The most unofficial Bobcat gameday thread - UC Davis

[grizzh8r]

This WAS NOT the game to watch on replay... Got home late after a day spent with my kid's great grandparents, and had to wait for the ESPN+ replay to load. An the ESPN replay is 3:59 long? Figured the game must have gotten drawn out by a delay. First half flew by! Keep wondering to myself " how did this game last 4 hours after that blitz of a first half?
Then the missed FG at the end of the 1st half gives me a terrible sense of foreboding. 3rd quarter rolls along with the cats generally dominating, but only scoring the one TD, still almost 2 hours of game left, according to ESPN+. 4th quarter rolls along with the knot in my gut tightening, even though the cats are up 30-8. Just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sure enough, that last 7 minutes was a TERRIFYING watch. They score the last TD with still almost 45 minutes left on the replay, and I'm steeling myself for a long, back and forth OT session, which between these two teams is a coin flip. Then the O'Reilly pick on the 2 point try happens, and I'm thinking to myself "what?!?!?!" Wracking my brain as to how UCD could possibly score 2 points and send it to overtime... Cats recover the second on side kick, and I'm still in disbelief, wondering if somehow in victory formation, the ball squirts free, and some crazy rugby style scrum ensues, with MSU getting tackled in the end zone with the ball to give UCD a safety.... Instead, it simply appears ESPN let the COMMERCIAL BREAK screen run for 30+ minutes after the conclusion of the game, just to stress me out.

I'm DONE with this day, emotionally draining last 3 hours trying to get my bobcat football fix...

11-0, bring on dUMb....

[Helcat72]

Davis coming back was 100% on the coaching staff. I saw more plays in the last 7 minutes that if Tommy pulls the ball he goes for 20-30 yards. Our play calling goes soft, we think it’s in the bag and then that crap happens. That said, if that game was played in Bozeman, I think we win by 30 points. If we don’t show up next weekend and don’t get home field all the way through the playoffs, we could be in some trouble. At home, I don’t think we can be stopped.

What would you be saying about the coaches had Tommy been injured on a run play in the fourth quarter of a 30-8 game?

My thought exactly! Let him run all he wants after we get a 20 point lead on NDSU with 1:00 minute to go in the chipper!

[91catAlum]

I can't find the yards of offense totals anywhere. Only got to watch the 2nd half of the game. Did the Cats get to 307?

Yes 333 total - 159 rushing, 174 passing.

Davis had 416 - 92 rush, 324 passing.

[GoCats18]

Why would he have gotten injured? He could have ran for 10 yards and slid. It was so open because it was obvious we were handing it to Davis.

LOL. You take every opportunity to go negative and would have destroyed the coaches if Tommy got hurt. It's not as easy to avoid taking a hit as you seem to think.

He has made it 10 games running the ball without an injury. Any player can get hurt on any given play. I guess maybe we should have recruited better if everyone thinks that the next man up isn’t capable of leading this team to a win.

[89Cat]

There is no reason the game should have been as close as it was. Period. The Cats not going for it on a 4th and 2 in opponent’s territory was a very weak call. If they get it, game over. If they don’t, you still have the defense there to stop the other team from getting 15 points in the final 2:30 of the game. That was extremely frustrating.

Instead, we punt it into the end zone and gain 20 yards. Horrible call. I kept thinking, “We’re one big play from screwing this up,” and it happened. Still, I felt there was no way they recover an inside kick. Then it was like WTF? Then I was thinking that the worst case scenario was that we go to OT. Somehow we escaped with a victory.
I thought the play calling in the entire second was way too conservative. I get wanting to limit Tommy’s carries but I felt that he could have kept it a few times and busted one. When you get up on a team like that and have the momentum, you have to stomp on them not play not to lose. The second have it was just rum Julius between the tackles then punt. I don’t think they called one fly sweep last night. Speaking of which, why can’t we hold the edge on defense? Gregorak mentioned it a few times last night after Davis repeatedly got to the outside on us. That’s driven me nuts all year long.

[mslacatfan]

Weird game, but no matter how ya slice it- we got the win on the road, vs a top 5 team!

Huge win no matter how it played out!

Big sky champs! 11-0! LETS FCKIN GO!!!!

[GoCats18]

So, anyone watching on TV cannot answer this, only someone that was actually at the game and was paying attention (no TV angle showed what happened). On the deep pass with 2:00 left, they called PI on the DB. Was this the correct call? All you see on the TV broadcast his him standing back up from the sideline, which to me makes it seem like he was pushed by the WR.

[MSU01]

Why would he have gotten injured? He could have ran for 10 yards and slid. It was so open because it was obvious we were handing it to Davis.

LOL. You take every opportunity to go negative and would have destroyed the coaches if Tommy got hurt. It's not as easy to avoid taking a hit as you seem to think.

