He also said that the opportunity to earn a degree rather than a certificate was a factor. With the new NCAA rules I suspect some schools are offering grad students just a semester scholarship. Some schools have no program offering a masters degree in a year.

Samuel Akem thinks Davis’ defense is unsound, pass defense 110th Thinks it will be a shootout with whoever has the ball last winning

Compared to its fellow conference members Montana consistently has a easy out of conference schedule.
How many FBS teams has Montana played in the most recent five seasons? One, five years ago.
How many D2 teams has Montana played in the most recent five seasons? Two
How.many FBS teams has Davis played in the last five seasons? Five
How many D2 teams has Davis played in last five years? Zero

Sac is a 3.5 point underdog according to Sports Bet Montana.
Montana hasn’t impressed with their 219th ranked schedule according to Sagarin.
Sagarin’s models give Montana a 61% chance of winning or less, they have varying formulas but all project a narrow favorite. The home field advantage counts for more in Sagarin this year.

. Covering kicks is the more likely role not least because there are 11 in the coverage team., but we have a safety, Riddick, returning kicks, having someone else.do that takes.a load.off a first string defensive player.Perez is apparently out so who is our third RB?

Plough mentions Mason Walsh as a new player on special teams. A freshman running back, likely here as a walkon. It will be interesting to see if he returns kicks.

Statistically Northern Colorado is not good against rushing giving up 5.7 yards per attempt. Conversely we are surprisingly not great at rushing, with a 4.0 average. Davis has to be better than that with the running backs we have. Without the 8 sacks for 54 yards the it would be about 4.8.

He was a late addition, not announced his name just appeared on the roster in fall camp. A fairly big guy for a corner, Liberty had him at safety. Been a god send, as i think there are or were more guys at corner not available. I say this because the #2 guys on last weeks depth chart didn’t play, and Plough says in Aggiepride podcast he has so many guys out that they won’t take 58 guys to Greeley.

AI from a google search
The NCAA rounds up any fractional portion of a contest when calculating the 30% rule for a medical redshirt. For example, if an athlete competed in 30% of a 31-game season, that would be 9.3 games, which rounds up to 10 games. Therefore, the athlete would not be eligible for a medical redshirt if they participated in more than 10 games.

The relevant NCAA form form 4 uses this same example but its in PDF and word documents i cant download on my old IPAD.

According to the rule Medical respdshirts have to play in a maximum of 30% or less of contests rounded up to an integer.
Lets assume they have two playoff games
12 regular season games counting mercer:
14 *.30 = 4.2 rounding up = 5 games.

Last year Idaho still had a respectable offense with Wagner or Josifek. This year they look hopeless without Wood..

When Davis plays Sac I want Sac to be out of contention and some of their players thinking about their next gig.

The near universal pattern for coach talks is exaggerated praise to opponents pregame, then post game to talk as though the outcome of the game hinged entirely on how his team played and the other team had little to do with it.

The Gbatu interview got me thinking about how the team is unusual in that they list most, but not all, players by academic year. Gbatu is a red shirt junior but they list him as a senior They no longer put HS graduation year alongside the school name like they used to which would be useful in determining eligibility. Why aren’t they consistent? Not that hard.

Washington was the last game Richardson played in.

Passing efficiency formula has # of attempts in the divisor., so its good things - bad things per pass.
Opponents have tried a lot of passes because 1) It works better than rushing 2) we don’t get off the field on third down so opponent runs more plays and 3) they are behind.
The good news is our run defense is better than commonly thought. 3.2 yards per carry, in third place is Montana at 3.9

No one has released all 13 names of the players out for the season leading Plough to lose sleep.
Defensive line intact, rush linebacker still has top player, Sievers playing effectively in place of P. Connors, and we have veteran safeties.
Corner is the spot we have.had multiple guys in the depth chart not playing Carr, Cravin, Totton. Just saying that's where the low profile.injured players are concentrated.
Possibly related.is that.while.Davis ranks 2nd.in the conference only stats in defensive yards per carry, they are 6th in defensive efficiency leading to the conclusion pass defence is relatively weak. Could be the team faced above average QBs.

What do you think about Hawaii? They are up and down over the years, but among the best Mountain West teams not moving this year.

I'm guessing the injury situation is worrisome at cornerback, even though they aren't big names. Lost Richardson. Totton and Carr are listed in the game notes on the depth chart but neither played. Carr may have been injured for a while as he only played at Utah Tech. Totton was reported injured by a poster here.

Davis and the middle of the Mountain West in Sagarin ranking
105 UC Davis 61.71
106 New Mexico 61.57
107 San Jose State 61.26
108 Wyoming 61.21