UC Davis finished in a three-way tie for the 2018 Big Sky Conference championship despite losing to one of the teams that shared the title and not facing the other. Eastern Washington beat UC Davis and lost to Weber State, which complained about sharing the title with a team it did not play.

Weber State did play Northern Arizona and lost 28-24 to a team that usually finishes in the middle of the Big Sky pack. It was the same Northern Arizona team that lost 42-20 to UC Davis a month later. Weber State shared the title by handing Eastern Washington its only Big Sky loss that season.

That Weber State beat Eastern Washington a week after losing to Northern Arizona shows how costly it can be for a team to get caught looking too far ahead. Every Big Sky team knows the games it has to win in the  championship race and the ones it cannot afford to lose. UC Davis knows that all too well.

UC Davis expected to be 4-0 in the Big Sky when  it played Montana on Oct. 27, 2018. The Aggies were unbeaten by the skin of their teeth. UC Davis trailed by 15 points with 13:29 left against Idaho State, scored twice in the final 8:30 to force overtime and dodged a bullet with a  44-37 victory. 

Jake Maier threw for 382 yards and five touchdowns to lift the Aggies, but his biggest play of the day was chasing down Adkin Aguirre after throwing an interception at the Idaho State 2 in the first quarter. Aguirre’s 83-yard return came to an abrupt end when he was knocked off his feet by Maier.

UC Davis saved its season and then beat Montana for the first time in eight tries to vault into title contention. A win at Eastern Washington would have left the Aggies needing to beat Sacramento State to claim the championship outright. The Eagles had other ideas in a convincing 59-20 victory.

Finishing 7-1 in the Big Sky and 10-3 overall in 2018 seemed as if it would be a launching pad for UC Davis to become a perennial contender. It turned out to be the beginning of the end for head coach Dan Hawkins. The Aggies did not win more than five Big Sky games in his last four seasons.

Hawkins was upstaged by Troy Taylor, who guided Sacramento State to Big Sky titles in each of his first three seasons. Push came to show in 2023 when former UC Davis offensive coordinator Tim Plough was offered the same job at Cal after one season as tight ends coach for the Golden Bears.

Plough returned to his alma mater in 2024 and the impact was immediate. UC Davis was second in the Big Sky at 7-1 with the only loss being 30-28 to second-ranked Montana State, which was 10-0 at the time. The Bobcats won their other seven Big Sky games by an average of 28.2 points.

UC Davis nearly squandered its shot at the title when it trailed 26-21 at Portland State on Oct. 5 with 1:50 and 94 yards to go. Miles Hastings was 6-of-11 for 81 yards, including a 10-yarder to Lan Larison on fourth-and-7 at the UC Davis 22 and an 11-yarder to Trent Tompkins for a 27-26 victory.

The Aggies were 10.5-point favorites in 2024 and are favored by 24.5 points in Saturday’s season opener at Portland State. The game is also the Big Sky opener for both teams. With the conference at 13 teams, each team will play nine Big Sky games. There are two Friday and four Saturday. 

Portland State was an unexpected hurdle for UC Davis, which faced trips to Eastern Washington and Montana. The Aggies beat the Eagles for the first time in 12 tries by building a 28-9 halftime on the way to a 48-38 victory. UC Davis beat Montana 30-14 for just its second win in the 11-game series. 

The two-point loss to Montana State made the Aggies confident that they could beat the Bobcats in the rematch last season. Both teams were not unbeaten as they were in 2024 because UC Davis lost 38-36 to Idaho State two weeks earlier. The loss dropped UC Davis from sixth to 12th in the rankings. The win did not earn Idaho State a single vote.