Now that we hear from the Aggie Pride Podcast that Tompkins is injured here is a guess who starts.
This is far.from definite.

WR Hutton, Gbatu, Davis,
TE Gale,
RB Larison
QB Hastings
LT Simonson
LG Souriolle
C Collier?
RG Main or Mirabella
RT. Nava

DT. Bearden
NG. Toki
DE Kennedy
Rush Sarac
Nickel Verner
SLB. Cloyd
MLB. Porter Connors
WLB. Meyer
BCB. Alexander
FCB. Cotton
BS Rex Connors
FS Shamburger

When you say both do you mean two in addition to Porter Connors? I think Porter is going to start but not with high confidence that he is.

Relevant to.your concern, last Cal game I think we lost both Jake Parks for the season and Noah Masui who started as a D-lineman.. He didn't play again until appearing in a couple of games in November.

If you look back at the recruiting in prior years they didn’t bring in many scholarship running backs. In 2023 the team decided to feature the run more then they went down, just enough to make us miss the playoffs. My supposition is that the OC and QB coach changes contributed to a drop in Miles’ performance but also a major factor was for a stretch of games the offense was handcuffed by injured running backs.

It will be interesting to see what if anything looks different with the Davis offense beyond play calling. My guess is not much, but it could be that Plough abandons or diminishes some of the things we’ve been accustomed to seeing, like fly sweeps and wildcat plays. Plough says the team didn’t change the terminology in the years he was gone.

So who are our starting linebackers? Anyone want to take a guess?
We have three about half the time and when they play 4 they add a 'rush' backer.

They posted a linebacker preview, but with only the inside linebacker coach talking about inside linebackers mostly but thats hard to determine as some of the linebackers play inside or outside. The text talks abot both inside and outside linebackers.

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2024/8/16/football-2024-aggie-positional-preview-linebackers.aspx

My thought exactly. They may indeed be the third best team but I wouldn’t bet on it. They have too much turnover to make that prediction. And how much weight do you put on the fact your QB looked good in two games?

Idaho is the first upper tier FCS school on Davis’ schedule. Idaho will most likely be 1-3 when they come to Davis, because of their tough schedule and Davis will not have a signature win against an FCS opponent; it is a must win for both teams.

Hayden Hatten was phenomenal. He was their Doss. If they are like this board they’ll be missing him 6 years from now.
They lost a lot on defense too including a first team all FCS corner.

Laughable that one of their analysts says Davis might “sneak out” a win over Idaho, a team they’ve beaten last three games.
Idaho has huge unknowns due to their player losses, whose quality far exceeds the guys they added.

Would have been nice to here about some of the other undeclassmen aside from Souriele and Zaire Collier, who seems to be in contention for playing time after apparently being a walk-on last summer.

Center Peter Povey is not on the team roster. He was a grad student this year. I thought it was good news when he appeared to be going to play this year.

The podcast was terrific, highly recommend.

We’ll see if Plough can adapt his offense to the players he’s got. That’s a requirement at this level, where a team doesn’t always have someone who can go on to play pro like Plough had at NAU and here.
Hastings was effective in 2022, so they have that template of what he does well.
Perhaps the biggest reason we didn’t make the playoffs in 2023 was the health of our running backs.

My guess Meyer and Porter Connors are inside linebackers and hence in a different room and the players Cloyd mentioned are outside linebackers in the same room as Cloyd. Team has a ton of outside linebackers.

Cloyd’s comments about Blake Antzoulatos going to be great player for us, added to David Meyer who is a proven player plus the guys already here alleviates a lot of concern about the losses at linebacker.
I’m expecting Porter Connors to have a big year.

Not to mention that they put guys that never played in it and didn’t update it during the season to reflect guys who did play.
By the way, they used to put the game notes, which contain the “depth chart” into the schedule, then last year they started putting them into the “media cener”. I went to look at last seasons game notes, only to find they’ve purged the ones from 2023. There is nowhere else besides the game notes where they list who started the games last season. Starters don’t appear in the team stats. The game notes was also a place where you could see what position a player started at for example that Rex Connors was a boundary safety as opposed to a field safety, etc.

The lack of mention of underclassmen in these previews is noteworthy because it seemed to be good recruiting classes. The running back preview mentioned everyone in the room and Fisher clearly will get some playing time, but thats about it. The other previews and camp reports hardly mention underclassmen.
Perhaps they’ll release a real depth chart prior to the Cal game.

Some schools have column headings like Experience where they list years in the program. Others use Academic Year, and others use Eligibility year, which was our default until they gave up last year. The Davis site actually uses a mix. Grant Harper is entering his fifth academeic year but is listed as a junior. No consistency.

Part of the general failure in maintaining the roster is that they have abandoned trying to track player’s eligibility. It is not that hard to know that freshmen who play in 4 or less games are redshirt freshmen in year 2, but you’ll notice all of last years freshmen are now sophomores even if they saw no action. Perez played in 3 games his freshmen year, and only four last year.

Perez is not a senior in terms of eligibility. He is a red shirt junior.
I bet if they petitioned they could get another year after that as he only played in four games last season.