Hawkins may share the Coach of the Year award with Best but outclasses him by a mile.

Les recruits guards first and foremost. I follow the recruiting as close as I can and I would say, from what I have seen, 2/3's of his offers are to guards. It's not easy to land talented PF's and post players at a mid-major school but Russell Turner at Irvine does it very well and it's paying off for them.

Irvine is currently 6-0 and they have 6 players 6'8 and taller on their roster. They have a 6'9 RFr PF, Colin Welp, who is a great looking big man and he's just starting his basketball career. They have great balance overall, can score the ball and don't rely pretty much solely on defense to be competitive.

Anything we can get into Aggie Stadium legally and make noise!

Spot on. I'm not optimistic that we will sell out the game. As we all know, lots of Aggie fans are "fair weather fans" who will stay at home if there's the slightest chance of precipitation or if the game presents the slightest inconvenience such as feeling like the leaves need to be raked. Well, it's leaf season and the forecast is for showers...

As for the students, look at the NAU game. We were 8-1 at the time and had "sold out" the ISU game previously but only about 200 students showed up for the game. Heck, the overall attendance was only 7000+.

We don't have a big, dedicated fan base yet and I'm not sure what it will take to change that especially with the students.

I'm not trying to dampen the excitement. Just "callin' it like I see it."

You know, Hawkins says to always set the bar high and Kelley to a big risk because he thought he could play on a bigger stage and he's been successful. Congrats to him.

I guess I'm old school because I'd rather lose to any team on our schedule than Sac. I absolutely hate losing to the Hornets in basketball or football. They've only had one winning season in the last 30 years in basketball so this one stings (pun intended!). Ugh...

Buckle up Aggie fans. We're in for a rough ride this season.

I love this arena. Go Ags!

It's a fun evening. If both teams were doing better we'd have a better crowd but the Kings staff always does a good job of keeping the atmosphere lively no matter what the crowd size or the score of the game. It's the best basketball arena I've ever been in and It's hard to keep your eyes on the actual game with that amazing Jumbotron.

9 of the 16 first team defensive players are from Weber State! :gasp:

I was really impressed with Reno's stadium. What a nice facility.

Hahaha...I have a vague memory of that. Of course, at my age most of my memories are vague. The games at the Toom were so much fun!

I remember how the steam engine used to shake and shudder and leak steam from many of the couplings. I always felt a little uneasy being near it wondering if something could go wrong and it would explode! I think it may have been banned for potential safety concerns.

Hawkins could have a second career as a motivational speaker. He is an extremely thoughtful, wise man. You will not find many coaches as knowledgeable and articulate anywhere in any sport.

Who wouldn't want to play for a coach like that? He's a wise man with the right values and vision. Everyone wants wins and championships and those goals are worth aiming for but what Hawkins teaches his kids is something they can take with them into their lives after football and do something to help make things a little better in the world.

Those kind of lessons have all but been forgotten in the win at any cost philosophy that we see all to often in sports. What a breath of fresh air Hawkins is in a world where so many prominent people have sold their souls for power and self-glory.

He is such an inspirational coach...AGGIE PRIDE! AGGIE PRIDE! AGGIE PRIDE!

Here is a comparison of the playoffs team selections by STATS FCS, the Coaches Poll and the AGS Poll. Again, AGS continues to be the most accurate predictor of the actual bracket (STATS FCS was close this year too). The Coaches Poll continues to be the least accurate predictor. I think the coaches just have too much inherent built in bias to be anywhere objective.

The Coach's poll (the "official" poll in the toolbox of the selection committee) was definitely the 3rd best in terms of reflecting what the selection committee did. I'd say it was about a draw between the AGS and STATS polls in terms of which reflected the committee the best. The AGS Poll did much better reflecting the seeds and the STATS poll did much better reflecting the at-large teams. Overall though for the 6 years of the 24 team playoff format I think the AGS poll is further distancing itself as a better reflection of what the selection committee will do. Something pretty remarkable, in my opinion at least, is that the AGS Poll hasn't been further than 2 spots away on any seeded playoff team since 2013 (that's a streak of 5 years and counting).

http://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?216083-Which-poll-is-the-most-accurate-playoff-predictor/page4

I finally got to the seat selection page but when I went to checkout it wouldn't recognize my account even though I was logged into it. So I called and they were able to get me those seats but only after I deleted them from my cart online so they could select those seats from their computer. Too many glitches!

It would be nice if the Aggie ticket website would load the seat selection page that you directed to and then does not load. This has happened several times this year and also in years past when pages will not load. When I call about they always say, "We'll let someone know about it."

That shouldn't be happening with such frequency. It frustrates fans trying to buy tickets. They can do better.

This really says a lot about the talent we are getting. Awesome!

I just don't like Cal Davis at all but I understand how we get called that all the time. It always reminds me of Cal Worthington say, "Go see Cal, Go see Cal!"

Then again, maybe we should run an local TV ad for the game with Hawk saying, "Go ses Cal Davis, Go see Cal Davis!" :roll:

Elijah Pepper 6'3 205 PG from Selah High School in Selah, Washington