They offered Lan Larison $100k to stay, so I guess I'd stay too if that was offered.

Does anybody know the details of the Pinnick deal?

I think we tend to devalue degrees from other schools too much. — Riveraggie

It’s funny, for the last few years I have been the people manager for about 400 employees, and maybe about 50 college kids per semester. I found that the prestige of university made no difference in performance. The best predictors of workplace success were those who had lived away from home in a dorm for at least a year and those who had experience in a crappy campus food service job.

So the ones that lived away…

Maybe you can squeak away in High School, but I feel that would be almost impossible at a University. I do believe that across the board the universities in California are the best. I really can’t think of one private or public that you can easily graduate from with a Bachelor of Science degree. Especially a UC and CSU. Some of my coworkers that have gone the CSU route are some of the most capable I have met.

Most don't get a BS degree.
The difference between UC and CSU is not mostly in the science classes, it's that credit can be earned for less academic courses. If you peruse a junior college catalogue you'll see that there are a bunch of classes that will earn CSU credit but not UC credit If someone transfers from a CSU to a UC they are likely to lose credits.
I've taken slightly more classes at CSU, some at the graduate level in computer science, so I'm not denigrating your coworkers. I do believe there is not as much of a difference between systems as there was when i was a student.

as an employer, for my entry level positions it’s like a Venn diagram of attitude, capability, and skills. In theory, UC is selecting those right in the middle. But it may not matter for Gen Z - recent HR cases, one of my interns habitually pooping in the company fitness center shower and another who identifies as a cat and won’t stop meowing at coworkers. The ability difference between CSU/UC is like the last of my worries.

From a construction standpoint - we get them all - and it's a mixed bag of who's solid and who just shows up. We've got Sac State, San Jose State, Cal Poly, San Francisco State, UC Davis, Chico State, University of Colorado, San Diego State, Cal and one dude who never even went to college but is one of our best managers because all he has done is work and manage construction since he was 18. One of our Davis guys was a disaster, so it really matters on the quality of the individual and what they're doing. Every work culture is different.

A lot of arrogance regarding UC Davis. I own three companies and have mixed results from UC grads. Our best results from hiring civil engineers, construction management and business admin/finance majors have come from Fresno State, Chico State, Boise State, all Montana schools, Santa Clara, Purdue and Nebraska. Our operations are 100 percent CA based. All recent UC grads lacked relevant internships, professional social skills and too focused on pronouns rather than work. One of our companies does recruiting for permanent employment placement in the heavy civil arena. Make fun of state schools as you want, but in the West, 90 percent of our placements come from state schools. You don’t have to go UC Davis to be an educated, employed professional who is a good person. There is a lot of world outside the confines of Davis, CA.

The remaining 10 percent didn’t attend college. Work ethic, talent, and the ability to show up doesn’t discriminate against where all these people went work. All these athletes taking money transferring and betting on themselves.

The CSUs tend to be better connected to local employers and often use them for internships. The CSUs are a really important engine of the California economy providing an educated workforce in teaching, engineering and other white collar jobs. The UCs are R-1 research intensive universities that offer PhDs and are less focused on immediate employability of graduates and more on teaching the essentials for getting advanced degrees and generating new knowledge and innovation. I know that at UC Davis about half of undergraduates participate in research for example.These are both important missions but they are not the same thing. Back to WSU and Caden Pinnick: WSU is also an R-1 Carnegie designated research intensive university but within that category it’s not up there with UC
Davis. According to Gemini AI “In the U.S. News 2026 rankings, UC Davis ranks significantly higher as #32 nationally and #9 among public universities, known for strong research and social mobility, while Washington State University (WSU) is further down, at #192 nationally and #104 for public schools, reflecting different positions within national university tiers, according to U.S. News & World Report.” So should Caden have any interest in pursuing an elite graduate degree he’d have been much better off staying at UC Davis, but that may not be important to him. It’s also true that where you go to school shapes your vision of what is possible and interesting.

Thirty years ago a colleague told me they hired from Chico State when they needed people skills, and Davis when they needed engineers. The Chico grads often landed interesting customer-facing jobs. A super bright, personable ME friend (Aggie) torched an introductory test entering the Navy's nuclear school, while a Cal grad struggled. (The questions were posed on a blackboard in front of a small group.)

No guarantee Pinnick will stay at WSU in this new era especially if he lights up some big boys.

I was told that we can’t officially announce transfers until signing day. Of course, there’s no stopping the players from spilling the beans.

That explains the deafening silence I suppose!

If you go back into the archives, they announced the transfers (JC and portal) as part of the late signing in February. There's a couple names on the transfers that I don't remember hearing during the season:

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2025/2/5/football-introduces-latest-signing-class-19-incoming-freshman-and-nine-transfers-make-up-aggie-class.aspx

The transfers listed all played except Henry Fanua. O line was one of the deeper positions laat year.