The one thing UCD football has been missing is personality! Needless to say we have that covered now! :-)

I just hope the denizens don't freak out because yelling is "not how we do things in Davis."

Hawk needs some organic granola, time at the Co-op, and a Prius.

Just show them Hawk's twitter page. There's enough Zen sayings and inspirational quotes over there to keep the prim and proper folks engaged until the yelling has died down.

Good call. We might need to set up some "Hawkins Ambassadors" to show the gray hairs his Twitter page. Not sure they can find his Twitter page without some help!

Money.

We've been behind forever. We (Aka the ENTIRE UC Davis Football community) need to realize without it no coach can make us competitive.

I truly hope the FBS/FCS question is actually evaluated in a few to several years. A few hundred die hard "Aggie Pride" types can't fund even an FCS program alone. You need the general university community at a minimum and the regional community ideally to be at play.

I know some will call me out, but honestly, at a big time school like UC Davis is now, the students and community it attracts don't really care about playing "Generic Multi-Directional State College." Need evidence? There's more buzz when we play a body bag away game at "University of Heard Of Before" with a near certain lopsided outcome.

I'm not saying FBS is the answer, but has it seriously been evaluated if it just might be a more successful model at UCD? I don't think so...in my opinion it's simply been rejected as it's not "The Aggie Way" and too "Big." Well, we (including EVERYONE here) sure are loving BIG now aren't we?

I agree that it should be considered, but if we're ever in a position to feasibly move up, I'm not sure being a middling-bad team in the Mountain West would be preferable to being a decent team in the Big Sky.

Currently the "recognizable" schools in our schedule consist of:
Sac State
Poly
one FBS that slaughters us

If we join the MWC West division (assuming Montana or NDSU join the Mountain to balance us), then our guaranteed in-division opponents would be:
SJSU
Fresno
SDSU
Hawaii
Nevada
UNLV

which, with the exception of SDSU, are relatively mediocre. And considering I just had a close UCLA friend (who considered Davis) ask me if SDSU is even FBS, there will still be some recognition issues for our students. (Being able to get home-and-homes with Pac-12 schools would be the clear upgrade of course.)

Going to a MWC school this year has been interesting so long as we were still good enough to have a shot at the Cotton Bowl, and it's cool to have 40k attendance and all, but really it's not terribly different or more relevant than the Big Sky when it's all said and done. Nor is the talent gap particularly noticeable between the bottomfeeders of the MWC and EWU, Montana, etc.

all good points...but the question is can we even be mediocre as a Big Sky if we have to beg for basics like computer software. Hearing that up above was painful.

Could we raise more interest and investment ($) if we were stepped up?

Per the Fresno Bee Jeff Tedford released all of the Fresno State football coaching staff. It could happen here!

North Dakota State alumni, fans and students LOVE their football team and University. It is evident.

I think we will be blown away by the engagement from the community and students if we start winning at the FCS level. And before everyone gives me the "there is nothing else to do in ND, remember Berkeley being ranked in the Top-10 under Tedford? They sold out that old stadium and found fans they never knew they had. It might not even be as hard to keep that momentum in sleepy 'ol Davis.

Its safe to say FBS is a pipe dream as we stand today, seeing as we haven't proven that Davis can fund a successful program at the FCS level. At least now with a motivated AD like Blue, we are finally taking the baby steps necessary to be successful. He has found donors (to get rid of Gould), and he has convinced a big name to be our HC so far. This train is rolling.

aggie6thman we need to shake up the base to get more excitement during our home games. Hawk is talking about ways to get the students fired up but we also need to get the rest of fans fired up. Our players deserve this. I know, we need to start winning, but I think they will start to win more with a more supportive crowd. I'm all for creating a "mascot" to roam the home stands to create havoc and shake up the old curmudgeons that attend the games. I'm sure there are students that would love an opportunity to display their acting and drama skills. The "Davis Way" is great and all, but that does not mean we can't have some fun.

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↪GunRockFaceMask
I just hope the denizens don't freak out because yelling is "not how we do things in Davis."

You have to walk before you can run. Hopefully Hawk can at least get us back to the Biggs level - 4 to 5 wins - right away. He has 72 Division I Wins under his belt, 112 college Wins overall, so he shouldn't have major issues with calling timeouts, a 2-minute offense, or clock management.

