Protecting quarterback Miles Hastings is becoming a problem at UC Davis. The senior entered this season without being sacked more than once in a quarter or three times in a game. He was sacked three times Sept. 14 in the fourth quarter at Southern Utah and Utah Tech got four sacks last week.
And here comes Idaho on Saturday night. The fourth-ranked Vandals have 13 sacks to rank second along with Montana in the Big Sky Conference. Sacramento State leads the Big Sky with 16. Idaho has had at least two sacks in each of four games and got four in defeating Albany 41-13 last week.
Hastings remained upright at Idaho in 2022 when UC Davis scored 31 points the first half on its way to a 44-26 win. The Aggies gave the Vandals few opportunities to rush Hastings by running the ball on 50 of 69 plays. UC Davis gained 251 yards and scored five touchdowns on the ground.
UC Davis got on a roll in 2022 by rushing for more than 200 yards in six consecutive games. The Aggies won five of those games with the fifth being Idaho. The 2022 season was the only one in the past 12 years in which the Aggies had more than four 200-yard rushing games in a season.
The only chance UC Davis has of running for 200 yards in a game this season will be if senior Lan Larison can do it on his own. The senior has had 68 percent of the team’s rushing attempts in four games, gaining 403 yards on 88 of the Aggies’ 130 rushing attempts. Larison has accounted for 80 percent of the Aggies’ 507 rushing yards. Senior Matteo Perez is second in carries with a mere 19 for 65 yards.
Larison had a lighter workload in 2023 with 178 of the team’s 392 rushing attempts (45 percent). With Larison averaging 22 carries per game, he would have had 244 attempts (62 percent) if he had not missed three games with a knee injury. Junior Trent Tompkins was second with 70 carries (18 percent).
Tompkins is recovering from a knee injury, so he has yet to have a rushing attempt this season and has one reception for 9 yards. His offensive contributions for the Aggies have been sorely missed.
The closest UC Davis has come to having a one-two punch was in 2018 with Ulonzo Gilliam and Tehran Thomas. Gilliam had 186 of 447 attempts (42 percent) for 976 yards and Thomas 102 (23 percent) for 686. The duo paved the way for UC Davis to finish 10-3, share the Big Sky championship and advance to the FCS playoffs for the first time.
UC Davis relied on Gilliam too much in 2019, when he had 68 percent of the rushing attempts. He ran for a career-high 1,249 yards, but the Aggies finished 3-5 in the Big Sky and 5-7 overall. Tim Plough was the offensive coordinator in 2019 and is now the head coach who calls all the plays.
Hopefully Plough does not have a short memory.
SACRAMENTO STATE: Cornerback Elias Mullican shared the Big Sky Defensive Player of the Week award after having two interceptions and returning one for a touchdown, in a 34-0 victory at Texas A&M-Commerce last Saturday. Mullican shared the honor with Weber State’s Kemari Munier-Bailey.
The award was the first for Mullican, a sophomore, and Sacramento State’s second in two weeks after linebacker Will Leota was honored Sept. 16. Senior Murvin Kenion III also had an interception for the Hornets, who recorded their first shutout since 2021 and just the fourth in the past 20 years.
Coach Andy Thompson’s team will hit the road for the fourth time in five weeks for Saturday’s Big. Sky opener at Northern Arizona. The Hornets pulled out a 31-30 victory over the Lumberjacks last year when tight Coleman Kuntz scored the go-ahead touchdown on a 2-yard run with 8:31 to play.
Kuntz plays fullback in goal-line situations and scored four touchdowns on just six carries last year. The junior had two carries in the season opener at San Jose State on Aug. 29 and lost a fumble on fourth-and-goal at the 1-yard line in the second quarter. The turnover proved costly in a 42-24 loss.
Now all Kuntz has to do now is catch a touchdown pass. He has yet to score as a receiver despite catching 38 passes for 402 yards in his career. Kuntz has 13 receptions for 95 yards so far in 2024.
