‘Greatest season in UC Davis history’: No. 4 Aggies host No. 2 Montana State in FCS showcase
The coach said it clear as day, reminding that his football team is worth a peek or refresher.
UC Davis’ Tim Plough offered up a quick-hit video plea outside the athletic facilities on Sunday to encourage people young and old and those near and far to fill and overflow UC Davis Health Stadium on Saturday night for the Game of the Year. He punctuated it with this bit of reason and logic:
“This is the greatest season in UC Davis football history.”
The coach is correct. This is a team for the Aggies ages, rolling with a nine-game winning streak, boasting of an FCS No. 4 national ranking and engineered by one of the program’s finest quarterbacks in Miles Hastings and one of their most dynamic players, period, in All-American running back Lan Larison.
UCD this weekend has a chance to enhance any discussion of greatness if it takes down the No. 2-ranked Montana State Bobcats, a 17-time Big Sky Conference champion over the decades that roars into town on Saturday night at 10-0 with a championship at stake. A victory would give the Aggies this unique first: defeating a Top 5 program twice in a single season, the first such effort coming earlier over then-No. 5 Idaho.
A victory in the FCS Game of the Week would inch the Aggies closer to their second Big Sky crown since 2018, when Plough was a plucky young UCD assistant coach, and a triumph would surely go a long way in securing a top seed for the 24-team FCS playoffs, should the Aggies also defeat Sacramento State in the 70th Causeway Classic on Nov. 23. High playoff seeds equate to more home games, and the Aggies have been especially good at home. UCD is 5-0 on its turf.
But will fans show up? The stakes are too high, the team too good, the venue to nice not to have a sell out.
“It’s the biggest game in Aggies history because in the Division I era, we’ve never had a nine-game winning streak playing against team with a 10-game winning streak with a chance to win the championship on the line at home,” Plough said during his media session Monday. “I would just hope our community and students would recognize that this team is special and they deserve support. They deserve effort from other people. They deserve that effort from students and the community to fill the stadium and give them an atmosphere worthy of a championship game.”
Plough added: “Full transparency: There’s some doubt in our players that they’re going to have that support. I am hoping they get pleasantly surprised.”
Plough is in his first season as head coach at his alma mater, and he admitted that the team’s success happened quicker than he dared imagine. Moved by his team’s inspired 30-14 win at then-No. 7 Montana last week, televised on ESPN2, Plough told media, “I’m just so proud of them. They just play together so well. I didn’t know we’d have this much success so soon.”
UCD has had great teams before
To gauge the best of the best, one has to consider the talent pool of which the Aggies have waded in, including decades of excellence in Division II before the move up to the Division I-AA ranks in 2004, now commonly known as the FCS. Great seasons are one thing, but great teams producing great seasons are what make for all-timers.
UCD’s nine-game winning streak is the program’s longest at the FCS. The No. 4 ranking is also the highest as an FCS program. The Aggies have trotted out competitive teams, championship teams, a dud here and there, and some star-studded outfits in their 106-year history of blocking and tackling in Yolo County, but none of them had this much riding on the final games and a playoff tournament looming.
The Aggies once reeled off a record 37 consecutive winning seasons, spanning coaches Jim Sochor, Bob Foster and Bob Biggs. The famed 1982 team that went 12-1 and played for the Division II national championship was coached by a college Hall of Famer in Sochor and quarterbacked by another, Ken O’Brien, also a 1983 NFL first-round draft choice.
Former Aggies coach Dan Hawkins deemed his 2022 UCD team as the program’s best, saying before that season opener: “With all due respect to the Aggies teams of the past, I think this is the best Aggie team in the history of Aggie football. We have more quality players up and down our roster than we’ve had here in the Division I era.”
That Aggies team was as talented as it was unlucky. They went 6-5, undone by close losses and injuries. Hawkins was right then with his preseason assessment, and Plough is right now on his declaration that this is the greatest season in Aggies lore. The coach was also correct in saying that for the Aggies to become elite in the Big Sky, they have to beat the blue bloods of the conference. Those are the Montana schools.
One down, one to go.
Montana State coach sizes up Aggies
Last week, UCD’s offensive balance and defensive tenacity beat a Montana Grizzlies program that was 9-1 all-time against the Aggies. The other UCD win over Montana was in 2018, in Missoula, which helped the Aggies go on to win a share of the Big Sky under Hawkins.
Now UCD faces a Montana State program that owns a 6-1 record against the Aggies since 2006, including 3-0 in Davis. The Bobcats have won the last six of the series. Montana State is coming off a 49-7 home rout of Sacramento State, rushing for 511 yards and playing suffocating defense. Montana coach Bobby Hauck called Larison, UCD’s leading rusher, the top player in the Big Sky.
Montana State coach Brent Vigen praised the Aggies senior back on Monday to local Montana media, saying that UCD is masterful in “finding ways to get him involved. He’s lining up at Wildcat (taking direct snaps). He’s throwing the ball. He’s really effective in so many different ways.”
The 2023 Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year, Larison this season has rushed for 1,061 yards and 10 touchdowns. He also leads the Aggies with 46 receptions for 577 yards and six scores.
“We’ve got to be ready for just about anything,” Vigen said of the Aggies.
No. 2 Montana State (10-0) at No. 4 UC Davis (9-1)
When: Saturday, 5 p.m.
On air: MY58 TV, Sactown Sports 1140, ESPN+
Of note: Miles Hastings has passed for 3,027 yards for UCD, the fourth most in the FCS this season, and his 26 touchdown passes are third best. His last interception was on Oct. 5 against Portland State, a game Hastings won with a last-play touchdown pass. UCD ranks third in the Big Sky in total defense, presenting quite the challenge against Montana State’s powerhouse rushing attack, led by Scottre Humphrey, who is averaging 119 yards rushing for a team that leads the FCS with 333 yards rushing per contest. UCD has forced 19 turnovers, including interceptions at Montana from brothers Porter and Rex Connors. Montana State quarterback Tommy Mellott has passed for 1,688 yards and 19 TDs. The Bobcats are the best team in the FCS, according to some media and coaching votes.