I think the Cats will have plenty of talent next year and a lot of guys with game reps. Any player that requires double coverage means someone is uncovered. Any FCS team that goes deep in the playoffs does run the risk of the coaching staff being purchased by a bigger fish or now potentially individual players. That risk may be low but is nonzero. Some of UM’s strengths include running their mouths and homecooking with Big Sky refs and the FCS committee, which isn’t what I’d want to hang my hat on. But it makes for compatible roommates with EWU and Sac State.

Montana State is very good all around. The part I don’t understand why they talk about “Tommy” like the second coming. He is a good quarterback who can scramble but not really a prolific passer. Which maybe I’m biased to the historical west coast style of aerial domination equaling excellence. What I see more is that literally everyone he can give the ball to is good, the guys up front give him as much time as he wants, and because nobody really challenged them in the first half of the season, pretty much all positions 2 or 3 deep are experienced with game reps. I think excellence on the part of the nameless guys is making him look great but the Montana media really wants it to be all about him. Which maybe doesn’t matter as long as they keep winning. And certainly what Idaho illustrated is you cannot give Montana State a short field over and over again.

it’s been a minute since I’ve been to town but it always felt like there was a shortage of simple American-fare places. But I live in Florida now so I wouldn’t be a regular patron.

that was a tough spot 20 years ago even with the cross traffic between Segundo DC and the ARC plus Orchard Road overpass being a primary bike route to West Davis. I’m sure it has only gotten more busy with West Village filling in. It’s unfortunate the LaRue bike underpass 100’ north isn’t quite lined up with where the traffic wants to go, it was always underutilized. That parking lot has ended up landlocked as things have encroached from all sides.

there’s a needle to thread to be fun enough to want to watch a game there (or go before/after a home game) but clean enough you can take your parents there for lunch the next day. I’ve built restaurants but never run one. I’ve seen enough episodes of Kitchen Nightmares and Bar Rescue to know it is easy to swim out too deep with life savings in hand though. I think there’s market potential but would need a solid business plan and due diligence to find its niche.

the parking lineup to pay the toll or the actual ticket checking to get into the arena?

structured parking can easily cost $20k or more per space to build, so it is expensive but regardless of anything athletics-related, probably something the campus will have to build more of as it grows and builds over surface lots. That said, I hope any future garages use speed ramps. This is how Disney and Universal do theirs with flat parking decks and a separate ramp system. The West Entry garage is a mess after events at UCU or stadium let out because people parked on the ramp have to back into stopped traffic.

With any expansion of seats, increased parking has to be a consideration. I know the Davis Delusion… people will ride to town on busses powered by hope and recaptured burrito farts. The reality is people are going to drive and many wish to tailgate. Which tailgating doesn’t have to be at a car. At my local university all of the parking is in garages but reserved parking comes with a reserved plot on an adjacent IM field and it works. Actually quite well to keep the moving cars and the party separate. The other reality is occasional Friday or even Thursday night games are not out of the question. The universities I’ve been to cancel classes at noon and suspend normal weekday parking permit enforcement in this circumstance because there is not enough parking to support weekday operations plus 1000s of vehicles for a game. That eventuality would be an emotional bridge to cross for some professor types.

oh wow that was from a minute ago. I think the same comment is still true though, anyone trying to justify a direct revenue business case for a big expansion is blowing smoke. The investment would have to be justified on indirect benefits, which aren’t necessarily without value. I think since writing that, the industry has shifted to have higher expectations from F&B, merch and non-traditional seating options.

The rendering is close to NM State’s stadium (also an Aggie Stadium)

1. Shade—whether canopies, trees, covered concourses, etc. FBS kickoffs time influenced by TV aren’t always good for fans, example late-August 1pm.
2. Acoustic engineering—is there anything practical that can boost the crowd noise like what the Seahawks did.
3. Keep one grass berm for families but I would suggest Aggie Pack back to an end zone. At Toomey it made the coin toss more interesting because a visiting team didn’t want to be going north in the 4th quarter.
4. Cabana section. At my local stadium they made a section with seat backs and its own bar, snack stand, and restrooms not accessible to other sections. Priced a little higher than a reserved seat but less than the donor level seats. Very popular with the 28-40 crowd.
5. Improved foodservice. Trend is toward people wanting more meal options beyond snacks. A lot goes into this but especially if there are going to be private suites an onsite commissary kitchen needs to be part of it. Cannot maintain quality at this volume trying to hotbox it in from the Silo or Segundo.