He has made it 10 games running the ball without an injury. Any player can get hurt on any given play. I guess maybe we should have recruited better if everyone thinks that the next man up isn’t capable of leading this team to a win.

[GoldstoneCat]

Why would he have gotten injured? He could have ran for 10 yards and slid. It was so open because it was obvious we were handing it to Davis.

LOL. You take every opportunity to go negative and would have destroyed the coaches if Tommy got hurt. It's not as easy to avoid taking a hit as you seem to think.

He has made it 10 games running the ball without an injury. Any player can get hurt on any given play. I guess maybe we should have recruited better if everyone thinks that the next man up isn’t capable of leading this team to a win.

The next man up at QB isn't taking us where we want to go. Period. And Vigen/housewright got absolutely lambasted on this board for Tommy up the middle in 4th and 1 against NDSU. I'm not saying don't go for it there, maybe we should have, but applying "next man up" to QB and our attempt to win a national championship is a bad argument.

[Cats15]

This WAS NOT the game to watch on replay... Got home late after a day spent with my kid's great grandparents, and had to wait for the ESPN+ replay to load. An the ESPN replay is 3:59 long? Figured the game must have gotten drawn out by a delay. First half flew by! Keep wondering to myself " how did this game last 4 hours after that blitz of a first half?
Then the missed FG at the end of the 1st half gives me a terrible sense of foreboding. 3rd quarter rolls along with the cats generally dominating, but only scoring the one TD, still almost 2 hours of game left, according to ESPN+. 4th quarter rolls along with the knot in my gut tightening, even though the cats are up 30-8. Just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sure enough, that last 7 minutes was a TERRIFYING watch. They score the last TD with still almost 45 minutes left on the replay, and I'm steeling myself for a long, back and forth OT session, which between these two teams is a coin flip. Then the O'Reilly pick on the 2 point try happens, and I'm thinking to myself "what?!?!?!" Wracking my brain as to how UCD could possibly score 2 points and send it to overtime... Cats recover the second on side kick, and I'm still in disbelief, wondering if somehow in victory formation, the ball squirts free, and some crazy rugby style scrum ensues, with MSU getting tackled in the end zone with the ball to give UCD a safety.... Instead, it simply appears ESPN let the COMMERCIAL BREAK screen run for 30+ minutes after the conclusion of the game, just to stress me out.

I'm DONE with this day, emotionally draining last 3 hours trying to get my bobcat football fix...

11-0, bring on dUMb....

LOL! It was stressful enough watching it live. To think there is still 30 minutes left after the pick of the 2 point conversion would driven me crazy! Double OT… glad it did not come down to that

[nanacat]

I can't find the yards of offense totals anywhere. Only got to watch the 2nd half of the game. Did the Cats get to 307?

Yes 333 total - 159 rushing, 174 passing.

Davis had 416 - 92 rush, 324 passing.

Thanks!

[nanacat]

Is it possible that the 1st team defense not playing all 4 quarters in most of the games this season had an effect on the 4th quarter let down? Maybe there was some conservative play calling, but the defense was so dominate in most of the game and had to be gassed those last 6 minutes. The offense not going for it on 4th and 1 (or 2), probably contributed due to the defense not getting a very long break. It's been great for the 2s and 3s to get so much game experience but it may be a detriment to the 1s. Hopefully lessons learned.
Also on that long run by Davis toward the end, it sure looked like he was out of bounds up towards the 20. Besides the phantom PI I think there was a call missed.

There's no way to definitively know on your question about the first team having not played much in the 4th most games. An argument can as easily be made that they performed so well in the first 3.5 quarters because they were fresher due to their limited play.

I've taken as close look as I can of that late run down the sideline because I thought there was a good chance that he had stepped out but near as I can tell he didn't step out. There's one step where he is on the ball of his foot and his heel would've been out but he never put his heel down. His next step was very close but not out. Does anyone know if that could've been challenged by the coaching staff?

Crap now you've triggered the OCD in me and I'm going to go back and look again.

Haha sorry

Yeah I'm back already and there is one frame that when looked at all by itself looks like his right foot is out but when looked at frame by frame before and after it appears that he was not out. Thank goodness it doesn't matter and I'm at peace with it again.

Appreciate your dedicated research!

[GoCats18]

Why would he have gotten injured? He could have ran for 10 yards and slid. It was so open because it was obvious we were handing it to Davis.

LOL. You take every opportunity to go negative and would have destroyed the coaches if Tommy got hurt. It's not as easy to avoid taking a hit as you seem to think.

He has made it 10 games running the ball without an injury. Any player can get hurt on any given play. I guess maybe we should have recruited better if everyone thinks that the next man up isn’t capable of leading this team to a win.

The next man up at QB isn't taking us where we want to go. Period. And Vigen/housewright got absolutely lambasted on this board for Tommy up the middle in 4th and 1 against NDSU. I'm not saying don't go for it there, maybe we should have, but applying "next man up" to QB and our attempt to win a national championship is a bad argument.

