Please outmuscle the other team, at least have that option.
It makes the game so much smoother looking, I don’t know if it’s because I’m biased but we often seem to have to walk a tightrope to put a drive together, fighting for every play, quarterback under pressure, receivers covered, great catch in traffic, runner breaks two tackles and gains three yards, etc. I have the Weber game in mind when I write this.

Ulonzo Gilliam 8 carries for 17 yards against Sacramento says something. Or the team rushing for 73 yards in that game. We do better on pass protection, but it’s been a common observation here that our QBs don’t have the time our opponents have,
We are in the middle of the conference for rushing offense, with probably better than average ball carriers.
Some explain this as being due to deficiencies of our QBs who always are first in line for credit or blame. Or maybe it’s the offensive system. But I think we get beat in the trenches against the good teams. If we want to be good we need to improve in a lot of areas.

The story on the web site engages in a little creative writing in this paragraph:
For Pettek, it marks the second-straight preseason that he earns the recognition. The staple in the center of the UC Davis offensive line has started 35 games and helped the Aggies boast the second-most prolific rushing offense in the conference and the fourth overall.
What?
We were second in rushing overall, counting our playoff game, but fifth in conference games. The actual situation is worse than that because we ran for 380 yards against Dixie,

I think he lacked any one attribute in which he stood out.. He is a good scrambler and runner but not fast in terms of the NFL. He has a strong arm, but not by NFL standards, he’s tall enough but on the very short side. He played at a very high level of competition for FCS, but it’s still FCS. Always room for doubt.

Drive by five years ago, Neal was a suspect from the start; he was former boyfriend of victims girlfriend. He’s probably been a model citizen for five years, knowing he was under suspicion.

I’m far from an expert on what recruits think but it doesn’t seem to me that moving to the Big10 would help UCLA or USC’s recruiting appeal. It just gives them more time in airplanes and games in snow. Teams making the move played as many tough teams as they wanted, now their schedule will be tougher week in and week out, but is that an incentive for recruits? Maybe for the ones that have a high enough profile for endorsements, but the Los Angeles schools already had exposure.

Except perhaps he was referring to the teams that gain financially also giving up something. I’m referring to a cost to all schools for something that benefits at least temporarily a few. The big schools moving are analogous to big trawlers overfishing and leaving a poorer resource for everyone in total.

Nebraska played Oklahoma last year after not playing for 11 years, and they play them again this year. Hard to believe Nebraska could ever be 3-9 like they were last year. An example where changing conferences didn’t help, although they had already slipped a lot.

How things have changed. I was at the Nebraska stadium thirty years ago, and their conference rivals names were cast into the structure of the stadium. Probably Big8 names.
This is one of those situations where every institution pushing to maximize their income is going to make the total smaller. It has elements of the “tragedy of the commons” where everyone shares a resource but there are no controls. The shared resource is the tradition and history of the sport. All these team realignments erode the traditions that contribute to making college football interesting to fans.

if the name was Davis you would could dot the I.

I don’t recall. I don’t think Cal Davis is an ideal name either. UCLA’s first chancellor made a point that the school go by the initials so that they didn’t seem like a UC Berkeley subsidiary. Likewise I think we should lose both Cal and UC. There is no other college called Davis. we should go with that. We’re big enough that we don’t need to inherit status from some other place. Just my opinion.

We don’t have room for all that text. I even find the UCDAVIS hard to read, isn’t the suggested name with a space?

They are changing brands. The new FieldTurf seems to be the popular choice these days, Tulsa, Cal, Montana all have some flavor of it.

Less academically oriented schools or those not impacted by high demand allow second bachelors degree or something else that someone can complete in a limited time. Lots of these grad transfers only have a season of eligibility. So Davis isn’t going to be an option for many.

How did the Frosh team do in your era?

In the 70s we got a lot of guys from small rural high schools. Almost everyone was all league in high school. Huge roster to filter through. They had a freshman team that played a limited JC schedule.
Later I remember other coaches saying Davis being non scholarship was misleading. I think I recall the Santa Clara coach arguing that. Davis gave aid in other ways to make their offers competitive, and the cost of attendance was low. So there was still competitive recruiting.

if you still want to look at the poll.
https://herosports.com/fcs-football-2022-preseason-top-25-bzbz/

It shows how dominate the Dakota and Montana teams are. Sac #10, us #25.

After being #3 in this ranking in 2019, and not living up to it, this is the first year we make it back on their list.
We have talent, some questions on who will play key positions, and a very tough schedule.

. We have a lot of talent in those positions. He’s kind of duplicative of Larison, at RB behind Gilliam, and Babb and Hutton as wideouts who can turn a short pass into a big gain, and that may be true of Logan Kraut as well.. It would be nice if he could throw a pass on the move like Crawford, but if he could he might still be a QB.

Thanks for posting that Aggie link. Hawkins is only quoted as mentioning at QB Dixon and Newman. Who threw the pick 6?