We have an amazingly supportive student base, time for the alums to step up for facilities upgrades. A Training Facility / rehab would benefit all sports. A beefed up Training Table might help. Winning helps everything, so does excitement. It sounds like Misti Hawkins - an Aggie - also has creative ideas. Heck, we would pack Toomey for Chico State!! SF State!! Why? I think it usually meant we were winning, and it wasn't a holiday. The playoffs were when it became bananas... I don't think we'll ever see streakers at Aggie Stadium, but who knows.

I was chatting with some Aggie Band members a few years back, and even they feel like they are handcuffed and not supported.

Most FBS schools cost lot's of money and lose big money. I'd be thrilled with becoming the next EWU (with academics), or even NDSU. Playoffs every other year, and picking off bigger schools. Nothing like an overflowing House, which also drives up season ticket purchases. Moroski wanted a second tier on the student side to add seats, but I'm not sure at this point.

Software upgrade ($5,000)? I don't have the numbers, but staffing seems to have risen quite a bit over the past 10 years. Every slot probably costs us at least $100,000 with bennies. That's a management / priority issue. That's the problem when you hire staff with Pac-12 expectations.

FBS talk is crazy, unless somebody knows a person who's going to cut a check for 100 million. I'd be happy with a 500 season, next year & over the moon with a playoff birth.
Plus, with almost 40 thousand students & a team playing well, we should fill Aggie Stadium. That would be great to see!

Sorry, but you the staffing costs are not the issue. Paying bargain basement prices for everything gets a basement team. Assistant slots are nowhere near $100,000 plus benefits at UCD. Per public records, Pat McCann (our WR coach) earned a salary of $39,833 in 2014 with a total compensation cost of $66K. Kevin Daft made $70,679 in 2014...total compensation cost was $100K (with benefits) as an OC. We pay our assistant coaches about what a Burger King Manager makes to work their butts off. I can't imagine why any major conference assistant coaches coming to Davis at our pay rates. Drastic pay cut, expensive town, and all the handicaps we know exist.

Oldaggie!
That's shocking info! Who could work for that little! An OC making 70k is shockingly low!

I agree with GunRock, that is embarrassingly low for our positional coaches. We can only hope that Dr. Blue is finding the resources necessary to make our football program successful again.

Noel Mazzone, former UCLA OC, made $250K base with $400K in other compensation, for a total of $700K with benefits in 2014. http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=INTERCOL%20ATH%20COACH%20AST%20EX

Ouch.

I think Hawk is doing us a favor with his pay right now.

What are competitive rates for coordinators and positional coaches in FCS?

Don't know, but cost of living in Davis is far more than most, if not all, other teams we play. My point is not really the salary rates, but the fact Gould's managment of funds has nothing to do with out lack of success. The student support has been awful (understandable with the record), and we have no corporate sponsors.

Yep, we have a lot of work to do around the board. I think Dr. Blue has us moving in the right direction though.

Sears, HC at suck, makes $176,000. One factor if comparing assistant salaries to those at other fcs schools is the cost of living here is significantly higher.

What's the going rate at SLO?

Amen.

. I'm with you, OA. We have an amazingly supportive student fan base...when we win or are on ESPN. But that is not different anywhere else in the country!

i've heard the 'we should join the MWC' from some of my old teammates for the past 6 months or so, and i can't see how that's feasible. first, why would the MWC want Davis? they have 12 teams now with a conference championship. add Davis and who else? Its not clear what the attraction would be to them to add another northern california team, when they could look to places like texas (UTSA, maybe). secondly, where do we get the money? SJ State paid $2M initiation fee to join. we'd have to add something like 20 scholarships for football and the same number for women (i think that's the Title IX rule). we'd have to increase the size of the stadium to meet the FBS minimum (i think its something close to 20000). and the budgets would go way up to meet the levels of other MWC (especially those in California). third, do our other sports want to abandon the Big West for the Mountain West? Its not going to be a 'football-only' like we have in the Big Sky.

let's focus on getting competitive here. we used to draw 10-11K for games against 'the sisters of the poor' (to paraphrase Bob Dunning), no reason we can't get back there and beyond for Big Sky opponents and FCS playoff games. I'm not sure how we would draw on those wonderful Thursday night 7:30 MWC kickoffs for ESPN2 -> Spartan Stadium is a ghost town for those and even Boise doesn't fill up for those games.

