In a battle of two of the Big Sky Conference's nationally ranked teams, No. 11/14 UC Davis hosts No. 9/9 Eastern Washington in a rematch of the 2018 NCAA quarterfinal game... Saturday's contest will also be the first Aggie athletics event to allow limited fan attendance (more details below)... Live stats are available through StatBroadcast, while the game will be broadcast on Sports 1140 and CW31, the latter of which is also found on Channel 1063 of the Pluto TV streaming service.

ABOUT THE GAME

Who: No. 9 Eastern Washington
When: Saturday, April 3 • 1 p.m. PST
Where: Davis, Calif.
Venue: UC Davis Health Stadium (TBA)
Live Stats: StatBroadcast (http://statb.us/b/327739)
Listen: Sports 1140 on TuneIn app (http://tun.in/serGW)
Watch: CW31/PlutoTV (https://pluto.tv/live-tv/1063)

SAFE AT HOME
With Yolo County moving to the orange "Moderate" tier on March 24, UC Davis athletics was granted permission to allow a limited number of fan attendance for Saturday's spring home finale with EWU... A full summary of venue protocol, with the mandatory UC Davis Symptom Survey, is available at https://ucdavisaggies.com/feature/healthandsafety... Team Aggie members and season ticket holders will receive first priority to purchase tickets online, with the general public gaining its initial opportunity for any remaining tickets on Wednesday, March 31... Per state guidelines, tickets for Saturday's game are only available for California residents and must be purchased in advance of game day.

• Spectators must wear face coverings at all times unless actively eating or drinking at their seats.
• Fans will sit in reserved seat blocks with members of the same household and can purchase tickets in groups of 2 or 4 online.
• Concession stands will be closed; UC Davis Athletics encourages fans to bring their own snacks and water.
• Fans must remain in their seats as much as possible, minimizing time spent gathering with other individuals on the main concourse.
• Fans will have designated patron restrooms in the stadium, as certain facilities are already assigned to officials and Tier 2/3 staff and media. All restroom facilities will be marked accordingly.
• All spectators must exit the facility within 10 minutes after the conclusion of the game.

SEASON FINALE
Cal Poly announced on Monday that it was opted out of the remainder of the 2020-21 season, making this Saturday's game the spring finale... The Aggies and Mustangs were slated to face off for a non-Battle For The Golden Horseshoe contest on April 10 in San Luis Obispo... UC Davis was also originally scheduled to play Cal Poly for the spring opener on February 27; however, that game was postponed due to COVID issues down in SLO... The Mustangs also pushed their March 6 game with Weber State back to April 17... That game is now part of the cancellation.

LIVING OFF THE LAN
True freshman RB Lan Larison totaled 100 combined yards (95 rush, 5 receiving) in Saturday's 31-27 win over Idaho State... He had TD runs of 40 and 33 yards, respectively, earning him ROOT SPORTS Big Sky Conference Offensive Player of the Week honors... Larison now leads the Aggies with four touchdowns... In fact, the team's top three scorers are program newcomers: K Isaiah Gomez (4 FGs, 18 PATs for 30 points), Larison (24 points) and QB Trent Tompkins (3 TDs for 18 points)... Additionally, TE McCallan Castles has a pair of TDs in his first season since transferring from Cal.

HEART-STOPPING HEROICS
Tompkins' 4-yard TD run with 0:08 left in Saturday's thriller with the Bengals marks a scene UC Davis fans have not witnessed in more than a decade: a game-winning Aggie TD in the final minute of regulation... The Aggies have won on other last-minute heroics, such as Devon King's forced fumble at San Diego (9/7/19), but for a winning TD in the final minute, one must go back to Nov. 13, 2010, when Randy Wright hit Sean Creadick for a 5-yard TD pass with just 0:35 left, leading UC Davis to a 22-21 upset of then-No. 19/18 Cal Poly... The win marked the last time the Aggies had beaten a Top 20 team until the 27-17 win at No. 19 Idaho to start this spring season... Wright now serves as a quality control assistant on the UC Davis football staff.

UC DAVIS-EWU SERIES
The Aggies have never beaten the Eagles in eight meetings, starting with a matchup during UC Davis' Division I reclassification period (Nov. 19, 2005)... Most recently, the two teams squared off in the 2018 NCAA quarterfinal contest in Cheney on Dec. 8 of that year... UC Davis snared a 29-28 lead with 1:13 remaining, but EWU responded with a 35-yard TD run by Sam McPherson with 26 ticks left.

