Well. Let’s get it back!

The steam engine. A great tradition and one of my favorite topics from the past! I think it as been gone for over a decade. I do not recall if there ever was a real explanation given for its demise, except I recall some vague BS comments about “the insurance company would not cover it.” Sure, it might blow a gasket and let out a lot of steam, but put a 6’ construction fence around it and let no one within 100’ of the thing. Good grief, they fire cannons up at Reno and at numerous southern colleges. And they are safer? The insurance company thing is bogus as well because I know UC is self-insured up to I think 1 million bucks. I did hear that the Antiques Mechanics club is now defunct and I believe they did do the maintenance on it. But, hey we have a strong engineering program that could handle it easily. Hawk must remember the “Engine” and all the steam and loud whistle. Very fun! Hawk, can you put this on your “to do” list? Can we start a petition?

I think usd will be very up for this game. They apparently hold a very strong grudge against the Aggies. Why, I do not know, but maybe the Josh Johnson episode of many years gone by. Very adept Aggie Pack heckling had JJ very upset and try to go into the stands to fight all comers. Actually, it was very funny with the coach tackling him b/4 he could climb the fence. I do not think Hawk will take this game as anything but very seriously.

I was at that game. Sochor called an end around to tight end Fortner that totally fooled UOP. That won the game. Fortner was a great Aggie player. Is he the AHOF? UOP fired its coach after that game.

It seems that teams that woefully note how many of their players did not play in a game and thats what cost “us the game.” These coaches are just trying to cover up for their own mistakes. Lack of depth? Lack of recruiting for depth? Well, whose fault is that? I think we left some players in Davis. Still won.

I live on probably one of the most bike used roads in NorCal, Warmsprings Road between Hwy 12 in Kenwood and Glen Ellen in Sonoma County. It was part of the route of the last (California Classic?) bike races from Davis to the Coast. It is an extremely beautiful scenic two lane road that follows Sonoma Creek with all its windiness and elevation changes, but it has no shoulder at all. You go left in to a rocky hillside or right into the creek with a sizable drop off. Yet with all these problems, we have no trouble with automobile drivers. Most if not all drivers err on the side of the biker and with all the curves, it can take 5 minutes sometimes to pass a biker safely. Maybe drivers here are just more used to bikers. Anyway something positive to say for a change.

Lights for BB? I know a clueless joke. . . .

All of guys looks tighter and ripped. HR, LL,UG especially. Moms do tend to like that in their boys. Eat right or go to bed!

Yes, Sam would know this. Tulsa was a very big and athletic team. They have to have one of the biggest offensive lines in the county. Well over 310 tackle to tackle. But size is sometimes just not enough if you play a very mobile opponent like the Aggies clearly are. HR looks quicker than he was last year.

On another note it looked to me toward the end of the game as though the Tulsa players were more affected by the heat and humidity than were the Aggies. Their big DL guys were really blowing air towards the end. TV guys said so too. Aggies looked fitter if not nearly as big as Tulsa. A 375 lb guy just will not do well towards the end of a football game when its 90/90 temp and humidity. Kudos to the Aggie conditioning coach!

Well, whatever. A great win for the Aggies. I too had doubts about the three man D line we were using and Tulsa was running right thru it. But it tightened in the end. This was a very hard ESPN game to actually hear because of the totally home town announcing, but the win makes it so much better. And the one guy who played at Houston was very fair at the end of the day. Gave a lot of credit to the Ags as he should have. Tough win.

Co-MVPs Rodrigues, Castles and UG. UG’s last run won the game. I wish I could be on that plane home! A great win. And yes, better than Stanford because we had thousand of fans in the stands there and it was in our neighborhood. Same temps. Tulsa OK is a very bad place for California people to be. We are not liked in OK. I bet this verve was not lost on the Tulsa players. Well, so we won!

Movie, please stick with sports where you are a great addition. Otherwise, your politically contrived comments are not well received. They have no place on this site. The deaths of our service men and woman are an all American loss, not a opportunity for your right wing attacks. Did you serve? I did. No response is asked for here.

I put my hopes on WBB. MBB needs a lot of work, sorry to say. And it looks like Campbell is back on the roster. If she can actually play, she is the fastest ACL recoverer that I have ever known. She is great and I hope her well.

Very unlike Bob Dunning to come up with an idea like this. Even if we had the stadium and the fan base (which we do not have) Stanford and Berkeley would nix this in a heartbeat. How would it possibly help them? It would take away and dilute their NorCal presence and recruiting. Much more likely the PAC-12 would look at Nevada and UNLV than UCD. And, by the way, if you have been to a Berkeley game recently their stadium is less than 1/2 full, except for Stanford most games. Few students as well. $400M ICA deficit. Great program to emulate!

I do think there is a lot of talent on this team. I confess when I am waiting for someone in a restaurant or bar I doodle football plays on a napkin. You know, the types of plays that “cannot possibly fail to gain lots of yardage.” I am very good at this even if the plays were never tested on the field. My latest napkin play is this situation: “under 4 minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the Ags down by 6 are on the opponents 45 yard line. Third down 6 yards to go for a first down. Do have we have Whelan kick inside the 5 and hope for a T/O? No. Not enough time. Better: bring in Tompkins, UG and Larison in the blocking positions AND Whelan in punt formation. Direct snap to Tompkins with UG and Larison flaring out left and right. Tompkins reads the situation and either runs it up the gut or tosses to UG or Larison in the flat. FIRST DOWN! How can that play possibly fail? Maybe I should email it to Hawk?

Wow. Let me dream on. Olivieri could be our next Magic!

BlueGold. I guess I agree with most of what you say or hope that I do, AD Blue was the class act of ADs in all of the BS and BWC Conferences. Smart and handsome with PhD. Made UCD vary proud, indeed. His next stop would/should have have naturally been in a power conference school. He was always on the rise! Then he left. For Golf Canada. Why? BG the guy did give ample notice, but what does that mean? That He knew before anyone else? Total speculation at this point. Hey, we are all in the dark here, but these kinds of discussions are fine and good for the program in my view. Long investigations, however, prompt conspiracy theories and I DO NOT want to go there. So, speed this thing UP!

Movie I don't think it is purposeful. The damage is done. The MBB program is done. Maybe the wait could be attributed to letting the kids out of the program before the sky falls in on the team. I it might be too early to get totally into the blame game, but the blame for this dreadful situation may lie at the feet of our esteemed prior AD who recently and very abruptly left his post. Why did he let this get by him? Why did the head coach allow this? For how long did this go on?

This is not good news for those of us who once thought that this was “no big deal” situation. If the UC Davis Faculty Athletics Representative’s (Scott Carrell) 2 kids leave the program, this is a very big deal. And they have left. Strong evidence that the MBB team will be terminated as a UC Davis varsity sport. Maybe not forever, but for a significant period of time.