This discussion pompted me to look at Cal’s 2022 attendance and they had 34984 in attendance for the 2022 Davis game. For comparison they had 36221 for UCLA, and 34601 for Washington. Point being that there aren’t a lot of games that are going to draw more at Cal. They wouldn’t dump the Davis game to play a run of the mill FBS team.

Davis had two outstanding Freshmen last year who are both listed, I believe erroneously, as playing in 5 games which would eliminate their redshirt status.
Jordan Fisher last game is listed a Northern Arizona, where he is listed as having no stats..
Izaiah Souriolle an offensive lineman is also listed as olaying at Northern Arizona as his fifth game.
Since I can’t believe they would have intentionally burned these players.redshirt year, I wonder how problematic it is to get these errors corrected years later If they want to play a fifth year.

Buying out a game after tickets have already been sold seems impractical.

Sports Illustrated UC Davis preview.

https://www.si.com/college/fcs/big-sky/2024-uc-davis-football-preview

Maybe some of you knew this but it was news to me as I don’t follow NFL.
Damon Wrighster‘s father George is a former Oregon tight end drafted #104 who played six seasons in the NFL for Jacksonville.

Bo Eason’s reaction to son getting UC Davis offer:

We’ve only seen one QB play for Davis under Plough as offensive coordinator, Jake Maier, unless you go back to the Biggs era, And he had Case Cookus at Northern Arizona. So that is the model in our minds of how Plough’s offense looks. But thats a small sample size,
Plough helped Cookus to play at a high level as a freshman, so I suppose if any of the newer guys have what it takes they might play. Assuming that Plough has time to develop QBs.
Davis’ scoring fell off a lot from 2022 last year. If they stick with Hastings and can get him to be as successful as he was two years ago we should have a dynamic offense now with the quality and depth at running back, offensive line and receivers. Davis would have made the playoffs if Larison had remained healthy.

Carter Kuchenbuch
A 6’5” QB/DE from Okanogan WA has an offer from Davis his sixth D1 offer.

https://x.com/CarterKook/status/1793861124116672850[

Rex Connors is a safety and will probably be recognized in that group.Porter Connors is a linebacker, but he didn’t start a game last year. He played behind all conference players,

Shelton and Cody are the only offensive assistants who have worked under Plough where Plough was the OC. And that is a little tentative because they were assistant coaches in 2020 and Plough left before the Spring season. Shelton was a volunteer assistant in 2019, but mostly for special teams. More new faces for Plough than you would expect after being gone for what seems like a short time.

Isaiah Jackson is now the special teams coordinator, they don’t mention if he still coaches inside linebackers.
I’m a little skeptical of Shelton being QB coach in addition to offensive coordinator. I don’t believe Davis has had a qb coach in the last 50 years who didn’t play the position, and there are a bunch of new qbs that need mentoring on not just the offensive playbook but on techniques and intangibles of the position.

I just emailed a Dr.Collins who is listed as director of athletics communication for FB

I watched the games. Eli stands out as a 6’6” left tackle.
Geme Notes for last year lists the starters for each game of the season and list Eli.
The box scores list his number 70 but assign the name of a defensive player Luke Roncevich to it.
Luke Roncevich who is 6’:2” seldom if ever played.

The updated bio of the transfer who started every game for us last year:
“2023: Did not see any action”
Not mentioned in last seasons position preview, not mentioned in any game box score, not mentioned in the official stats, another player given an all Big Sky Academic team award based on his playing time, now not credited with any play in his updated roster bio.

The stat keepers had a list where #70 was a different player, so they incorrectly had a defensive lineman credited as starting on the O-line, and that persisted all season, home and away.

https://ucdavisaggies.com/sports/football/roster/eli-simonson/18157

Hero Sports has an early FCS Top Ten for 2024. Seven of the top ten are teams that are present or former conference opponents of Davis.

Includes Sac at number 9 and Idaho at number 7.
I don’t see Idaho being a top 10 team after their transfer and NFL losses, particularly but not exclusively on offense skill positions, where they lose QB, primary running back, and all american Hayden Hatten. On defense they lose two corners to FBS schools. I don’t think this will be the year they beat Davis for the first time.

https://herosports.com/fcs-early-2024-preseason-top-10-bzbz/

I see that his high school coach, who was the Cal Poly Offensive Coordinator when Huard transferred there, has moved to Stetson. i think thats a major reason he went to Cal Poly.

Huard played in Cal Poly’s spring game Saturday, splitting time with Bo Kelly. He still seemed to be the starting QB.

A true freshman OL, Souriolle, appears to have played in five games last season, which would burn a year of eligibility. That is unfortunate. Pretty rare that he played in the first game.

I think Porter Connors will be one of the starting linebackers. He started a game in 2022. They still have him listed as a DB, but he played linebacker after they changed his position on the roster.
Offense is solid. I think they can easily be better than 2022. 2023 was a big drop off.
Defense is going to suffer some. Losing Buchanan, Maae, Budgett all with remaining eligibility is painful. But lots of talent still here, The secondary is a strength.

Players who started any game last year and are on the 2024 roster.

WR Hutton, Gbatu, Davis, Tompkins
TE Gale, Simpson
RB Larison, Tompkins, Fisher
QB Hastings
LT Simonson
LG Souriolle
C Povey
RG Main
RT. Nava, Meynell

DT. Bearden
NG. Toki
DE Kennedy
Rush Sarac
Nickel Verner, Calhoun
SLB. Cloyd
MLB. No one
WLB. No one
BCB. Alexander
FCB. Gardner, Cotton
BS Rex Connors
FS Shamburger, Bains