UC Davis had it all figured out in the second quarter at Southern Utah on Saturday. The Aggies turned three possessions into two touchdowns and a field goal. They drove 64 yards in the final 44 seconds of the quarter to put Robert Meyer in position to kick a 29-yard field goal that gave UC Davis a 17-9 halftime lead.
And that was it. UC Davis did not score again. This was the first time in Tim Plough’s three seasons as head coach that the Aggies were shut out in the second half of a game after scoring in the first. The Thunderbirds scored two touchdowns in the third quarter and added two more in the fourth to pull away for a 38-17 win.
UC Davis is 2-2 in the Big Sky Conference and 4-3 overall. The Aggies made it to the FCS playoffs last year with two Big Sky losses. Losing to Montana on Sept. 26 was not a surprise because the Aggies have had little luck in facing the Grizzlies. UC Davis had been 4-0 against Southern Utah since a 47-27 defeat in 2017.
No margin of error remains for UC Davis, which dropped from 12th to 21st in the FCS coaches poll and 14th to 20th in the Stats Perform Top 25. Weber State joined the Stats Perform poll at No. 22 as the fifth ranked Big Sky team. The others are No. 3 Montana State, No. 7 Northern Arizona, No. 14 Montana and UC Davis.
Weber State did not make the FCS coaches poll. The Wildcats are the last ranked team as of now that the Aggies will face this season. UC Davis will host Northern Colorado on Saturday and then travel to Weber State on Oct. 31. That game could very well decide which of those teams will advance to the FCS playoffs.
Plough will have enough on his mind this week to spend one second thinking about Weber State. As usual, he took the blame for last Saturday’s loss. “I’ve got to get this team ready to play its best football and too many times I haven’t,” Plough lamented. “Don’t look past me if you’re looking to be upset with anybody.”
UC Davis gained 213 yards in the second quarter, nearly half of its total of 441, with touchdown drives of 75 and 74 yards. Jordan Fisher capped the first with a 3-yard run for his eighth touchdown, matching his 2025 total. Quarterback Treynor Cleeland scored on a 19-yard run, his longest of the season.
Cleeland threw for 248 yards, but the redshirt freshman did not have a touchdown pass for the second time in seven games and was intercepted twice for the first time. Cleeland has tossed 13 touchdown passes in the Aggies’ four victories and one in the three losses. If Cleeland is not generating points, the offense is in trouble.
All the momentum that UC Davis built in the second quarter dissipated when the Aggies went three and out to start the third quarter. Southern Utah moved the ball with relative ease on its first possession, driving 73 yards in 13 plays and draining 8:02 off the clock for a touchdown and two-point conversion to tie it at 17-all.
Being on the field for eight minutes takes a toll on defense. The Aggies were sucking wind with the game in Cedar City at an elevation of 5,800 feet. The defense needed the offense to come to the rescue and sustain a drive, but the Aggies’ ensuing possession lasted four plays and took all of 1:23. That was hardly a break.
The offense then left the defense in a bind when Plough gambled by calling a fake punt on fourth-and-8 at the UC Davis 27. Punter Dylan Mauro’s pass to Mason Walsh gained just six yards, however. Southern Utah got the ball at the 33 and pulled ahead 24-17 on Will Burns’ 6-yard touchdown pass to tight end Joshua Acord.
Southern Utah ran for 315 yards to become the second team to reach 300 against UC Davis in the Aggies’ past three games. Montana had 366 in a 62-22 win Sept. 26. The Big Sky’s top two rushers ran wild against UC Davis with Montana’s Eli Gillman gaining 275 yards and Southern Utah’s Floyd Chalk finishing with 212.
UC Davis wore down on defense in the second half of both games. Gillman had 84 yards and a touchdown in the third quarter and opened the fourth with a 58-yard scoring dash. Chalk scored on a 37-yard run in the fourth quarter and gained 35 yards on his last carry as Southern Utah drove 78 yards for its final touchdown.
“I thought we competed hard with (Southern Utah) in the first half. In the second half, things got away from us,” Plough said. “Either you win or you learn and we learned a valuable lesson.” The remaining five games will determine the value of that Southern Utah lesson.