welcomed by patrons I think yes, if it had the square footage to be viable group watch space and a menu that could sustain itself over the summer. I think now more than ever mobile order takeout/uber eats has to be part of a business plan. The Grad found a way to be a lot of things to a lot of people. But I think there will be headwinds. Specifically, I think the city is known to be difficult about liquor licenses and noise. And a friend who had a shop told me a couple landlords have a near monopoly on downtown real estate. Do you have experience building and owning restaurants?

when the stadium opened it did have speakers in the bathrooms with the KHTK radio broadcast. So if it doesn’t anymore it’s either broken or forgotten.

when Aggie Stadium was built 2005-2007, construction costs were ballooning due to housing bubble, unprecedented building in China, and rebuilding the southeast after Hurricane Katrina. Also had high diesel and electricity prices which further drove concrete, steel, and earthmoving costs. The state budget was insolvent, which increased bond borrowing costs. Add in it was an unusually wet winter during earthmoving phase and the general contractor had no experience with stadium projects or the UCD building department. The contractor alleged the university struggled to make timely decisions, which may be true. But with nowhere to turn for more money, they probably had to go through multiple rounds of value engineering as costs escalated. And every time you redesign to save money, it costs design dollars plus time, which costs general conditions and inflation dollars. So unless you have intentionally placed items in a project that are easy to fall out, it can cost you $3 to try to save $1, so you actually need to find $4 of savings. Had the stadium project been a couple years earlier or later we might have have gotten a better deal, but hindsight 20/20.

seriously, they are trying to do pizza from the concessions stands? That is a difficult stadium food to execute well. It’s usually cold, slow, or both. The stadium has 32 points of sale (about 330 seats per POS). Pro venues with high quality diverse offerings are like 80-100 seats per POS. To overcome that deficit they should be focused on a limited menu that can be prepared on site at high speed.

hope you can get your electrical issue resolved. Initially I only had enough power to run 2 out of 3 between car charger, hot tub, and laundry. Somehow it was the laundry not getting done. I added a 50amp charging circuit and it’s great, but is important to use USA-made industrial components.

I bussed it from Davis to Conway, Arkansas, straight thru. It was not good and that was charter with 50 people I knew. I checked, this trip is possible on Greyhound with 5 transfers in 53 hours. Says book now only 2 seats left. I think you’d get less than 5 hrs of sleep.

The die have been cast. For better or worse, Davis has a potential pathway to FBS. Sac is looking for one. Should any of that come to fruition, what does this mean for Poly football? If they don’t also mount an effort, does its stock improve with a near-monopoly on California FCS or does it get out-resourced and fall apart completely?

starting to see some R1S in my area. Haven’t seen an R1T in the wild but looks more useful than the Cybertuck. My first exposure to Rivian was the Long Way Up miniseries on AppleTV with Ewan McGregor.

I want an FCS natty before we get too far in front of ourselves. If we moved up it would likely be a long time before we were relevant in the national FBS post-season scene.

That said, I do expect to an effort to expand/enhance Aggie Stadium. Probably a quiet fundraising period first, which may already be happening. I think politically it will need to seek funding alternatives other than just mortgaging more student fees on. But perhaps the tortoise beats the hare, we may well see action at Aggie Stadium before Hornet Stadium. SAC12 promised that was a shovel ready project this year. Twenty days left… haven’t heard of any shovels, or even any requests for proposal.

Strangely, I struggle to have a strong opinion about Rocko. To be fair, I don’t know to what extent the performance center and practice field were his gigs or whether Blue and Hawkins had put those in motion. We have thankfully free of Title IX scandals and funding shortfalls, which is important. And maybe he just has a behind the scenes personality, but publicly don’t see a lot of inspirational drive from athletics admin. It is unfortunate that Kevin Blue left because he was so accessible and good at fixing things quickly. Maybe he was planning to leave anyway, but if the baseball hit job courtesy of The Bee and The Aggie contributed, it is too bad.