going to be pumped up.

Sac HC coaches have never been shy about boasting about how good they were destined to become. I remember Sochor responding to a comment by them saying that pretty soon Sac would be so good that the Davis game would no longer be a rivalry. Sochor replied, "You have to beat us first before you can call it a rivalry." Touché!

I also remember their HC, John Volek, telling the media that Sac was going to become the Florida State of the west and, when that happened, they wouldn't be playing the likes of Davis again.

Sac’s conference statistics are middling on offense and defense but their won loss record is bad, They are definitely better than what one would expect from a 1-6 conference team. They gave up 305 passing yards to Poly’s division 3 transfer qb from Mount Union, running back coach Kevin Burke’s alma mater.

Well it may depend if Sac slicks down with PAM cooking spray this year. I’m really hoping for no injuries. Last thing we need is a key player taking a dirty hit.

And don’t forget the homer officiating we’ve had over there.

A question from an outsider? Is Cal Poly more of a natural rival for UCD? Sac State being more of a little brother?

Some folks consider Cal Poly an unofficial UC bc of their top academics - possibly #1 among all 23 Cal State campuses. They also offer coursework in agriculture, viticulture, and were members of the former Far Western Conference. We often compete for the same recruits.

Sac State is for local bragging rights. They refer to us as the dungpile, among others, and we counter w Slack State or J Street Tech.

Sac State is like our Montana vs Montana State. We don't like each other. Sac is the "dumb" school which gets a lot of local attention because they are in Sacramento proper whereas we are about 20-30 mins west. UC's and CSU's are both public schools but there is a lot of institutional dislike between the two systems.

For basketball, the Big West Conference wanted to add UC San Diego but was blocked by the CSU members who forced the BIg West to take Bakersfield as a package deal. CSU and UCs have the same number of schools in that conference and don't want to be out numbered. Bakersfield is like Butte in terms of how people view it. No offense if you are from there btw.

UC Davis is the Ag school with a research focus and our student body is mostly from all over CA or even out of state. Sac State is the city school with a local service area of Sacramento, Yolo (Davis' county) plus Alpine, Amador, Colusa, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sierra,Solano, Sutter, and San Joaquin.

CSU's have to admit local HS and transfer kids who graduate or get AA/AS degrees from HS and community colleges in their service area whereas UC has no service area. Historically Sac is a commuter school (they do have dorms) and Davis is residential, much like Moscow, ID.

Sac has lower admission standards so they can get good players who don't qualify at Davis. Despite that, we own the all-time series with them, winning 2/3rds of the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Classic

Cal Poly is more like a friendly rival. They are a CSU but have high standards and go after the same recruits and students that we do. They have an Ag focus but concentrate on technical instruction and have some of the best programs in forestry, architecture or engineering in CA, comparing well with UCs. We have been in the same conference longer and in all-sports but our rivalry is really football only unlike Sac's all-sports. Cal Poly, being isolated is a residential school. They are the mustangs which was our official animal until like a year or two ago.

Cal Poly hates Davis more than we do. When they lose to us, they don't get a team photo in their locker room. But still, they respect us and save their all-sports hate for UC Santa Barbara esp in soccer or hoops. We think of Cal Poly as that Cousin we want to beat but takes the same classes as you, has the same friends, etc. Sac is the polar opposite who has jock like vibes, slacks at school, and talks the talk despite being historically worse at athletics and academics. Cal Poly is our equal and the best CSU. Sac is a middling CSU with commuter students.

We work with Sac Students because they are in the same media market. Cal Poly grads have a shared focus with us but most probably move to Socal. They are 4 hours away and in a different media market.

Most Davis and Sac alums who don't follow sports tune in for the Causeway. Some show up for Cal Poly but the Causeway is the one game that was usually televised before the ESPN + / Pluto era. It is the one game that gets a lot of coverage in the Sac region despite being on the same weekend as the Big Game between Cal and Stanford (gets a lot of coverage in all Norcal markets).

Sac State also resents that we are Sacramento's UC and have our world renowned UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. We kind of resent that our campus has done a lot of focus on Sac rather than Davis especially playing at the Golden 1 Center for home games in basketball (Causeway Classic in hoops used to be the week of FB but the opposite team hosted) but we have to compete with Sac. We get a lot of favorable coverage in Sac in non sports but Sac gets a little better coverage in sports.

