I'll update with other possible regional opponents. Feel free to chime in. I roughly listed them from higher to lower rankings.

Eight teams - #1 through #8 - get a bye. Four teams above us lost, so some should drop. Let's say we're rated #12. We might play...

More Likely

Abilene Christian is 8-4, was #17. Two FBS losses, tough SOS. Distance 1500 miles.

Lamar was #19, lost, and is 8-4. Ended the season losing 3 of 4. Limps in? Texas, 2000 miles away.

Jackson State, 9-2, was #20, HBCU. Distance 2200 miles.

Southeastern Louisiana is 9-3, was #21. Distance 2200 miles.

*** South Dakota State now 8-4, was ranked #22. Lost four in a row before beating North Dakota today in OT. Distance: 1500 miles.

*** Southern Illinois was #24, now 7-5. Won some big games. Distance: 1800 miles.

Unlikely - Distance

Youngstown State is 8-4, was ranked #18, tough, but beatable? Distance: 2400 miles.

New Hampshire was #25, won today, 8-4, I don't know anything about them but their schedule looks lite, Ivys and such. 3,000 miles away.

Unlikely - Repeat Games

NAU 7-5, was #23 (lost), we beat them by 20.

Sac State, 7-5, would be a repeat.

Southern Utah, 7-5, would be a repeat.

My Guess?

I would say we're visited by South Dakota State, 1500 miles away. I want nothing to do w ACU.

So throwing some guesses out there. Eight teams get a bye, not us. Four teams above us lost, so some should drop. Let's say we're rated #10 or #12. We might play...

Unlikely

Monmouth (9-3), formerly #12, beat ranked Villanova 51-33, Towson, Stony Brook, lost to New Hampshire.

North Dakota is 7-5, just lost to SD State, was #13, will drop.; lost to Montana 24-23, best several ranked teams, then lost to South Dakota (26-21), NDSU (15-10), and SDSU in OT (34-31). Sound dangerous.

Stephen F. Austin (was #14) is 10-2, also sounds dangerous. 10-1 vs FCS.

More likely?

Youngstown State is 8-4, was ranked #18, tough, but beatable? Distance: 2400 miles.

Lamar was #19, lost, and is 8-4. Ended the season losing 3 of 4. Limps in? Texas, 2000 miles away.

Jackson State, 9-2, was #20, HBCU.

NAU 7-5, was #23 (lost), we beat them by 20. Would be a repeat.

New Hampshire was #25, won today, 8-4, I don't know anything about them but their schedule looks lite, Ivys and such. 3,000 miles away.

No pro here, but if we're hosting lower-ranked teams, the lower teams listed here are more likely. NCAA attempts to play regional games, and not have rematches.

Interesting mix. San Jose State is #16, and UC Merced is #18.

I was going through the team statistics, thought it might be worthwhile to post some stats for reference on here regarding the remaining teams. NCAA tracks through the Top 50 team then doesn't list those stats. Getting them here: https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fcs

Turnover Margin
#1 North Dakota State at +19
#9 Incarnate Word at +13
#11 Mercer at +11
#18 South Dakota State at +9
#19 South Dakota at +8
#32 Montana State at +6
#40 UC Davis at +5
Not Listed Idaho

Total Offensive Scoring (Points/Game)
#1 Montana State at 41.3
#2 North Dakota State at 39.7
#4 South Dakota at 37.4
#6 South Dakota State at 36.5
#8 UC Davis at 35.8
#14 Incarnate Word at 35.2
#22 Mercer at 32.4
#42 Idaho at 28.5

Total Defense (Points Allowed per Game)
#1 South Dakota State at 12.85
#3 South Dakota at 16.25
#6 Montana State at 17.00
#12 North Dakota State at 18.31
#16 Mercer at 19.31
#22 Incarnate Word at 21.31
#29 UC Davis at 22.15
#34 Idaho at 22.92

Kickoff Return Yardage (yds/return)
#1 South Dakota at 29.38
#3 North Dakota State at 27.41
#9 Idaho at 25.50
#35 Incarnate Word at 21.50
#46 Mercer at 20.48
Not Listed Montana State
Not Listed South Dakota State
Not Listed UC Davis

Simmons Rating (and Simmons Strength of Schedule)
#1 North Dakota State with 117.4 (SoS No. 6)
#2 South Dakota State with 117.2 (SoS No. 10)
#3 Montana State with 116.5 (SoS No. 45)
#4 South Dakota with 112.3 (SoS No. 23)
#5 Idaho with 107.2 (SoS No. 5)
#6 UC Davis with 105.7 (SoS No. 57)
#7 Incarnate Word with 103.8 (SoS No. 59)
#8 Mercer with 102.7 (SoS No. 60)

We kept the Bobcats to their lowest scoring all season including vs FBS New Mexico (who btw just beat #18 WSU). I do think against elite defenses we'll need to buy Miles more time, and probably obvious, but we need to minimize turnovers

imo we're ranked correctly as a top 4-5 team. Really excited for the Causeway and can hopefully lock down a 4 seed.

We have two #18s, and TT wasn't credited.

That's Plough's job to also look long term (development).

Andrej Stojaković would be a sensational addition to the Aggies and I'd love to see him here. He'd thrive under a great coach like Jim Les and, like you said, he'd be able to play close to home. It appears that academics may be important to him as well since he chose Stanford over many of the top college teams in the nation.

However, I think it's highly unlikely that he'd choose the Aggies over a lot of the bigger, elite programs that will be chasing after him with promises of playing at the at the highest level of college basketball along with some big NIL money to boot. He turned down offers from most of the major D1 programs in the nation to play at Stanford including Duke, UCLA, Oregon, Kentucky, Connecticut and Kansas to name a few and you know many of them will be drooling now that he is in the portal.

Even though he played his high school ball at Jesuit, we didn't offer him probably because Les knew he had very little chance to sign him considering he was the #18 ranked 5 star recruit in the nation. He was offered by USF, Saint Mary's, Santa Barbara and Cal Poly though.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that Jim Les may have special relationship ties with the Stojaković family!

It's not hard to defend against the Aggies. If #3 or #18 are in the backfield, it's a run. If not, it's a pass (and inevitably a check down that gains no yards).

I thought I saw #18 briefly on the field, but I guess not. Does anyone who is streaming the game know what those odd red lines represent?

Ags move up 2 spots to #18 in the FCS Coaches Poll for Week 5:

Big Sky Teams:

#2 Montana State
#3 Idaho
#7 Sac State
#13 Montana
#14 Weber State
#18 Aggies




https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/football/fcs/fcs-coaches-poll

AGS Poll Week 4:

Big Sky teams:

#2 Montana State
#4 Idaho
#7 Sac State
#18 Weber State
#20 Eastern Washington
#22 UC Davis
#25 Montana



https://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?340247-AGS-Poll-Results-2023-Wk4

Ags drop 6 spots in the STATS Perform FCS Poll for Week 4:

Big Sky teams:

#3 Montana State
#4 Idaho
#8 Sac State
#13 Weber State
#18 Montana
#19 Eastern Washington
#21 UC Davis



https://www.aggiesportstalk.com/discussion/2153/fcs-regular-season-polls

This is copied from the Southern Utah “preview”, where they mention these players.
None of these players have the correct class listed
#4 Rex Connors DB 6' 1" Redshirt Freshman
#1 C.J. Hutton WR 5' 9" Sophomore
#3 Lan Larison. RB 6' 0" Sophomore
#18 Trent Tompkins QB 6' 0" Sophomore

Big Sky Week 2 Schedule Pacific Time on Saturday 9/9:

Northern Arizona (0-1) at North Dakota (1-0) 12 pm
Portland State (0-1) at Wyoming (1-0) 1 pm
Cal Poly (1-0) at San Jose State (0-2) 1 pm
Incarnate Word (0-1) at Northern Colorado (0-1) 1 pm
Weber State (1-0) at Northern Iowa (0-1) 2 pm
Montana State (1-0) at South Dakota State (1-0) 4 pm
Idaho (1-0) at Nevada (0-1) 4 pm
Idaho State (0-1) at Utah State (0-1) 5 pm
Eastern Washington (0-1) at Fresno State (1-0) 6 pm
Montana (1-0) at Utah Tech (0-1) 6 pm
Aggies (1-0) at #18 Oregon State (1-0) 6 pm
TAMC (0-1) at Sac State (1-0) 7 pm

All I know is that Oregon State is ranked #18 in the country. Good test for the 17th ranked Aggies. (And yes, I get the difference.)

