Here are the start times for the Big Sky games this week:

Weber State @ Montana - 12 noon
Aggies @ Portland State - 1 pm
Northern Colorado @ Montana State - 1 pm
Northern Arizona @ Idaho - 2 pm
Idaho State @ Cal Poly - 5 pm

I was just about to post the same thing! We absolutely need to have a regular Aggie Pride Podcast for basketball. I grew up in a small town in Indiana and basketball is in my blood especially college basketball and, like Aggie football, I want to see Aggie basketball continue to grow and get better.

Jim Les is one of the best basketball head coaches on the west coast. He doesn't routinely get the most highly rated players that some of the other teams like Santa Barbara are able to recruit but no coach in the conference has the ability to get more out of his players he does. He is also a master at finding "diamonds-in-the-rough" and developing them into great players. One thing for sure, his teams play smart and hard and always compete with 100% effort.

I saw that...powerful block...it looked like the Idaho player fell back awkwardly.

Good question! They seem to have found some big donors who are all in.

Downtown Sac has made a tremendous investment in new infrastructure and the revitalization in the downtown area over the past few years. There's a lot of new construction along with rehabilitation of older buildings going on currently and lots of street and utilities improvement also. There many new restaurants and bars that have opened and Sacramento has become known as a farm to fork destination. The New York Times recently wrote an article about how Sacramento has become a destination for a wide variety of great restaurants. Downtown Sac has a growing, vibrant night life scene also and there's lots of development going on along the river front by Old Town. The massive Railyard development will have a new stadium for the Sacramento FC Republic soccer team too.

So my guess is that there are Sacramento donors who see a business good business opportunity for themselves by investing in the development of a major college sports program. It makes sense that these donors who have businesses in Sacramento understand that a major college sports program, especially football, would be good for hotels, restaurants, bars and many other businesses.

Here is a link to the whole article that is much easier to read than the X tweet that Kadeezy posted earlier. It's certainly impressive to raise $35 million in less than 24 hours. There's some deep pockets in Sac that are pulling out all the stops to move Sac to FBS.

“The $35 million we have secured over the last 24 hours demonstrates the civic and business commitment of all of those in the greater Sacramento region to this effort, an effort we know will pay great dividends to the university’s athletes and students, as well as Hornet fans and businesses across Sacramento,” said Sac12 co-chair Josh Wood. “We are thrilled to announce this tremendous first step and will continue to work to reach our stated goal of $50 million.”

Whole article here: https://www.on3.com/nil/news/sacramento-state-hornets-pac-12-committee-raises-35-million-nil-funds/

There is no way there were 6000 less there Saturday compared to Utah Tech. — DrMike

I 100% agree, Mike, something is indeed screwy with the attendance number for the Idaho game. The east side stands looked to be slightly less the Utah Tech game and the end zones were quite a bit less full. The west side stands had quite of few barren holes too. Even so, there's no way that the total attendance was 6,000 less.

My guess is that that the Student Run somehow didn't get counted accurately or even counted at all. Team Aggie members aren't getting accurately counted either. The people who scan the tickets at the gate didn't even ask to scan our Team Aggie tags; they just motioned us through. So the Team Aggie fans aren't getting counted accurately either.

I walked around the stadium at halftime and the food trucks and food venues were doing a good business with long lines at most of them. There was a line at the merch store too. It sure looked didn't look like there were 6,000 less in attendance that's for sure.

Sac is moving full speed ahead on their desire to build a new football stadium and try to get an invite to the PAC12 or the MWC or both. I'm not surprised by this at all. By comparison, we've heard nothing official other than a couple of teaser tweets about a second level at our stadium. So all we can do at this point is to assume that the university is not seriously entertaining thoughts of moving up to the FBS level.

Here are some thoughts comparing Sac and Davis in regard to possibly moving up to FBS at this point:

1. Sac has the geographic advantage of being located in the center of the greater Sacramento area which continues to expand and grow in population. The greater Sacramento area is hungry for major sports and is a large media area. I think that Sac would have an easier time attracting fans to an FBS program than Davis initially due to their geographic advantage. However, fans at schools like Oregon State, which is located in the small community of Corvallis, drive much, much further than 20 miles to attend OSU games. Advantage Sac.

2. Davis does have a large number of alums living in the greater Sacramento area and is also a important and prominent employer in Sacramento with the UC Davis Medical Center including the UC Davis Medical School, the Tschannen Eye Institute, the MIND Institute, the Firefighters Burn Institute and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. The Aggie Square in Sacramento is currently under construction and will be a major expansion of UC Davis in Sacramento and is being built in the same neighborhood as the Medical Center. Bottom line: the presence and importance of UC Davis in Sacramento is growing rapidly. Advantage Davis.

3. UC Davis is by far a more prestigious and prominently recognized university than Sac. This is not a dig at Sac, it's just a fact of Davis being a part of the highly regarded UC system nationwide. UCD has the #1 ranked School of Veterinary Medicine in the nation and are the #2 ranked agriculture school in the nation among other rankings. This gives Davis a more widely recognized presence nationally than Sac. Advantage Davis.

4. Facilities: the Aggie football stadium and the basketball arena are far better currently than the facilities at Sac. The Aggie football stadium was originally built with plans that it could be expanded to 30,000 at some point. The Aggie basketball arena is far superior than Sac's tiny, outdated, "high school like" Hornet's Nest. Sac has plans for a new stadium and a better basketball facility but Davis has the current advantage in facilities and offers more sports for both men and women. Advantage Davis.

5. Sac has had more recent success in FCS football than Davis in the past few years. However, Davis has a longer and more storied football history. It is yet to be seen if Sac can continue the success built under Troy Taylor in the past few years now that he left to be the HC at Stanford. Davis currently has a wave of new energy under their new HC Tim Plough. The jury is still out as to how well either program will do for this year. Currently no overall advantage - draw.

6. Size: UC Davis 41,000 students, Sac 31,000 and enrollment continues to grow at both schools. Advantage Davis.

7. Endowments: UC Davis $2.2 billion in 2023, Sac $66.3 million in 2022. Advantage Davis.

8. Total revenues: UC Davis $7.1 billion in 2023-24, Sac $100 million in 2023. Advantage Davis.

9. Potential funding sources for athletics: UC Davis has a lot of deep pocketed alums who have been very successful in the fields of science, agriculture, viticulture and the arts and more. Would they step up and contribute to a higher level of athletics...? I'm sure that Sac has deep pocketed alums from their business school who live in the Sacramento area and would probably support Sac's move to FBS. No advantage - the jury is out for both schools- draw.

I was and still remain pretty skeptical of either schools getting a PAC12 invite but, after reading a lot of comments in this thread, I'm beginning to think that FCS football in California, or even the west coast for that matter, may not be viable in the long run. As Portland Aggie mentioned previously. FBS might be the only solution to keep football alive and growing at some point in the future and it seems like there is a possible opportunity now as PAC12 tries to revive itself and the MWC tries to survive.

There are a lot of moving parts and significant financial hurdles for both schools but Sac is making no bones about their desire to get the ball rolling and try and make the move. I'm not sure it would bode well for the future of Aggie football if Sac successfully makes the move to FBS and we don't. It might be best for both of us to move up.

He came back in after sitting out a bit and finished the game.

That's a good point, PA. Trying to build an FCS following like the Dakotas and the Montanas have is probably an effort in futility in Davis. FBS may be the only way capture the interest of the students, alums and the Davis community at large.

The Idaho Tubs at the Club guys discuss the game:

https://www.youtube.com/live/dGYAnS3xkyg?si=VdWvAF6zK0zttqMf

I want to hope so but....

Oops...wrong thread...