And a safety

Just don't come back to the game after halftime, not worth it.

First half review:

The good - SUU
The bad - ???
The ugly - UCD

Look I don't want to just sit here and be a downer because SUU is a good team, but good god did the Aggies prep for this game at all? It sure as hell doesn't look like they did.

The thing about Davis Football is like, I get it, we won't recruit the top talent in the conference and every once in a while we'll just get outgunned by some team that's just bigger and faster. But that just makes coaching and technique errors even less excusable. There's no room for error against good teams like SUU.

Edit/Addition -- also this season is way more frustrating than Goulds' because we're pretty much at the known peak of Aggie D1 football -- I can't see us having more talented skill players or more experienced coaches anytime soon. So if this team somehow can't put together consistent respectable performances I'm not optimistic that it'll ever happen.

Didn't catch who's being interviewed right now but his comment "obviously we're not going to outspend a lot of people" rubbed me the wrong way.

We have the biggest endowment and probably richest alumni base of the conference. At some point we have to look at how we can get to the point where we're outspending everybody.

Ahh looks like we made adjustments... now we're taking targeting calls.

Nobody's here

Probably for the best that nobody's seeing this

Defense actually seems a little improved, SUU has to really fight for yards. It's chewing up clock though

That 2nd picture is quite shocking. In my '08-'11 years of being a student and one in which I attended a handful as a grad, the attendance on the student side was never that low except in poor weather. I can't even imagine the Toomey /DII Championship days when everyone followed the team.

I don't necessarily agree. They are still trying to arm tackle which is leading to a bunch of broken tackles. They've also been giving up huge plays all game.

I was more commenting on that particular drive where they stopped the big play until, well, it happened.

Why has our tackling been so consistently bad among multiple staffs?

I don't know. Other FCS teams seem to figure it out.

Defense has also been horrible on 3rd downs

SUU is putting up a highlight reel.

I'm starting to really sour on Hawk or at least withholding judgment for a few years.. This is still not a good football team, and I think that fact has been obscured somewhat by having some decent individual talent and a different offense.

Maybe things are changing, but we're still at the same win total that Gould had his first season. And a lot of the same problems are still there, except for injuries.

I think we are better team than we were under Gould. At least at times this season we have been aggressive. I don't think we were ever aggressive under Gould. I do find it strange that we came out conservative this game when playoffs were still theoretically a possibility. At least Dan understands our strengths. Doss having a record setting season.

Like I said... bad defense.

Re: The Game
We have been outcoached this entire game. This loss is entirely on the shoulders of the coaches. They let down those kids on the field playing their hearts out!

This difference in on the field talent isn't that big.

Re: Attendance
I'd bet good money that most students in the MU and around campus didn't know about the game tonight.

Keelan Doss first ever Aggie receiver to have 100 receptions in a season!

If we're not aggressive when it matters then I don't attach much significance into being aggressive sometimes.

Based on what I'm seeing, my opinion -- and this is just my opinion, I'm not a football expert -- is that Hawkins took advantage of some low-hanging fruit (grabbed a good underrated QB, switched to the pass-first offense, etc) without correcting all the subtler issues the team has been having.

I hope I'm wrong and/or we're trending upwards, but we'll see next year and the year after.

Panicked for a moment because my Roku remote stopped working and I couldn't turn the stream off

I think its just very simple: a very poor defensive team. Maybe hawk inherited this, maybe not. But I agree with the former posts, defense was not a priority with the new coaches including hawk who took the “low hanging fruit” and just went with it. My take is that this is a very long road to rebuild and I don’t even know if the AD is in for this very expensive slog given that we are so hamstrung in our recruiting efforts.

Real bummer. You can knock our D or O, but the game ball goes to the SUU D. They were the main difference in this game.

Don’t panic. Aggie football is in good shape. Waaaaay more competitive than the last 5 years.

A bunch of terrible decisions in the first half, some player decisions and some coaches. Start the game dropping the kickoff and start at 11. 3rrd and a yard st our 20 yard line , play is a high order of difficulty floater out of bounds. Why not get the easy first down?? This sets SSU at midfield and when we get the interception we're at the five. Then the interception in our endzone on a unforgivable telegraphed pass. Then not going for it on 4th down so we can punt 29 yards? Then the serial misplaying the kickoffs near the goal line and the inability to long snap for punts leading to a safety! Shoot me now!
Defense played OK in first half except not tackling, Offense except for long drive was horrible.

Meanwhile, Slack took it to Cal Poly, 49-14, "in a game that was not as close as the score would suggest." Slack is still thinking play-offs.

All the better for us to play the spoiler for the Hornets but we'll need to play a lot better than we did tonight.

Special teams was BRUTAL. We gave up a long kick-off return, which negates our one good return. Our kick-off return game was otherwise indecisive and out-schemed. Our pooch kicks were poorly placed. Our punter dropped a decent snap in the end zone and hesitated (when he would have had time to kick) before having his kick blocked for a safety.

The field position battle clearly favored SUU and their execution on 3rd downs was far superior to ours. They are a tough opponent... hopefully we find the magic to beat Sac State.