I’m not talking about a 4th and 1. Go back and watch our last drive that is around the 5:00 minute mark. I can count at least 5 plays where if we were actually trying to seal the deal and Tommy pulls the ball, something he hadn’t done all game, he goes 10 yards untouched and picks up a first down. I get that we don’t want him to get injured, but he could get injured getting sacked, throwing a pass, walking to the huddle…..we wouldn’t be undefeated right now if Tommy doesn’t run in previous games because we don’t want him to get hurt. Plain and simple.

[Colter_Nuanez]

[KIX]

Why would he have gotten injured? He could have ran for 10 yards and slid. It was so open because it was obvious we were handing it to Davis.

LOL. You take every opportunity to go negative and would have destroyed the coaches if Tommy got hurt. It's not as easy to avoid taking a hit as you seem to think.

He has made it 10 games running the ball without an injury. Any player can get hurt on any given play. I guess maybe we should have recruited better if everyone thinks that the next man up isn’t capable of leading this team to a win.

The next man up at QB isn't taking us where we want to go. Period. And Vigen/housewright got absolutely lambasted on this board for Tommy up the middle in 4th and 1 against NDSU. I'm not saying don't go for it there, maybe we should have, but applying "next man up" to QB and our attempt to win a national championship is a bad argument.

I’m not talking about a 4th and 1. Go back and watch our last drive that is around the 5:00 minute mark. I can count at least 5 plays where if we were actually trying to seal the deal and Tommy pulls the ball, something he hadn’t done all game, he goes 10 yards untouched and picks up a first down. I get that we don’t want him to get injured, but he could get injured getting sacked, throwing a pass, walking to the huddle…..we wouldn’t be undefeated right now if Tommy doesn’t run in previous games because we don’t want him to get hurt. Plain and simple.

Yep, agree. Coaches have taken the "be conservative with Tommy" to another level this year.

[KIX]

There is no reason the game should have been as close as it was. Period. The Cats not going for it on a 4th and 2 in opponent’s territory was a very weak call. If they get it, game over. If they don’t, you still have the defense there to stop the other team from getting 15 points in the final 2:30 of the game. That was extremely frustrating.

[Augustus]

I'm pretty happy with the way Tommy has been utilized this year. I grew tired of previous years' game plans of using our QB more than our RBs. We used three running plays: Tommy left, Tommy right, and Tommy up the middle. It was olde, predictable, and put the kid at irresponsible and unnecessary risk. There are times when tucking the ball and booking are certainly appropriate, but I'm not a fan of designed QB run plays. That's why we have RBs.

So far they're doing everything right enough (with the exception of not going for a 4th and 1 ), and we're 11-0 and poised to go undefeated for the first time in program history. Let's not lose sight of that.

[Hawks86]

I blame the coaches for being 11-0.

[BleedingBLue]

There is no reason the game should have been as close as it was. Period. The Cats not going for it on a 4th and 2 in opponent’s territory was a very weak call. If they get it, game over. If they don’t, you still have the defense there to stop the other team from getting 15 points in the final 2:30 of the game. That was extremely frustrating.

Instead, we punt it into the end zone and gain 20 yards. Horrible call. I kept thinking, “We’re one big play from screwing this up,” and it happened. Still, I felt there was no way they recover an inside kick. Then it was like WTF? Then I was thinking that the worst case scenario was that we go to OT. Somehow we escaped with a victory.
I thought the play calling in the entire second was way too conservative. I get wanting to limit Tommy’s carries but I felt that he could have kept it a few times and busted one. When you get up on a team like that and have the momentum, you have to stomp on them not play not to lose. The second have it was just rum Julius between the tackles then punt. I don’t think they called one fly sweep last night. Speaking of which, why can’t we hold the edge on defense? Gregorak mentioned it a few times last night after Davis repeatedly got to the outside on us. That’s driven me nuts all year long.

The last punt was downed at the 10, it didn't result in a touchback.

We didn't run any sweeps last night because Davis is very fast and sideline to sideline they shut runs down.

We set the edge pretty damn well all night. There were 3 or 4 runs where it didn't get set and Davis went for 8-12 yards. For the majority of the game though there was a great edge. Larison's patience makes keeping the edge very tough sometimes.

[49thparallel]

So, anyone watching on TV cannot answer this, only someone that was actually at the game and was paying attention (no TV angle showed what happened). On the deep pass with 2:00 left, they called PI on the DB. Was this the correct call? All you see on the TV broadcast his him standing back up from the sideline, which to me makes it seem like he was pushed by the WR.

I wondered about this, too. It looked like a really bad PI call and the playback didn't show everything. The fumble recovery in the end zone also looked like they blew the play dead before it was actually over. No doubt these were momentum killers but you can't let bad play calls prevent you from getting the stops. Not sure my cardiovascular health can take another game like that