Aggie football camp is up and running as Portland State looms
UC Davis football stretches back 111 years to the days of the University Farm
Today is the day UC Davis opens its “fall” football camp in anticipation of the 2026 season.
Seemingly, camp opens earlier every summer, with regular-season games stretching from late August all the way into late November. Then again, if you’re lucky enough to reach the FCS championship game, you can add December and January to the schedule as well.
For me, it marks the 57th year I’ll be covering our local heroes. I’d like to say I started this labor of love in kindergarten, but I was actually much older than that when I interviewed newly hired head coach Jim Sochor even before he had coached his first game.
Turns out, I covered every game Sochor coached in his 19 years, including a dismal 20-6 loss to lowly Occidental in his very first game, a showing that gave no hint of the utter magnificence that was yet to come.
While every home game Sochor coached took place on historic Toomey Field, there is now a stunning statue of this legendary coach just outside the main gate to UC Davis Health Stadium, a mile or so west of what was lovingly known as “The Toom.”
My first football story in 1970 referred to the “California Aggies,” a friendly title that has now morphed into the more proper “UC Davis.”
Tim Plough is now entering his third year as Aggie head coach, after leading UCD to the FCS playoffs in each of his first two seasons.
While Plough quarterbacked the Aggies a number of years after Sochor finished in 1988, he frequently references the late coach when he talks about the kind of head coach he wishes to be and the type of “championship” program he hopes to develop at his alma mater.
“I’m excited about the 2026 season and the opportunity to continue building something special at UC Davis,” Plough noted today as his charges began the first of 25 preseason practices.
“We often talk about finding joy in what we do, and that’s what this program is about. We want to represent UC Davis in a way that brings joy to our players, our university and our community, and gives people a team they’re proud to support.”
If you’ve never met Plough, you have a wonderful opportunity to have “Lunch with the Ball Coach” on August 6 at 11:30 a.m. in the Bruce Edwards Room at the stadium.
Everyone - except Sac State fans - is invited for an hour or so of honest conversation where no question is off-limits. The food’s not bad either.
Put bluntly, I have never heard a football coach at any level be as brutally honest about his joys and frustrations as Plough is, especially with a member of the press in attendance.
If you want the full unvarnished truth, including everything except the game plan for the season opener at Portland State, this is a “don’t miss” opportunity. Click here to purchase tickets.
As has become the norm in recent years, the Aggies open the season with three straight road games, beginning August 29 at Portland State, September 5 at the University of San Diego and September 12 at ACC power Southern Methodist in Dallas.
The SMU contest is what FCS schools refer to as a “money game,” where you’re supposed to show up, play hard, lose gracefully and take home a fat check that helps to fund your athletic program. Few sports can create such a payday like football can.
The Aggies will receive $450,000 for taking the field against the heavily favored Mustangs, who were long ago nicknamed the Pony Express.
So it will be Mustangs versus Mustangs on what is likely to be a hot and muggy afternoon with a 3 p.m. start time in Dallas. (1 p.m. in Davis).
SMU, by the way, is a well-financed emerging power - think oil - that reached the College Football Playoff season before last.
It is, of course, not unheard of for an FCS team to beat an FBS opponent, but it’s best for the victor to get out of town quickly before cashing the check.
Portland State, incidentally, holds the all-time record for margin of victory by an FCS school over an FBS opponent with a 66-7 shellacking of North Texas in 2015.
North Texas coach Dan McCarney was fired before his team could reach the locker room after that game ended.
The Aggies, too, have several wins over FBS schools, with perhaps the most notable being a 2021 come-from-behind, season-opening 19-17 win at Tulsa, which entered the game as a 23.5-point favorite.
It was a sticky evening in Tulsa as the Golden Hurricane nursed a 17-16 lead into the fourth quarter before a 22-yard field goal by Isaiah Gomez gave the Aggies a 19-17 cushion with 7:35 remaining.
Late in the game UCD faced a third-and-four at the Tulsa 49-yard line, needing a first down to run out the clock and take home a hard-earned victory.
My press colleagues from the Tulsa World and The Oklahoman assumed out loud that UCD would simply run the ball into the line to burn some clock and then punt, allowing Tulsa one last chance with the ball.
I waved them off and said that strategy was not in the playbook of Aggie head coach Dan Hawkins.
I told them to expect a short pass in the flat to running back Ulonzo Gilliam. They all shook their heads with amusement.
Unfortunately, I did not place any bets on my prediction.
Indeed, Aggie quarterback Hunter Rodriguez found Gilliam with a short pass, and Gilliam scrambled for an eight-yard gain and a first down.
Game, set, match, UC Davis.
The Aggies celebrated by chowing down Raising Cane’s chicken fingers on the way to the airport for a wildly celebratory flight home.
They have not been invited back to Oklahoma since.
The interesting thing about that game five years ago is that Tulsa was a late replacement for a previously scheduled game at USC.
USC, however, hired a new athletic director after the game was scheduled, and he declared that it was below his school’s dignity to play an FCS opponent. To this day, USC remains as the only FBS institution never to have played an FCS school.
Nevertheless, because of the lateness of the cancellation, the Trojans had to pony up the entire $700,000 guarantee for a game that would never be played. Chump change, perhaps, for Heisman U., but a bonanza for the former University Farm.
UCD brass scrambled quickly for a replacement, finally landing on Tulsa, which offered a $425,000 payoff.
Thus, the Aggies started the season 1-0 with a win over an FBS school and a whopping $1,125,000 in their back pocket.
I didn’t receive any of that cash, but I did get a box full of chicken fingers, plus coleslaw and Texas toast for my efforts to school Oklahoma’s press corps about the soundness of West Coast football strategy.
Go Ags.
Go California Aggies.
Oh, and...
"The Aggies, too, have several wins over FBS schools, with perhaps the most notable being a 2021 come-from-behind, season-opening 19-17 win at Tulsa, which entered the game as a 23.5-point favorite."
I'd still vote UC Davis 20, Stanford 17 on Sept. 17, 2005 as the most notable.
Funny, I never heard of those as a "money game" but rather a "bodybag game" for, you know, reasons.
As for USC buying out, one part of that story few people know: the penalty doubled if they canceled after January 1. What ended up working very well for UC Davis is that the new AD (must have been Mike Bohn) came on very late in the calendar year AND that was a year when our athletics department shut down during late December. I want to say we even had people taking furloughs but I might be thinking of a different year.
In any case, by the time anyone at USC could back out of the game, the calendar had clicked over to the new year. The price had gone up. (I also frequently joked that we should add USC Athletics to the annual donor list for that year.)