The State of UC Davis Football After watching the past 4 years of football, its my opinion that we have very few players that would even start on the top tier teams in the league. Usually, we match up better at 1 or 2 positions on either side of the ball. Overall, I believe our recruiting has been very good for what we can get, but our pool of recruits is very small. Think about it this way. When Montana sees a film of a recruit, they have no concern about getting him into school. They have no concern about him staying eligible. They have a huge fan base, history, and good facilities. They get kids we can't. Our first inquiry is to look at his transcript before we can even consider him. That's a handicap we live with. We then must fight the Ivies and lower tier FBS schools to attract those recruits. We've done okay, but we are still far behind. Blue believes, and I do too, that we must start with the infrastructure...if you build it, they will come.
I do think a change in our offense is the key to any success for us in the future. That does fall on Coach Gould. Our conference is wide-open, and all of the successful teams spread you out and score. I've been calling for a change to a spread offense since Gould's first year, and we just kept running the same old "3 and out" ball control offense. The change in our offense is mandatory in my mind. We have tried to be the Stanford of the Valley (3 TEs, lots of running) and we just don't have those guys. Dr. Blue and I discussed the Stanford process, how they get recruits, and we just don't offer what they can. We lost one kid a few years ago who walked-on at Stanford, never played any significant role, but just being there was enough for him. We don't have that culture.
We should have beat Weber, but I'm not sure how many other wins we really had this year. Scheduling two FBS schools is just stupid. Time to get smart, schedule wisely, and make the necessary changes at the top to make it work. We'll see. I'm hoping they bring in Troy Taylor and run the spread. He coached Jake Browning and all the other Folsom High QBs that have had a lot of success. Can't wait to see who's coming in.