I totally agree with all you said. The cost will be massive, and we aren't competitive at this level. If we built a MWC level facility, we may be able to draw those recruits, but that's a huge undertaking. Let's win a few Big Sky's, fill Aggie Stadium for a few years, and then talk about the MWC. I do think our students would show up for week night games, especially if beer is sold and we are on TV.

It's going to be an uphill battle on a steep slope for sure given the history of our comparative lack of financial support for UCD athletics to have the resources necessary to be competitive on equal footing with our competition at this level. Blue and his staff have got their work cut out for them when it comes to fundraising and finding major donors.

When it comes to student support the truth is that it has been fickle best and practically nonexistent at worst. That rings true for fan support in general as well. Sure we have packed the Pavilion on a few occasions when ESPN came to town, and there have been a few football games during the Biggs D1 era that had Aggie Stadium rocking but, for the most part, the students have been largely missing. Even on those occasions when they do show up, many of them leave at halftime and, by the 4th quarter, only a smattering are left.

Of course, we haven't done much in football or basketball to get fans terribly excited lately. Year after year of losing in football has drained the enthusiasm out of all but the most dedicated Aggies fans. Basketball has had one season to truly get excited about since moving to D1 also. So you really can't blame the fans for becoming complacent; we really haven't given them a whole lot to get energized about.

We have a couple of inherent problems that I think helps foster apathy towards our D1 athletics also. First of all, we are a huge, world class, major UC school and our athletics program pales in comparison to the schools that I think the students believe we are equal to in all ways except athletics: Cal, UCLA, Stanford etc. So, we're handicapped from the get go by being the "little brother" in athletics that struggles to win against teams in the Big Sky and the Big West. There isn't much we can do about that now but failing to be a consistent winner at the FCS football and mid-major basketball levels is crippling our fan support. Gotta win, get to the FCS playoffs and basketball post-season tournaments if this is going the change.

Secondly, regarding football only, as we all know Aggie Stadium is a solar oven in the early season, and the student sections on the east side get the worst of it. Heaven knows that it's uncomfortable for all of us fans when the temperature is 90 degrees and above at game time, but it is absolutely unbearable on the easr side in those conditions. It's broiling and the sun is directly in their eyes! It's brutal and, once the new students experience that combined with a likely loss, it's no wonder they are reluctant to return.

Not much we can do about the stadium. It is what it is, but who can blame the anyone for not wanting to be fried in Aggie Stadium. Fans do avoid those games when the conditions are like that and it's just unfortunate.

Winning can go a long way to chipping away at some of the apathy that exists. I hope it happens!

OldAggie, by staffing costs I was talking about all of ICA, not football. ... We have a full time director for Aggie Stadium & Schall, and a FT assistant... associate and assistant ADs... 8 full time staff in development ... We had a student intern post last year and complain that our ICA was understaffed compared to SLO ... but when we looked at the actual numbers, it turned out that we appeared to have a much bigger staff.

I understand we have more sports, and much of this may be needed, but Dr. Blue has the ability to reorg where needed. I'm all for assistant coaches being fairly compensated, but we also have to live within our budget. Coaches often live in Woodland or Dixon. If we can sweeten the pot, great.

But is the cost of living here significantly higher if coaches live in Dixon or Woodland?

There have to be creative ways to make Aggie Stadium more comfortable for early season games.

1. Aggie landscape design Hillary Harkins put together a wonderful portfolio of modest improvements in 2008 ... benches, a few mature trees, an overhead shade for fans. The last is most tricky. (Some of this may have been part of "Phase III" of the build-out of Aggie Stadium.) Suggested modifications start on Page 11.

http://lda.ucdavis.edu/people/2008/HHarkins.pdf

2. Starting games later in the day, and even adding some strategic misters around the stadium can't hurt and are low-cost solutions. Can't we play the first few games at night, we played mostly night games at Toomey.