NAU returns a QB, whereas most Big Sky teams don’t, They made the playoffs.
Not following them but NAU seems to have lost more than they gained via transfer. I think Davis is one of the few that gained more than lost.

if I remember correctly, they had brought in a ton of transfer the year before. Something like 25

I read your post too fast, and given the new landscape, I read that as "bought a ton of transfer the year before."

They have put the 2025 Roster back up on the web site.

I don’t see what has changed since it was there last.
Good news is that Davis’ entire starting OL for games 6-12 returns. This includes tackles All Big Sky second team Eli Simonson, and honorable mention Ernesto Nava. Good depth too, including RS Freshman transfer Hasson. None of the FCS previews considered that the entire line returns, Sports Illustrated said Davis returned 4 “contributors” which means players that played 180 plays or so.

The roster inexplicably doesn’t list the year players graduated from high school, which makes their eligibility hard to decipher. In most but not all cases, players who came to Davis as freshmen are listed according to their academic class, not their eligibility. Players who started elsewhere are mostly listed by eligibility. But they are inconsistent even in that,

This is what I would sound like if I did a 2025 Preview and Schedule Prediction for the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns or (any other team I know nothing about)......

No lie though.....7-5 isn't crazy.

most of these prediction involve over valuing the loss of Miles Hastings

This analyst says he looks mostly at upperclassmen. He devalues them if they haven’t put up statistics.
Since Davis lists players who were recruited here out of high school by academic year, red shirt sophomores are listed as juniors. (Oddly, Caden Pinnick is listed as a redshirt freshmen, while all his classmates are sophomores)
Jordan Fisher, Sam Goligoski, Trent Carrade, Izaiah Souriolle are examples are guys that got a chance to tiptoe into playing last year as redshirt freshmen. They didn’t generate stats because they didn’t get much of a chance as Davis had a veteran team, yet they are listed as juniors, whereas on most rosters they would be listed as red shirt sophomores.

Curious if we get some project/stadium news before the unofficial "athletic fiscal year" end on July 1st.

For this guy- when was the last time we did not have a very good qb? I am thinking John Lucido but he,was average. Most our qb's went on to play pro football in Canada

Johnny Lu only filled in for a few games when Moraski was hurt. Matt Weinrich was between Mo and Kenny O and he was less than average.

I’d say Randy Wright was not a very good QB despite his record vs Sac

We had a bit of a dry spell as far as "NFL/CFL caliber" QBs from 2002-2016: Flanigan, Grant (a fave. of mine), Plough/Engle/Denham (what might have been), Wright and Ben Scott.

All these guys had fine careers though! Jon Grant played professionally in Germany.

When Moroski was QB for I think 2 years as I think he replaced Speck
And at most i think Moroski lead the team to the playoffs against Bethune-Cookeman and Puget Sound. I do not remember Moroski missed many games at all. He probably played in 1979 when Obrien got hurt. But, i graduated in 78 He used to come over to our place as his good friend who lived with us in 1978. In 1978 playoffs Moroski threw the 99 yard TD pass to Calvin Ellison. About a 4 yard forward pass and Ellison did the rest. Lucido played i think 3 1/2 games in 1979. Back them we on!y played 10 games. So it was almost a half season. And Randy had a 126.30 career rating which is average for the time. Thst includes his terrible game against Cal.

John Grant did sign with a CFL team, but i do not know if or how long he played. But he had his shot. Cenham had a good chance, but he up and left us withput a QB. The Plough,Denham, Engle group never played enough to get noticed. Engle probably played the most, but he was more of a 2nd stringer not a starter. So, yeah we were short a QB, like Lucido. But, none of them wete teally be low average. We had gotten spoiled with Scott Barry, Mike Moroski, O' brien, khari Jones, Kevin Daft, etc.

Moroski was injured before the Poly gsme in 78. It was regionally televised on ABC. Someone started in his place but was ineffective and they brought Johnny Lu in. He led a comeback win. I believe that was his only action that year. In 79, Matt Weinrich started with John as a backup (my frosh season). I’m pretty sure Lucido never started that season but I could be wrong - I only suited up for 4 varsity games (after playing a Friday night Frosh game ).

OB redshirted that year, and took over in 80.

This conversation going over QBs of the last 50 years, and just scratching the surface, would be impossible at most schools. My time at Davis the QBs were Biggs and Speck. I wish i could see a program from that era. If I recall correctly, on Biggs’ Boardwalk Bowl team, one offensive lineman weighed about 210 or 215 lbs and trained by swimming, rather than weights. When playing teams like Massachusetts and Boise that lack if size largely precluded running the ball but the QB put up big numbers.Speck threw for over 400 yards against Boise, and Davis lost a close one simply because they couldn’t get a pass rush against a line that was near 300lbs. I think the Boise QB went on to play in Canada. Davis vs Goliath games.

True about the dry spell. But thiscwas more due to.moving from D2 to FCS D1AA. Wevwere on probabtion for 4 years so we could not be in the playoffs. This made it verybdifficult to recruit top QBs and players because of this. So, aboutb6 years we had recruiting problems due to.probation . Then we had to re-establish our past history with QBs to get solid QBs. So, i think this was expected

A little unfortunate we couldn't build on JT's success...but totally expected drop-off when the D1 move started.

A big part of the decline in pro QBs coming from Davis is that in the 70s through first half of the 80s, a lot of college teams were run oriented, running the wishbone, veer and power I offenses, so few teams were developing Pro style QBs. Davis in that period was running elements of the Dallas Cowboys offense. That is the period when Davis had NFL drafted QBs.
Now everyone throws the ball a lot, the pro offenses have changed to be more like the college, and therefor the majority of collleges are developing pro QB skills. Add to that the better scouting of HS players by the major colleges, which don’t just scoop up the NFL prospects at QB, but at all positions, as shown by how few FCS or D2 players get drafted at any position.