Sorry for the essay. I hate Sac way more but want to beat Poly also.

Cal Poly was never in the Far West Conference.
Davis was in the Far-west conference from its founding in 1925.
The bigger schools like Fresno State, Nevada, Pacific, eventually left leaving Davis and a number of Northern California schools. Davis began to thoroughly dominate those schools in the mid 70s, and started playing Collige Division scholarship programs including Cal Poly, Portland State, Santa Cruz, etc.Sac elected to leave the FWC in the late 80s after loosing 18 consecutive Causeway games against Davis. Davis and Cal Poly then began to be in the same conference and their games were competitive, leading many to think that was the bigger rivalry., Recently Sac has been competitive and seems the bigger rivalry because they are only a few miles away.

Any chance that the Causeway Classic could be a trap game? Normally, I wouldn't think any rivalry game would be a trap, but sometimes a team coming off a tough loss in a huge game and looking forward to playoffs might just overlook a clearly weaker team, rival or not.

No chance. Davis seeding will depend on the outcome of the game

Well, given the forecast, it is going to be WET this Saturday.

Sacramento forecast:
Wednesday, 11/19 - 0.81 in. rain
Thursday, 11/20 - 0.1 in. rain
Friday, 11/21 - 0.97 in. rain
Saturday, 11/22 - 0.35 in. rain

it was kind of funny talking to someone, that a number of schools from the D2 era considered us their rival more than we did them. Apparently we were the big game as far St Mary’s, Humboldt and others were concerned.

Saint Mary’s and Santa Clara had their Little Big Game.
I think Davis was the top game for Humboldt and Chico as well as Sac. Davis was the team to beat after they started winning every year. Sonoma State when they were contending certainly thought Davis was their rival.

St. Mary's was only in the FWC from 1925 to 1928. After that they were independent. I can see how the rest of the FWC saw UC Davis as a rival once the Sochor era started, but before that, I didn't see most of the other FWC schools feelng like we were the team to best, except Sac State, of course. On the other hand, I remember Santa Clara pounding us, as well as Boise State.

Santa Clara, Portland State, Cal Poly, Boise, were teams we started to play once Davis starter to dominate their non scholarship rivals. Those teams had scholarships Davis didn’t, they weren’t conference rivals, they were teams we played to get competition and to gain some credibility to potentially get invited to the then new Div2 playoffs.
After the end of the NCAC Davis became a conference rival with Cal Poly in the America West
They only played Saint Mary’s once when an independent.

During the time when Sac went DI, how did we play them home and home despite being in a lower division? How did it work in 1993 (?) when the Ags were in the same conference as Sac but completed in DII and Sac in DI?

When did the Cal Poly Rivalry become a game of importance?

Thanks, but yes, I knew that. The first football game I saw in Davis was a bad loss (49-8) to Santa Clara, whose QB was Dan Pastorini, later to become an NFL starter. Our QB was Paul Hackett, who also did well in the NFL but not as a player. I also saw us lose to Boise State a couple of times. In those days, we didn't do all that well against FWC teams either. One year while I was there, we went 0-5 in conference and 3-7 overall.

I wasn’t aware that playing Boise and Santa Clara were part of a longer running series.
I was at Davis for Biggs’ last year at QB, and Specks first year. Davis lost only one conference game those two years, to Hayward, won one and tied one against Santa Clara. in addition to the narrow loss to Boise, they lost games to Fullerton, Pacific, and UMass.

Imagine our D with Teddye Buchanan. He leads the Bears in tackles w 97 and has 5 sacks on the year.

Sacramento and Davis weren't in the same conference for some time before Sac went D1, so the game just counted as an OOC game for both teams. Several of the Causeway Classics I attended in the 90s and 00s were held at a "neutral' site: Hughes Stadium on the Sac City campus.

Just checked the UCD record book and found out that we only played (and lost) to Boise State four times, but twice while I was there, so it seemed more regular. Santa Clara, we played almost every year, though, went 1-3-1 while I was there and 19-15-1 (12-4-1 under Sochor) overall until 1992.