UC Davis home football opener is a rivalry rumble against Cal Poly
As milestone moments go, this one hits with little fanfare and just about as much audience, no thanks to COVID-19.
UC Davis will play the 1,000th game in its 102-year history Saturday, a 1 p.m. home date with rival Cal Poly in a spring game that otherwise would make for quite a draw. But pandemic concerns will not allow a home crowd. The game will be televised on CW31 and on Sports 1140 radio.
Par for the course, this contest was pushed to this week after the Feb. 27 initial date was delayed due to COVID-19 issues with the Mustangs program in San Luis Obispo. There is a spring season because the Big Sky Conference pushed it into the spring due to COVID-19 concerns.
Ranked 21st in the FCS, UCD is 1-1, beating Idaho in Moscow 27-17 with a second-half rally sparked by quarterback Hunter Rodrigues of Whitney High School and American River College roots. The Aggies also lost at No. 2 Weber State 18-13 after leading 10-0 at the half.
Cal Poly lost its lone game, last week to Southern Utah 34-24 in coach Beau Baldwin’s Mustangs debut. He is familiar with UCD, sporting a 3-0 mark against the Aggies from his head-coaching tenure at Eastern Washington, which included winning the FCS national championship in 2010.
This series has been branded as “The Battle For the Golden Horseshoe” since 2004. UCD leads the series since that time 9-7 and 23-20-2 all time. The schools first met in football in 1939 and have played annually since 1978.
UCD is balanced on offense under first-year offensive coordinator Cody Hawkins, son of head coach Dan Hawkins, who is 3-0 against Cal Poly as the Aggies’ leader. UCD averages 194 yards rushing and 209 yards passing. Rodrigues has passed for 382 yards and four touchdowns and Ulonzo Gilliam has run for 208 yards and two scores. True freshman Lan Larison has rushed for 104 yards and a score.
Gilliam has 2,433 career rushing yards, goo for fourth on the program’s all-time list. Ron Austin is third with 2,968 yards from 197780.
Jalen Hamler passed for 272 yards and three touchdowns for Cal Poly in its opener, two to Quintin Harrison. The Mustangs managed just 42 net yards rushing, in part because Hamler was sacked seven times.