To me, beating the major conference powers is more important thean a playoff appearance, While not as bad as the EW series, we are overdue to beat Weber, Montana, and Sac I’d be thrilled if we win against two of those three and didn’t make the playoffs.

i don’t think they want to do that but I believe Hawkins once said Budgett could play tailback. From his bio: Senior season “Budgett was selected team captain and ran for 1,564 yards, on 159 carries, averaged 120.3 rushing yards per game and scored 25 times on the ground — all team-high figures… He also caught 19 passes for 232 yards and one TD”

True, but drive that ended in field goal in 4th quarter did not have a completed pass although drive helped by a pass interference and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty The plays that moved the ball were runs.

This years team, prior to Larison’s injury was the best rush offense I can recall in D1 years. I haven’t looked at stats, just my impression. We have been playing a few inexperienced offensive linemen, and for one reason or another it’s not been the best pass blocking line we’ve had. The open question is whether we can still have an effective run game without Larison. I think it's unlikely that we solve our pass offense issues, like throwing deep and not having interceptions if we lose our run offense.
The defense over the last few years has been one that gives up yards, but not as many points. They need to take the next step and be more of a smothering defense, and not allow as many long drives. We’ve seen that in plenty of series, but it isn’t sustained. The D seems to have better personnel than results.

They should use Tompkins as the Wildcat QB again. That replaces some of Larison’s carries.
Tompkins made some tough catches, he’s a possession type receiver, and should be good on screens leave him at wide receiver, but get some faster wide receivers in the rotation.
They should use Hutton for the fly sweep plays, for some reason Tompkins ran those against EW. Hutton runs like a running back.
They need to see what the seldom played running backs can do with the opportunity, including the true freshman. It is an oversight that we don’t have any bigger backs.

One dimensional but it would have won except the one dimension got hurt. Now we’re in a pickle.

On the other side of the ball, here are Eastern’s first 3 drives of the second half. 68, 91, and 58 yard drives. What happened that made the third quarter so successful for EW, when they struggled most of the game? It wasn’t that the defense was tired, they had half time and Davis had a six minute drive just before the 91 yard drive. It is almost a bad omen when Davis has a team backed up near the end zone.

EWU 3rd EWU25 15:00 KO UCD7 12:12 FG 8-68 02:48
EWU 3rd EWU6 06:24 KO UCD3 03:08 DOWNS 9-91 03:16
EWU 3rd EWU42 01:31 PUNT UCD0 13:08 TD 9-58 03:23

We couldn’t win against a ranked opponent in that year either.

. We went from a pass oriented team that had Ulonzo Giliam and Tehran Thomas, to being a run oriented team that has Lan Larison, and thats pretty much it as a running back. None of our competitors have that lack of depth at the position they are dependent on.

We cant win when we give up 227 yards in a little under 17 minutes in the beginning of the second half.

The obvious thing that has changed is we have a new offensive coordinator and a new QB coach. The QB coach is new to being an assistant coach, is not from the program, and so may have a different approach. Not saying thats a bad thing, but its something different that Miles has to adjust to.

The game was lost due to the turnovers that led directly to points, the lack of depth at running back which is unexplainable since this is now the fourth season where we are more of a run than pass focused team, and the defense allowing the first three drives of the second half to cover 227 yards.
They made a half time adjustment and we had no counter to it.

The box score still has that error listing a defensive lineman who doesn’t wear #70 as a starter in the game in place of Eli Simonson. Four games in a row.

That is called a conditioned response.

Game notes are now found in in the “media center” They even had one for A&M commerce, although I dont know when they put it up. The link to media center is found in the preview, or is for this week.
Here is is:
https://ucdavisaggies.com/sports/2023/9/12/media-center.aspx

.

There is also the possibility to play FBS teams that aren’t from Power conferences, like San Jose State, Nevada etc. Those two would be great to have on the schedule because the game is likely to be more competitive, and they are close enough so Davis fans could increase the gate receipts.

Coaches take the attitude after a loss that winning or losing was controlled by their team, that is the only half of the equation they have control of. The time to complement the opponent is before the game to make beating them more impressive.

Hawkins didn’t know that we have never beaten EW

just win

Now Davis according to the article linked at top of the thread should be tied for third along with UC San Diego, which is where they belong. Unless Berkeley and UCLA implode Davis is never going to rank above those two.

To a large degree a UC is a UC. You have to get down to major departments to distinguish between them. Davis was historically harder to get into than UCI and UCSB, and easier the UCSD. The only way UCD is behind all those schools is if you rate the smell of salt water highly as one of your criteria. Some of the UC campuses are nice, but isolated from town. If you walk out the front gate of the campus, what’s there?