The run defense in that era for Davis was stupendous.
In 2005 NDSU gained 3 yards rusjing against Davis on 23 attempts.
The next year Montana State gained 2 yards rushing on 15 carries.

Davis was 0- 2 going into the Stanford game, but one of the losses was to a New Hampshire team that ended up ranked number 1 in 1AA for most of the last half of the season before losing to UNI in the quarterfinals. New Hampshire scored a touchdown in the final minute to win the game.

The Tulsa game. A FBS team coming off a bowl game. The impressive thing about it was the way the offense maintained drives at the end if the game, especially considering the pre and in game expectation that the heat and Tulsa’s depth would wear down the Aggies.

No. 21 UC Davis Posts 45-0 Shutout Against No. 20 Montana State. 2006
On the road, coming two weeks after Montana State beat Colorado in Hawkins’ first game as coach there. Montana State had just lost two yards on the ground and never got past the 38 yard line.

Some comments on some of the guys you mentioned.
Cole Batson certainly has the resume to project as an impact transfer, but is he fully recovered from the injury that he sustained in 2023? He had two tackles last year. Some unnamed upper body injury.
D3 transfers to FCS may be rare, but Lamont Shamburger did it and played here in his first game, as a sophomore.
Dwight talked about Riddick as a guy who might play a big role, and I agree since he is a proven FCS level safety and punt returner. Here is an interesting profile of him.
https://www.southeastarrow.com/sports/khalani-riddick-the-redhawks-dual-threat-making-waves-in-the-ovc-32fd0297

Yes, but it would be simple for 247 to just use their own ranking of players to rank recruiting classes of FCS teams unless they don’t believe in their own rating.
Avoid the absurdity of ranking teams on the basis of whether they picked up 0 to 3 players with a composite rating, ignoring the rest of the class and then having publications like Hero sports write articles about that. If Montana States’ 23 commits is rated among the worst in the country, maybe the methodology doesn’t fit the use case.

Does anyone recall the capacity of Hickey Gym? Would today’s attendance fit? That place was rocking for important games.

It is worse than the unreliability of the star rankings, the issue is they only use the score derived from averaging other entities assessment, That is all well and good, except the other entities don’t rank that many athletes , so their team ranking methodology ignores them.
For example Montana State has 23 commits, 14 three star, but none of them have a composite ranking, so Montana State gets zero points and ranks 202. Absurd.
https://247sports.com/college/montana-state/season/2025-football/commits/

Perfect for Sac, a QB who changed teams every year. He and the coach can be a package deal.

That would take more expertise than i have.
But you can’t rate teams based on a metric that has so few qualifying players. For example they give Montana no points, although they have 17 commits and a player 247 rates at 87. Montana State also has 0 points with 23 commits. I don’t believe Montana State or Montana had bad recruiting years
Sticking with the Big Sky, Sacramento is clearly the best recruits, Davis is probably second, better than NAU because of the higher ratings of players by 247sports themselves that don’t have composite scores, and Davis’ much more numerous and better transfers.

The recruit class rankings were a puzzle to me, and I have figured why they are so nonsensical.
247 sports has two rankings for players, their own, and something they call composite. The 247Sports Team Recruiting Ranking is solely based on the 247Sports Composite Rating.This may work at the top level, but most of the players recruited at the FCS level do not have a composite rating,
So that is why Davis, which is credited with 16 three star HS recruits, is said to have only three in the team rankings.
The only HS recruits contributing to the score are: Drew Cofield, Tyler Parker, Christian Knoos
Ridiculous.

That is a big piece of news regarding retaining Nava and Simonson, they aren’t listed on the roster.

The last couple of years we’ve had late transfers,
I think the defensive line is going to be fine . We have both heavy nose guard types and some rush guys. Won’t be as big as Toki and Maae, but some big mobile guys. We return some of our better pass rushers.

I think offensive line is the biggest void in the recruit class
They lose both starting tackles, a sometimes starter at guard, have another guard with a knee injuy, and bring in one guy.

The 247sports rankings make no sense.
According to them on HS commitments we have 17 3 star commits , with one 3 star being a walkon; Davis then add nine transfers, including two FBS DBs, one FCS DB from a playoff team, and a D3 all american DB, two all Ivy DT, a linebacker from Cal.

NAU has ten 3 stars, none of which are ranked better than Davis’ top recruits, and NAU is credited with one two star IOL transfer,

What are you looking at in regards to NAU?
247 seems pretty average.

https://247sports.com/college/northern-arizona/season/2025-football/commits/

Even sweeter that JJ Craven backed out of a commitment to Idaho, where he js still listed on 247. He was one of their top recruits, but de-committed at end of December. 247 still lists him with the Vandals, so our class ranking by them underrates our class.

Class good for the reasons of number of recruits, recruit ratings, other schools competing for these players, and needs addressed.
It is about twice the size of a typical class here.
It has somewhere around 16 three star recruits, most had other D1 offers some including FBS offers
Transfers address a need, because we only had 2 starters returning on defense. Now we have two All Ivy defensive linemen, along with a JC player, a transfer linebacker from Cal who saw action there, and a selection of DBs with experience at various levels from FBS major conference to FCS playoff teams, to Div 3.

I believe Chaparral High in Temecula. Attended by OL Souriolle, DL Jake Williams, and attended for a few years by WR Dobbins.

Where did soccer land? The WCC would be an option.

If they wait until they have built the following that Montana and North Dakota State have they will wait forever. FCS foootball is the biggest thing in those states, no major college football or NFL.
Hypothetical scenario is Sac moves up and plays a weak FBS conference with no shot at a bowl game anyone has heard of, would they get more coverage than a top 10 FCS UC Davis? Unfortunately I suspect they would.
Last year Sagarin rankings had UC Davis ranked 91, better than any team continuing in that conference other than UNLV. They’ll move up if the money makes sense.