Cal Football: First Look at UC Davis, the Bears' Opening Day Opponent

Aggies jumped out to a 10-0 lead at Cal three years before the Bears won 27-13.

Cal opens its season Saturday at Memorial Stadium against a UC Davis team that is 0-10 all-time against the Bears. The Aggies are 2-23 vs. current members of the Pac-12, and one of those wins came against Arizona 99 years ago.

So why is Cal coach Justin Wilcox wary of the Aggies?

He remembers how Davis gave the Bears a battle just three years ago, when the Aggies jumped out to a 10-0 lead after the first quarter before Cal came back to win 27-13.

The 14-point margin was, by far, the closest in a series that dates back 90 years. The Bears had outscored Davis by a combined margin of 351-23 their first nine meetings.

The Aggies are coached by Dan Hawkins, in his sixth season with the program after previous head-coaching stops at Boise State (2001-05), Colorado (2006-10) and the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes (2013).

During Hawkins’ stint at Boise he employed Wilcox as a graduate assistant in 2001 and ’02, his first assignment as a college coach.

So, yes, Wilcox knows Hawkins and has respect for his program.

“They’re going to be well-coached,” Wilcox says in the video at the top of this story. “They’re going to play extremely hard. They have good players — we know some of their players well.”

Tight end McCallan Castles played two seasons at Cal before transferring to Davis, where last season he caught 27 passes for 387 yards and four touchdowns. Castles has been named to a pair of preseason FCS All-America teams.

Also familiar to the Bears is linebacker Evan Tattersall, who played four seasons in Berkeley and transferred to Davis this year as a graduate student.

The Aggies exited spring ball without a clear-cut starter at quarterback, but among the glut of contenders is junior Jack Newman, who came to Cal as a preferred walk-on for spring ball in 2019. By mid-season the next fall the North Bay native left Berkeley, and last season he led City College of San Francisco to a 13-0 state championship season, passing 3,583 yards and 38 touchdowns.

Cal also knows the Aggies’ most prominent player, fifth-year running back Ulonzo Gilliam Jr., who is the program’s No. 2 all-time rusher (3,435 yards). He needs just 155 yards to break the Davis career rushing record.

Gilliam is on the Walter Payton Award list as the nation’s top FCS player and was voted the Bay Sky preseason Offensive Player of the Year. He ran for 89 yards and a touchdown when Cal and Davis met three years ago.

“He’s a very good player and they do a good job within their offense of creating good lanes for him,” Wilcox said. “He’s a productive guy — he’s been productive for a long time.”

The Aggies were 8-4 last season, including a season-opening 19-17 road victory over a Tulsa team that wound up winning a bowl game. It was Davis’ first win over an FBS opponent since beating San Jose State in 2018.

Certainly that result has he attention of Wilcox and his staff.

“Offensively, they’re going to give you issues on the perimeter with motions and formations,” Wilcox said. “Defensively, same thing. They know what they’re doing.”

After an 8-1 start, Davis closed last season with three straight losses, including a 56-24 defeat to South Dakota State in the opening round of the FCS playoffs.

Cover photo of UC Davis running back Ulonzo Gilliam Jr. by Wayne Tilcock, AggiePhoto.com

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo