Let’s get to it-

The Lion offense faces a familiar foe from last season, the California-Davis Aggies. UCD has some changes that were made over the offseason. Dan (IT”S DIVISION I FOOTBALL!) Hawkins stepped down after the season last year and is now at Idaho State working for his Son, former Colorado Quarterback Cody Hawkins who is the Head Coach at Idaho State. Looks like Hawkins wants to stay up close to where he cut his teeth coaching and be near his son as he coaches an FCS team in the Big Sky conference.

Tim Plough, a 39 year old former Aggie Quarterback is now the Head Coach for UC-Davis. He has a lot of coaching experience and is in the generation of under 40 year old coaches that are making a name for themselves in the FCS. Plough is more of an offensive mind and we will look more at him in the Blue Gang Defensive Preview later on, but I want to focus on what I see possibly happening this Saturday up in the Sacramento Valley.

The Lion offense only scored 14 points and truth be told should have scored at least 28. One score was due to a truly awful call where the officials picked up a flag that was defensive pass interference to anyone who can see better than Helen Keller, and the other was when Jared Wilson made a great catch only to fumble it while trying to get more yards and not protecting the ball adequately. That said, the offensive numbers were not awful. They were not great, but not awful. Between Eric Rodriguez and Ron Peace, the passing yards were 18/25 (72%) for 117 yards. Dolezel talked about a short and quick passing game and that is what we got, but I would like to see more shots downfield and down the seams. Unlike previous coordinators, Dolezel actually believes in throwing to the tight end, but we saw virtually none of that, and that might be because The Lions were looking to establish a running game, and while they did gain 106 yards and moved the ball well between the tackles early on, the Aztec defense got into the Lion backfield and dropped the Lions for 43 lost yards for a paltry 63 yards in the running game. That one was mostly on the line for not protecting in the fourth quarter like they did in the first three quarters. I think they just ran out of gas, and again, depth is an issue against the FBS schools and elite FCS schools.

Our biggest question heading into this game is Eric Rodriguez going to start or does Dolezel go with Ron Peace? If E-Rod is not 100%, he needs to sit. I love E-Rod and he is a stud, but we do nobody any favors but trying to play guys that are not 100 % especially when we have a capable back up. We saw this before in 2021 with trying to force Miklo Smalls to go even though his knee was not 100% and that blew up in our faces. This might be the good chance for Peace to show if he is the man since Dolezel said the QB competition was a close in the fall and in the spring and E-Rod gets the nod because of his experience. Neither one of those guys are chopped liver, but once again, play the guy who gives you the best chance to win this game. We also need to get more guys involved in the offense but that all depends on how well the line blocks and how well the skill guys get open. Dolezel’s play calling was aggressive and I have no doubt that made us look better than last season, but you have to have receivers not drop catchable passes and the line has to protect or you are sunk. That is just basic offensive football.

The Aggies played their mothership school in the UC System, The California (Berkeley) Bears, home of the great free speech movements of the 1960’s and NFL legend Aaron Rodgers, Cal found themselves in a similar situation as San Diego State did. Davis was down by 1 going into the half, making the game much closer than the Bears would have liked. Despite losing 31-13, the Aggie offense actually out gained Berkeley in just about every category and the Aggie defense played pretty well against a Cal team that went 6-7 and lost to Texas Tech in the Independence Bowl last year. Cal had 16 first downs with only 1 coming via penalty, but nothing explosive was really allowed. Despite the 31 points scored against them, the Aggie defense is not to be taken lightly. They are not as good as they were last year and the Lion offense is better than last year, I don’t think a whole lot has changed, but there might be just enough to make it interesting in the Sacramento Valley this Saturday.