Two winnable games for the FCS team. I know that economics drives the choice of opponents, and its a good thing that we seem to be past scheduling two FBS games, but ideally our one FBS game would be against lower tier FBS teams, like these two.

https://x.com/UCDfootball/status/1800355316942704830/photo/1

Interesting that JT O’Sullivan, Khark Jones Scott Barry and Bob Biggs were coaching at the Davis QB camp.

Not yet. It would be easy enough to just move Rocevic’s stats to Simonson, but the source error is in all the game box scores, the team stats, and the Big Sky Stats, which will never be corrected.
They owe the kid some recognition. It could be like they did with Shamburger, recognize him on Twitter, and give him a scholarship if he doesn’t have one. It is actually a good story to promote, someone moving 1500 miles for a chance to play and then starting. Who knows, maybe someone else from Nebraska might take I-80 west.

Dr. Mike it is automated but they have poor data entry, or don’t use the official roster to match names and numbers.

They have Jordan Fisher and Izaiah Souriolle both listed as playing in five games, Fisher’s alleged fifth game had no carries. I don’t think they would burn those two’s redshirt status in a game against Northern Arizona and then not play them again.

The error where Eli Simonson, the transfer from Nebraska gets no credit for playing despite starting every game is because the stat keepers use an erroneous roster to match names to numbers, they have #70 assigned to Luke Roncevic, Luke has a different number.
It is beyond belief that they could go a whole season crediting a defensive lineman who likely didn’t even travel as starting every game as an offensive lineman, and then awarding the guy who didn’t play an All Big Sky Academic award that has a qualification that the recipient played in half the teams games. I exchanged emails with Dr. Collins who is listed as director of athletics communication for FB on the issue of Eli Simonson’s name not being associated with #70 in the box scores stats or players bio statistics. That was a month ago. They could troubleshoot this issue with a simple question for the offensive line coach.

i don’t know who keeps stats, but they are not up to the challenge.
Any one know whose responsibility that is?

Hero Sports rated Josh Gale as the #12 returning FCS tight end
https://herosports.com/fcs-football-top-returning-2024-tight-ends-bzbz/

Hutton, Gbatu, Tompkins, Gale, Chaz Davis and Larison were our top six pass catchers, last season. All averaged over 10 yards a catch except Tompkins and Larison. One of the elements of our offense was unblocked screens or short dumpoffs to Tompkins in hopes he could do some magic.
In my opinion Tompkins best position is running back, but he is not needed there. Someone will emerge maybe the much touted freshman from last season, Robbie Mascheroni. Its no surprise when a freshman doesn’t play much.

Several weeks ago Hero Sports ranked Lan Larison as the best returning FCS running back.
Today, the UC Davis has a press release of Hero Sports naming Larison the Best Running Back in the Big Sky, logically enough.
The Davis site doesn’t include a list to the Hero Sports article but here it is:
https://herosports.com/fcs-best-returning-running-back-in-each-conference-bmbm/

We got two Sophomore starters last year who had simply been in the wrong level of play, a offensive tackle from Nebraska who didn’t get playing time as a walk-on there and a California kid who started for a D3 team in Kansas as a freshman and now he has a scholarship here.

Davis’ outbound transfers are an anomaly in that most have graduated. In a couple of years graduate transfers will be rare because players won’t have six or more years of eligibility like the ones in college in 2020. Other schools are losing dozens of players a year.
Incoming transfers have predominately been players seeking playing time, or a better environment. As long as the school and program fosters a good environment Davis should be a net winner,

At the very least they have to prepare someone as a backup and get them game experience. Hastings will be gone next year, and we have three three star recruited QBs as true freshmen and redshirt freshmen. Almost every program played their 2nd string QB more than Davis the last few years. Sac, Montana State, Montana, Idaho, Idaho State, Cal Poly, Cal, UCLA, virtually everyone plays their 2nd QBs. Our backup appeared in 2 games and threw 9 passes last year.

Cal seems to be pretty solid this year.

I don’t know, they’ll have to decide in Summer.
Points to consider;
Davis offense scored ten points a game less in 23 than in 22. Some of that was due to loss of Cody Hawkins, maybe Plough can get Hastings and the offense back to 22 form.
if Larison had remained healthy the 2023 team would have been a playoff team. Team has more depth at running back this year.

Sports Illustrated:
FCS Football Central's Predicted Order Of Finish
1. Montana State
2. Montana
3. Sacramento State
T4. UC Davis
T4. Idaho
6. Weber State
7. Eastern Washington
T-8. Idaho State
T-8. Portland State
10. Northern Arizona
11. Cal Poly
12. Northern Colorado

I notice the Montana fans seem offended that they aren’t picked 1st. I think they would have a better case if they had a proven QB.

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: