I do love the deep game notes. As a fan I love knowing as many stories of the players on my team. If I just wanted football I could watch the NFL network. I know the families and athlete love every bit of print that happens.

Winning on the road in Texas is a challenge. Let's see what the Ags can do tonight. Go AGS!

A dream start for the team. Long Beach who has a storied history in Women's Volleyball upset Texas the #1 ranked team. The Big West might be a very strong conference and lets hope that the Aggiies can contend for a title.

Wow. The loss of the Pac-12 blows my mind away.

My first thought is this. I competed as a NCAA athlete and my children did. I doubt if my grandchild will.

I have read several times that many administrators are using the phrase that changes that help the student-athlete's wallet are what they support. That makes me angry, as the biggest winners of these giant sums of money are going to be the ICA administrators. Sure some athletes are going to do well for a short window. A child of mine at a Pac 12 school benefited last year for 5,000 dollars and will make a little more in their last year. But this is peanuts compared to the starting salary and lifelong earnings with a great degree. Meanwhile the administrators are going to get pay raises because the department earns more money. Not that they have done a good job.

What about the 16 year old that committed to play in the Pac -12 and the conference is gone? Should they be allowed to get out of their commitment just like if the coaching staff was changed. Even if they are allowed to the challenge with that is the burned bridges and lack of scholarship dollars for them.

FBS College football is really minor league football that is doing a tremendous amount of damage to the NCAA landscape. Even NCAA basketball is being hurt by these changes and I never thought anything would hurt the NCAA basketball brand;, but crazy travel and loss of regional games does that.

I am still processing all of this and fear for the majority of the student athletes at every level of college sports..

Hi AggieFinn2,

I hope you are right. Ralph has done so much in his life and gave a tremendous amount to UCD.

If you look at the NCAA reporting site-- Here is the link https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/ the report will show the football revenue at $5,852,399. So this is where the game fee goes.

However in my opinion UCD does some wonky stuff. Their is a line that shows the following,
Total Revenues Men's and Women's Teams $11,773,263 $11,875,655. I asked a person smarter than I how this could be and they said that the department takes the money generated from the student referendums as income revenue. Not my idea of true revenue but I do not know the ends and outs of accounting. Seems strange to me that student taxes are listed as revenue, but I was told where else the fees would be placed.

Thanks for the heads up. Trust you more than a yelp, review.

Some football coaches hit a jackpot, but the bouncing from programs would be hard on me and my family. I wish Coach Gould a good run with the Rams though I hope the Niners beat the snot out of them twice this year!

At the FCS level cutting the number of plays run I believe is good the the FCS teams. No need to run a huge number of plays against FBS teams and the play-offs are very taxing.

Sac native with a world of playing experience. Looks like a great hire by Coach Jenn Gross!

Weather is a big factor for baseball practice and games in Jan-early April. Cold, windy, and rainy is a tough trio to hone your skills in. Lights are great for Summer, Fall and late Spring but night games in Feb sounds pretty tough for me. IF the baseball team started practice on Sept 7th before the start of school when the Davis climate is perfect for baseball, their practices would be better than the 20 hour practices in Nov. Additionally practices before school have no weekly limit of 20 hours. This does cost money for the school to feed the team and. house the freshman, but could be money well spent.

I like the rule changes for UCD. At the FCS level we have a limited number of players. Every time we play a FBS school we face more scholarship players and sometimes we have been worn down. The FCS play-offs are tough and extend the season to sometimes almost NFL length. Having less plays every game lessen the wear and tear at the end of the year and for those teams that go deep into the FCS play-offs.

I have been to 7 games over the years, as part of family and friends.

The cool part is that I saw THE Ohio State, USC and Oregon play at Aggie Stadium. The games are free and the crowds are generally pretty small, again family and friends. You can sit wherever. I found it is better higher up to get a flow of the game. The game has some static points as they try to set up attacking positions around the goal. There is no checking like Mens' lax which I miss..

Bring your own food. Some years I have enjoyed the music during pregame and halftime other times I could not stand it.

The Aggies have been good in MPSF with Fresno State and San Diego and a few times we have been run out of the stadium from an East Coast school.

I like women's lacrosse a fair amount, much better than field hockey but way less than softball, water-polo or women's bb.

When UCD left D II we believed that we would be a top tier program “Crown Jewel of the Big West” . This did not happen though our sports in the Big West were way more competitive 10 years ago than now.
In recent history the PE program was dropped to give more resources to the sports team. A campus service was taken away and the teams with more resources have not improved.
Comparing our records with our competitors is fair. I was not asking to compare our teams to the SEC.

That is a good point in that for most NCAA sports there are more than just wins and loses. In what areas does the current sports department excel at?

Evaluating and comparisons are foundational parts of getting better in sports.

Chancellor Katehi was a very flawed person and a Chancellor. She asked why our sports were not as good as athletics. Seems like a valid question, but to a nuanced follower of NCAA sports not a good question. However, is it a better question to look at where the athletic department was under her leadership and now see where it is. In general the UCD program is weaker now than 10 years ago. Further it may be headed toward fielding weak teams and athletes for an extended period.

I started off with track and field and looked at the upcoming championships. This was in the preview.
The Aggies hosted the championship last season where the women eclipsed 100 points to finish fourth overall at 100.50. The men capped off the championship weekend with a sixth place showing, compiling 50 points. The Aggie women last won a conference title in 2016 and won three straight from 2012-14. The men own four top-three finishes and their best finish was a runner-up showing in 2011.

This year the men placed last 9 out of 9 with 18 points. The women 7 out of 10 with 71.83. This is a big tumble in a peer competition.

I then looked at the Big West Cup standings where we are 7th out 10 with only baseball left. In peer competition our overall record is under 500 with no league championships this year.

I then did the NCAA RPI for some other sports for the year.

RPI Women Lacrosse 76 out of 126
Beach Volleyball 144 out of 344
Women's Gymnastics 39 out of 84
Women's soccer 148 out of 348
Field Hockey 68 out of 82

Football 184 out of 280
Men's Water polo 6th in the top 20 not sure of the total

In my opinion these stats for UCD show a mediocre athletic program. With our athletic budget being larger than our conference peers I would drop our performance even lower.

Here is the Davis Enterprise story--NO pay wall here. Good for the Enterprise!
https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/local/second-fatal-stabbing-in-davis-suspect-remains-at-large/

Totally agree with you 69 Aggie. It doesn't help the students and skews the mission of the UC's.

Coors was a big sponsor of volleyballl in the 80's. If I remember right they sponsored Coors light Volleyball league plus a tourney or two at the rec hall. I hope the money is good for the department.

Very sad. Non elite colleges might be in serious trouble in the near future. Hoping that the athletes stay on their feet and move forward.