ISU 24 MSU 17 8:24 left in the 4th

Do they drive that thing to every away game? I wonder who is stuck doing that!

I'm in the same boat. Started at UCD in 2006. That summer orientation was the first one after the Stanford win, and also after a year of beating Stanford in 5 major sports or something. We were pumped up for the transition to D1, and there was this general "it's a great time to be an Aggie" feeling among a lot of us. Aggie Pack had great leadership and we were about to begin a new era with a new stadium. A few months later, we barely secure a winning season with close losses to teams like NDSU (their last visit to Toomey was such a heartbreaker), but the future still looks bright as we prepare for our D1 grand entrance.

The next year, we open Aggie Stadium with a loss to D2 Western Washington and also give up the 37 year streak, and its pretty much downhill from that point on with only a few brief highlights (last minute win against USD, Hail Bakari, playing competitively against Chris Petersen's #5 Boise State, one shared conference championship, and some excellent Causeway Classics). But during that span of a little over a decade, the one thing we could still hang our hat on was the fact that our program has a very deep history of really strong core values, tradition, and character (as evidenced by our coaching legacies). And for a fan that has really only ever seen the Aggies disappoint on the scoreboard or conference standings, that's what Aggie Pride has meant to me since 2006. The recent winning is of course very nice, but that's not how I've learned to enjoy UCD football or support Aggie student athletes.

I don't think they have much of a choice, we're 6-1 coming from an FCS power conference. The problem is that 5 of those 6 wins are over pretty bad teams (maybe 4 if we exclude SJSU as a "good" opponent for FCS teams). These next 3 weeks should tell us a lot.

One thing I appreciate about playing a program like Montana is that I can visit the opponents' fan forum and see constant activity about our upcoming matchup. Most of the teams in the Big Sky just don't have that kind of online following (unless I'm not looking in the right places?). I get that most of the teams we've been playing aren't doing well and have depressed fan bases, but I'd say even during the Gould years we had some pretty regular posters here week in and week out.

More like going for the autopsy. Maier holding that ball until the last second under pressure and throwing a long bomb to a double covered Doss... If that had resulted in an injury, it would have been devastating.

What happened to Ulonzo Gilliam? Have only seen Tehran Thomas take the ball since that fumble

Also the reference to playing for the love of each other. That's what Aggie Pride is about.

I know it's early, but I couldn't resist looking this up (updated for yesterday's games):

http://www.collegesportsmadness.com/fcs-football/bracketology

Some thoughts about the game:

- Hands down the best game I've been to at Aggie Stadium (Toomey too, but I only had one year of Toomey as a student). The crowd, the competitiveness, the comeback, the win, and the stakes at play all made it an instant classic. It's so nice to see us be able to win these types of games when just a couple seasons ago they'd be blowouts or heartbreaking losses / moral victories.

- Having said that, we really dodged a bullet when their freshman kicker missed the biggest FG of his young career so far. ISU had the game within their grasps multiple times throughout the night and just couldn't deliver the knockout punch (that kick, not stopping us on 4th down in OT, allowing 2 two point conversions, not capitalizing on our turnovers, etc.). We didn't play our best game to get to that last play in regulation and need to clean up a lot.

- Our punting and kicking game is atrocious. That one punt that went right more than it went forward stands out in my mind, or the kickoff that got flagged for going out of bounds and put them at the 40 yard line. There's a saying that defense wins games but special teams wins championships, and bad special teams play will hold us back in our search for a BSC title or in making a run in playoffs if we get there.

- That decision to go for it on 4th and 2 in the first overtime possession... GUTSY!! I don't think I've ever seen that in all the OT games of college football I've watched. But, it makes sense given how the ISU offense just marched down the field in under a minute to set up a game winning FG. Hawk probably knew that if we won, it would be because we got 7 points to win in OT1 or go to OT2 and not because we traded FGs in OT1 (unlikely that two such powerful offenses would both leave OT1 without a touchdown). And of course their kicker just missed a game winning FG, so even if we didn't get the conversion we could still rely on him to bail us out again. Still, what a huge call.

- The significance of this win can't be overstated. Beyond the conference and playoff implications, we were also finally able to give a capacity crowd (which really got into the game when we started mounting our comeback) a good game and a win on top of that. Think of all the freshmen or new fans who came and stayed for this classic and will very likely return for future games. I've lost count of all the times that huge crowds (typically the first game of the academic year like this one) have turned out only to see us get demolished or lose in a heartbreaking fashion ... not good for fan morale! Then of course there's the impact this win will have on the team and its ability to believe in the mentality that no game is ever out of reach, no matter how up or down you are. I'm sure we'll need that as we enter the more difficult part of our schedule (and beyond?).

- Speaking of the home crowd, I was pretty impressed how loud the stadium got near the end of the game. There were some really odd decisions from athletics in this regard though. For example, sending Gunrock out to the field and rally the crowd late in the 4th. This was great to see, but we happened to have been on a big offensive drive and the crowd noise from this cool stunt remained noticeably louder even as our team was lining up for the snap. Shouldn't we wait for a timeout while we're on defense to send Gunrock out to rally the crowd? Also, our crowd always gets the loudest when there's free things being thrown at it. Why can't we throw free stuff before or during key defensive downs? I've always wondered about this ... is it that we can't announce it on the PA?

- What a game. I can't believe how quickly Hawk has turned our program around, and we're only halfway through his second year. Last night was a huge milestone in our return to relevance and I'm just so excited to see how far this program will continue to ascend. Go Ags!

Our SOS has probably been suffering lately as the teams we've played or will play have been losing a lot. Not a single one of the Big Sky teams on our schedule won today. Makes us taking care of business in our games all the more important.

A whole 40 minutes of football? You must be ready for basketball season! ;)

At least the one consolation from our dark years featuring anemic offenses was plenty of playing time for our punters. Ironically, our punting game has seen a huge drop off from the days of Schmidt/Wadman but now we don't need to punt as often.

Losing hurts when you're in the top 25, except if it's #3 SDSU losing narrowly to #1 NDSU -- in which case, you stay #3!

Not to mention UNC putting up 26 points on UCD in just a handful of minutes. Just goes to show nothing is a given in the Big Sky, unless you're EWU which has been consistent all season.

Thanks PH. I completely agree, and have to admit that I was rooting for Sac State on Saturday and excited to see you were hanging with Montana in Missoula. Causeway and the rivalry are only improved when both teams are doing well. There'd be nothing better than for that game to have postseason implications, which hasn't been the case for a very long time.

How does the AGS poll work? Does anyone on the message board get to vote?

I seem to recall the KDVS announcer during the K-State game saying that the Ags would bus to [don't remember the city name] before flying to Indianapolis. Could be a case of poor hearing/memory, though.

62-49 end of 3rd

We're rooting for overtime in all the games today.