You are correct, that’s what they did. Their coach in his postgame interview references plays like this, so there are probably others.
I didn't see that at game time, or the first time in replay, you have a good eye.

Did Gale catch the pass? Ended up near the two yard line?

He ran with determination. You have to watch in the fourth quarter when he was in, Showed enough speed to completely reverse the direction of a play and get around the opposite edge.

If Tompkins could throw like Larison he’d still be a QB. I thought Tompkins had a good game aside from the dropped pass. Interesting that after the interception in front of Tompkins near the end of the first half, that Perez caught up to the defensive back and saved the touchdown.

Too much heat over the last few weeks in Texas probably got in the way of their conditioning, by limiting exertion. Aside from the ability to sweat, their is not much a body can do to adapt to heat, and all athletes can sweat buckets,

We had some head scratching interceptions for sure.
The interception near the end of the first half was a good play on their part but dumb to even run a play with a route so conducive to a pick six when just seconds remain. Perez made a shoe string tackle or that would have been 6.

Eli Simonson and Lamont Shamburger.

Eli is a transfer from Nebraska, played left tackle.
Lamont is a transfer from Benedictine, a DB, probably a corner.
Both started and played most of the game.

No one else is encouraged by two sophomore transfers starting their first game at Davis? These guys really flew under the radar, and are playing in front of some veterans. I think that portends big things..

They have a “feels like” feature of forecasts which factor in wind and humidity, last night in commerce it felt like the actual temperature.
Another difference in heat between Davis and Texas is that Davis cools down more at night, and its cooler in the morning. A football team in Davis can schedule around the heat. If they want to practice in the heat they can and if they don’t they can mitigate it.

An Aggies was never down on the field with a cramp; same thing happened two years ago in Tulsa. The team is very well conditioned.

Transfers who played significant minutes:
Eli Simonson from Nebraska started, at left tackle played most the game. (Box score has the wrong #70)
Lamont Shamburger, from D3 Benedictine College, played early and most the game.
Semaj Verner, from Boise last year, but didn't play last year started and played a lot
A J Crump transfer from San Jose who didn’t play last year played a substantial amount.
Evan Tattersall from Cal hardly played last year due to injury but started.

Those guys add to an already deep team,

One side effect of not publishing a depth chart is that the people keeping stats don’t have the players numbers sorted by offense and defense in a shorter list, so they get the players mixed up.

The box score on the Davis web site has only a passing resemblance to the game.
They got the identities of the players that share numbers confused.
This is the case for 5 of the 22 “starters”.

The best chance is if its the first game and your team is pretty veteran and the FBS team made a lot of changes and they may not have their act completely together. The worst situation is if its their second game and your first.

Eli Simonsson is playing left tackle, Shamburger is playing a lot as a DB Verner atransfer last year from Boise is playing a lot at safety. On offense WR transfer Crump from San Jose has played,
No true freshmen that I’ve noticed

Check out all the transfers playing,

It will be interesting to see how the game announcers who have likely never seen a UCD team get by without game notes. Will they call the team Cal-Davis? Probably (I don’t mind). Will they struggle with Chubba’s last name? Will they know that Lan Larison was a champion steer wrestler, an activity Scott Marsh has called bull steering?

Their linebackers are on the small side, I assume their star and rover positions are defensive backs and they are defensive back height and weight.

A big line like that probably pass blocks better than run blocks.
They have a little running back who was 9th all time in Ohio high school rushing 7,000+ yards. This is his third school after Bowling Green and West Florida (D2) he averaged 6.9 a carry at West Florida last year. Surprised he is listed ahead of their returning back, but they’ll play both.

Note the weight of their offensive line. Also Parrish, the much traveled former four star LSU recruit is the projected QB

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sidearm.nextgen.sites/tamuc.sidearmsports.com/documents/2023/8/30/1_-_083123_-_UC_Davis.pdf

Who knows.