Pinnick is an absolute warrior.

I know he threw a couple picks, but man is he a fighter and leader and fun to watch. I also thought Ty Richardson had a good game the defense played pretty well. Pass protection was less than desirable.

MSU fans seem to be giving high praise to plough and Pinnick, as deserved. Insane production for a freshman and a 2nd year coach.

I've never seen a "plastic cup snake" like the MSU fans were making in the stands last night. Man, that thing must of had a 1000 cups in it. It's a testament to how much they like their beer! :rofl:

Audio?

The sound is there.

I flipped between apps. Did they feature a UCD / MSU promos?

The broadcast teams seem lazy to me. No historical tidbits about O'Brien, DII success, top ag school, Lan Larison, etc. Same for the opposition. I missed the pre game and 2nd half into, could have been covered a bit then.

That was a great game! We came up short but for the most part, Davis looked like they are progressing. Next year could be really special (not giving up on this year, just thinking of the talent coming in).

The time to talk about things like that is when you are filling air ahead of kickoff. This game rolled in late from another contest and none of those things were terribly relevant to the broadcast. Pretty amazing the program is now playing multiple games a year on the broader espn platform and the response from Aggie fans is mainly to complain about it.

There’s better odds that the talent heading out will exceed the talent coming in so it’s best to focus on there here and now. Cofield was a unique situation. Nobody like that in the 26 class.

I disagree. I think Coach P is building a nice program here at Davis. Sure, there will be players leaving, that is part of the game now, but I still think the overall talent being brought in is significantly better than when I went to school. We have multiple 3 star kids on the roster and coming in. The team is winning. It's learning. I confident on the football teams future.

I second this take

The big question is if the Connor brothers return.

Next, how to replace the key grad transfers, larely on defense.

I think the NIL threat to players with multiple years of eligibility is much greater. The money I’m hearing that people are offering our guys right now makes my head spin.

I don't understand how this is legal without the athlete first putting their name in the portal.. what a time

https://youtu.be/epd1YHo_iMQ?si=wd80VMd03fSkEnLT

it’s certainly not legal but it’s being done. Neither Lan nor Rex ever put their names in the portal and they got offers. At least those were AFTER the season. With big schools being able to do revenue sharing up to the limit AND collectives still giving NIL money, it’ll be harder to keep guys

We just can’t compete with big money schools farming our guys and frankly I can’t blame a 19 or 20 year old kid taking the money. I’m not into more regulations, but maybe there should be some sort of rule requiring recruits to play a minimum amount of time (2 years?) at their committed school before they can bail. But then again, NCAA is controlled by big money.

I feel like "letters of intent" and "commitments" mean nothing in recruiting with all of this. Should be a two way commitment vs. the school bearing all of the risk to pay for a worthless chunk of someone's education, should they decide to leave before a degree. FCS schools without some sort of redeeming qualities like a great degree or Dakota/Montana quality football are so hosed.

NIL sucks. But it is what it is. I know the best female soccer player on SACST who had offers from Stanford, North Carolina, etc. wanted to come to UC Davis but she lost contact with the coaching staff who went to Oregon. She hasn't contacted anyone but is looking to transfer to UC Davis. College sports is just different today.

Losing the Conners brothers was tough. I hope they come back, but if they don't, I think we will be ok. The school is bringing in so many high quality players...I just think the overall talent is better. We will be ok.

There are reasons to be both optimistic and pessimistic about transfers and recruits, we’ll have to see how that works out. All FCS teams, and Mountain West teams are going to lose players to transfers. Idaho is an example where they were confident that they could continue to lose talent year after year but it caught up to them.
Davis had 17 three star recruits in 2025 in CA Forever’s list, Some of those guys may have been over rated, but some haven’t had a chance or were injured, we don’t know why many of those guys never saw the field, The best way to prepare for losing players is to build depth. Davis only felt they had 55 players they felt worth taking to Bozeman.

Theissue with the ESPN broadcasts, while in theory good exposure for the team and university, is that there are some “non-optimal” conditions. It’s pretty clear tje late night games are at the assigned to be clear of the power 4 games, and even with that the preceding game overrides the start. 7:30 PST starts in reality more like 7:45 (8:45 MST) are ok for Pacific folks - and many MSU fans said they did not like the 8:30 start ((MST), and pretty much a non-starter on the east coast. For viewership experience for those viewing - only Montana State and Montana show full stadiums and game fan excitement. The Sac State-Montana State game was on a Friday night and attendance wan not good (maybe as many Montana fans as Sac) so not the best look for FCS football interest building. The Idaho-NAU game was on Halloween and there were virtually no people in the stands - again a bad look. Also, you do get a ESPN “C” team at best on the call. So, IMO maybe not a program that is not quite as cracked up as advertised unless you are a Montana school.

man, it seems like not so long ago that big time college bribery was boosters renting a Hummer and some exotic dancers for a recruiting weekend, and it had to be done on the double-secret.

I've been contemplating my post(s) since late Saturday night. I will err on the side of restraint. All I will say is that we really missed some opportunities (theme of the season), we gifted a good team points and field position, and we really missed the Porter brothers Saturday night. Not their play making (although that would've helped) but in HOW they play the game. They are the enforcers, they are the irritants to the opponent, they just play differently than many of the kids taking reps in games right now. They play defense like the Montana State guys did, with a little shit in their neck and bad intentions. MSU, the Dakota programs, they all play football differently than a bunch of Californians do. We are skilled, we execute at times, but we are a finesse football team. That style doesn't beat Bozeman or win FCS championships. Hopefully our young players see that and will learn that.

I am in complete agreement with these observations.