Illinois St's only road loss this year was at Oklahoma. They lost to NDSt, Youngstown and Southern Illinois all at home.

On the road they South Dakota and South Dakota St in conference, then won at SE Louisiana and NDSt in the playoffs.

Stay in West Sac? lol!

NDSU was limited to six first downs and 18 minutes of possession!! Massey has ISU as the #8 defense. Sure they’re not the Goliath NDSU would present in Fargo - but wins @Sela @SDSU @SD and @NDSU show a pattern of winning tough road games, including against the top of the MVFC. The average margin of victory for those 4 games is just over 10. We have our work cut out for us against that #8 defense. Go Ags!

sac

Just got my tickets. Got my parents to drive up and go to the game also.

Got our tickets yesterday and I'm trying to talk some friends into going as well.

ticket sales are weirdly not as terrible as I thought so far... hope the alumni community and region can come out.

Keep pushing everyone - Bay Area, Bay Area, Bay Area - get carpools and vans lined up - we should have organized buses for crying out loud for Aggie fans.

I got a couple of our best friends to come with us. We've known them since the late 70's. Jim was my rock climbing partner for 40 years and he's a former Aggie soccer player who played under Aggie legendary coach, Will Lotter.

So question.. if you are a graduating senior and are on the football team... do you leave practice for an hour to do graduation at 10?

I imagine you do, I mean - it's a big day and a designated walk time right? I remember taking an 8 am final (the FINAL final), meeting my folks at home around 10:30 am, then walking at 1 pm...it was a long ass ceremony for Engineering.

they can come back and walk in June

Better option

There will be time allotted for graduation, and like DrMike said, they can always come back and walk later.

Watched the ISU-NDSU short highlights from YouTube. What a gutsy performance. I know the QB threw 5 picks, but for a kid to persevere and to keep getting back in the saddle after that performance and finding a way to win was impressive.

What wasn't impressive was the NDSU offense. 21 points off six turnovers (one TD was a punt return). Not enough to win playoff games.

Redbird defense looks stout. Their DL got some push at times (forced a strip sack to regain possession for the winning drive) and their DBs are solid. Will check out some more film as the week unfolds, going to be a great challenge. Go Ags!

Link to Illinois State fan board below. They are like us, pretty active posters.

Both this year and last year they've seemed like a nice bunch. It was nice having the Rhody fan visit last week but the ones on the URI board were constantly bad mouthing the Ags. Don't see that with the Redbirds. Of course the team wants revenge for last year.

https://www.redbirdfan.net/community/index.php?forums/football.40/

I'll just say that Coach Spack is a class act. Never too high, never too low, just expects great preparation and a high effort on gameday and let the gameplan do the work. He's got to be liking his chances this season - so who's gonna flinch on Saturday??? Because neither team flinched in the second round.

Thanks for the link, some interesting reading material on their board. What I was wondering, and what jumps off their boards at me is the consistency factor. I think I read that they are "consistently inconsistent". Can they get back up the way they did last week? Will the miles and the time zone make a difference? Will the revenge and familiarity factors help or hurt them? Can their D play out of their minds again like they did in Fargo? This is what jumps out at me... THEIR DEFENSE IS PLAYING AT A VERY HIGH LEVEL. Two playoff games, 8 sacks, 4 interceptions, and only 163 rushing yards allowed. And that includes NDSU, whom they held to under 60 yards rushing (includes sacks). OKLA-FREAKING-HOMA rushed for 103 yards against them. That unit is scary on paper and on the highlights I've seen. They also surrendered 230+ to Youngstown, nearly 300 to Southern Illinois, and 213 yards to NDSU in their first meeting of the season. There you have the basis for the consistency concerns.

On a side note, I didn't realize that Normal, IL is nearly halfway between Fargo, ND (692 miles) and Hammond, LA (790 miles) where Southeast Louisiana is located. I would have thought Fargo was much closer. 2,024 miles from Normal to Davis. And happy finals week to all the students at both Illinois State and UC Davis. Better you than me!

These guys beat NDSU, SDSU and USD this year? We better have the A-est of A games Saturday. Go Ags!

They're an enigma man, they have beaten some really good teams at home and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory a couple other times. That's what makes them so scary I think, Jekyll & Hyde and they can either end your season or get run the hell over!

I think they shot their load at NDSU.

Davis 45
ISU 23

I agree. Those games are emotionally draining.

Hi, Davis. I'm a reader rather than a poster on the Redbird forums, but since none of us have come here yet I figure I'll chat.

Glad to have another shot after you dismantled us last season. I think (and hope!) that we'll put up a better fight this time around. This ISU team is better than last year's, with a slightly worse record largely because we dodged all of the top Valley teams except NDSU last season - all four of our 2024 losses were by at least 32. I think we'll be a little sluggish this week after the drain of the NDSU game so that will be tough.

As mentioned we're pretty inconsistent, mostly between home and on the road. We went 3-3 at home with a Pioneer win, a 2OT win over a pretty bad UNA, and our best home win against UNI, the 8th-best team in the conference. On the road, we are 7-0 against the FCS plus a loss to Oklahoma, with wins at three Dakotas. Last year was similar, though, with our only road loss also to an FBS team, and it did not continue here.

Should be a good one. I hope whoever wins goes on to Nashville.

I wish you guys luck! The win against NDSU made your season. What a game!! Sadly, my friend, ISU season comes to an end in Davis, CA. ;)

Welcome to our forum and thanks for coming over and chatting with us.

Congratulations for your win over NDSU. I watched that game and it was a classic. I'm sure it's right up there with some of the best wins your program has ever had. Throwing 5 INT's and still finding a way to win the game in the Fargodome is remarkable. The Redbirds are obviously a very good football team. I think Saturday's game will be a real dogfight.

Good luck to you too, thanks! Even if we lose here it's hard to be too unhappy about this season. The Bison have had our number forever and this is a huge weight off of us. I do agree it might be the biggest win in our program history... only competition is probably the win that brought us to the title game 11 years ago. I wasn't around back then to know how it felt, though.

An aspect of this that is pretty obscure is that this was our first win over a team ranked above us (in the polls - we were tied with SELA) since 2019. What a way to break that streak! The team that went to Fargo can clearly compete with anyone and I'm glad to get a test against a great opponent that isn't on our schedule almost every year.

IIRC, Illinois St moved the ball well on us last year but were forced to go for it on 4th down because we were ahead. Drives where they would have taken 3 had he score been closer ended up with 0. Plus I believe your RB got off to a hot start, got hurt and couldn’t return.

The gap in skill between the two teams definitely wasnt 30 points.

I wasn't able to watch that game live last year so it's hard for me to say how bad it really was, but you were certainly the better team that day. I don't really think we were all that great, but coasted to a high seed thanks to 9-3 in the Valley despite not really beating anyone of consequence in the regular season and getting embarrassed by NDSU and Missouri State. Playoff caliber, sure, but I think #12 was generous.

It does help that we're a little bit less injured this year than last. We were missing our RB1 Wright and multiple starting offensive linemen vs NDSU, and QB Rittenhouse was playing through a minor injury, but we were hit hard last season. Not sure the status of any of that right now. I've heard you guys are pretty beat up, more than we are, but of course I don't know much about that.

At one point, prior to our game at Montana State, I believe our coach said we had had 16 season ending injuries and we could only had 55 players who were able to to go to the MSU game in Bozeman.

Wow. That is awful and a credit to the rest of your roster and staff that you've made at least a quarterfinal run despite that.