Updated Stats, right column

Team Statistics

Scoring Offense
Sac St #4 ----- #2
UCD #72 ----- #45

Scoring Defense
UCD #44 ------ #52

Passing Offense
Cal Poly #6 ----- #3
UCD #25 -------- #11

Passing Yds per Completion
Cal Poly #31 ----- #36
UCD #112 -------- #101

Red Zone Offense
Sac St #25 ----- #19
UCD #76 -------- #41

Red Zone Defense
Sac St #44 ----- #36
UCD #79 -------- #77

Turnover Margin
Sac St #6 ----- #18
UCD #15 -------- #11

3rd Down Conversion %
Sac St #11 ----- #5
UCD #49 -------- #50

Completion %
Sac St #11 ----- #12
UCD #28 -------- #16

First Down Defense
UCD #75 --------- #62

Individual Statistics

All Purpose Yards
Ulonzo Gilliam #10 ----- #5

Passing Yards
Miles Gastings #17 ----- #20

Total Tackles
Rex Conners #25 ----- #32

https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fcs

Great thing to see

This article discussed some of the strategies used to increase attendance:

How UC Davis set uncommon attendance marks in an uncommon year
https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2021/12/8/football-how-uc-davis-set-uncommon-attendance-marks-in-an-uncommon-year.aspx

"I think it starts months, years in advance," UC Davis Athletic Director Rocko DeLuca said. "The formula is pretty simple but this year presented some big challenges to figure out how we were going to message and get things done in a safe way. I think on the heels of the pandemic, people were so excited to get together and celebrate something like a football game and that helped feed into it. But you look around the area and that wasn't the case everywhere so I think it was a lot of hard work by our external staff to message and communicate some of those pieces."

“ Despite not being able to host large scale events for a full year and not allowing more than 10,000 fans in the gates until the second home game on Oct. 2, UC Davis' entire season attendance net 11,000 more fans than 2019. The Causeway Classic on Nov. 20 saw a stadium record for attendance and average attendance over five home games surpassed 10,000 spectators.

All of that turnout translated to a 29 percent increase in revenue over the 2019 season, including two record-setting single game revenue marks in homecoming on Oct. 16 and the Causeway Classic.”

it will be interesting to see if they can sustain that without the strong start to the season.
The team has markedly less publicity on their web site than they had prior to the pandemic. One can glean from the team’s twitter account that there is some kind of practice going on but is this spring practice? Or just some organized workouts? I think the team needs to publicize itself because of the lack of media exposure in their market.

The Ags averaged 10,422 in their 2021 home games which ranked #18 out of 128 FCS teams.

1. Jackson State 42,293
2. Montana 24,584
4. Montana State 19,176
15. NDSU 15,101
18. Aggies 10,422
33. Cal Poly 7,952
37. Northern Arizona 7,620
38. Sac State 7,615
59. Weber State 6,404
63. EWU 5,725
74. Norther Colorado 5,168
80. Idaho 4,878
88. Southern Utah 4,591
101. Idaho State 3,674
104. Portland State 3,329

Whole list here: https://herosports.com/2021-fcs-attendance-leaders-bzbz/

Oregon just dismantled Washington State, 83-30. Good grief. WSU shot 17.5% for the game. :grimace:

Oregon just beat UConn, so by the transitive property of sports scores: UCD > UConn.

I doubt it will be this year, but I'm hoping that the lady Aggies could eventually be good enough to make the Big West a two bid conference.

I think the conference is going to be very challenging for the Aggies this year and you know everyone will be gunning for the Ags too.

Looks like the beach is making a push to challenge the Ags. Good. We need tough competition throughout the BW season

LBSU WBB loses to Oregon by nine this afternoon. Oregon won despite 21 TOs--shot better from deep and made more free throws. ORE still missing 2-3 starters due to injury.

That's one nice thing about playing in a one bid league. These games basically don't matter. I mean, you don't want to put up an 0fer or anything like that, but you've got the ability to try things out and give a bunch of players minutes to see what they can do.

It's a reminder to Oregon that the other team wants to win, too, and are under no obligation to make things easy. See also: MBB v AoA. It's a little crazy that they didn't remember what happened last season--or maybe they discounted it because of COVID/prep time/etc? Who knows.

It's maybe also a reminder to not be so full of themselves and their Pac-12-ness. :razz:

Things are not happy in Eugene today. This article from the Oregonian is an example:

https://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/2021/12/oregon-womens-basketball-suffers-one-of-worst-losses-of-kelly-graves-era-fall-to-uc-davis.html

I hope that we will continue to give the bench competitive minutes. It will pay off big time as we get deeper into the season and for next year when the team loses Hall, Stobbart and Konrad. Those are some very big shoes to fill!