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN...
UC Davis football has played 38 total postseason games in its 100-plus seasons, a total that includes the 1949 and 1951 Pear Bowls plus 1972 Boardwalk Bowl regional playoff games... Most of the opponents are teams the Aggies have only met in the postseason: UMass (1972), Bethune-Cookman (1977), Eastern Illinois (1978), Northern Michigan (1982), Butler (1983), Fort Hays State (1993), Angelo State (1989, 1997), Texas A&M-Kingsville (1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002), Central Oklahoma (1996, 1999), Carson-Newman (1996), Chadron State (2000), Mesa State (2000), Bloomsburg (2000), Tarleton State (2001) and Northern Iowa (2018).

Eleven postseason opponents had subsequent regular-season rematches, with varying wait times... The shortest span between meetings belongs to Sacramento State, which eliminated UC Davis in the first round of the 1988 NCAA draw, then nipped the Aggies by a 21-20 score at Hughes Stadium in the third game of the 1989 season... New Haven also did not wait long to face UC Davis after the 1997 NCAA semifinal, paying a visit to Toomey Field in the fourth game of 1998...The longest wait for a rematch was Lehigh from 1977 NCAA semifinal: the two teams waited nearly 42 years (and one nickname change) before UC Davis won the rematch by a 41-13 final on Sept. 14, 2019... The two teams also waited more than 20 years to reunite after the 1982 NCAA title game against Southwest Texas State (rematch on Sept. 20, 2003 in San Marcos) and the 1986 NCAA quarterfinal with South Dakota (rematch on Oct. 10, 2009 in Davis).

For what it's worth, the Aggies hold a 5-1 all-time record when the next regular season matchup of an NCAA playoff game takes place at home:

• 1977 NCAA semifinal vs. Lehigh (W, 41-13 on 9/14/19)
• 1985 NCAA quarterfinal vs. North Dakota State (W, 35-7 on 9/21/02)
• 1986 NCAA quarterfinal vs. South Dakota State (W-ot, 24-23, 10/10/09)
• 1997 NCAA semifinal at New Haven (L, 11-12, on 9/26/98)
• 2001 NCAA semifinal at North Dakota (W, 34-21 on 10/25/08)
• 2002 NCAA first round at Central Washington (W, 41-7 on 11/15/03)
• 2018 NCAA quarterfinal at Eastern Washington (???)

FAMILIAR FACES
Besides the various EWU alumni who now serve on head coach Aaron Best's staff, the Aggies will particularly recognize two Eagle assistant coaches this Saturday... Defensive tackles coach Jeff Copp served at UC Davis from 2009-15, working with defensive backs, special teams and linebackers at different times during that span... He also played at Boise State when current Aggie head coach Dan Hawkins was a Bronco assistant... Copp later coached at Northern Arizona and FIU before joining the EWU staff this season... Wide receivers coach Pat McCann oversaw that same room for the Aggies from 2013-16 before taking a similar position at Northern Iowa... In fact, he was a member of the UNI staff when the Panthers visited UC Davis Health Stadium (then Aggie Stadium) in the 2018 NCAA playoffs... Oddly, McCann was a member of UC Davis' first opponent in that venue (Western Washington, 2007) although he did not appear in that contest... This is McCann's second season with EWU, and the first with the added title of Passing Game Coordinator.

TIMELY TAKEAWAYS
While the top two Aggie tackles leaders – LBs Cole Hansen (28) and Connor Airey (27) – each have Big Sky Conference Defensive Player of the Week awards to put them on the map, the team's No. 3 player on the chart received some much-deserved notice in Saturday's final play... After platooning with senior Tiger Garcia in 2019, safety Chris Venable has posted 8, 3, 6 and 4 stops in the four spring games, respectively... He also had two pass breakups in the opener at Idaho, while his interception of Idaho State's Tyler Vander Waal with no time remaining dashed any Bengal hopes for a miracle win last Saturday... Venable had one of two key interceptions in the fourth quarter vs. Idaho State... Fourth-year DB Algery McGuire jumped in front of Vander Waal's attempt for a third TD to Xavier Quillory, snaring the pass at the 4-yard line on a 3rd-and-10 red zone opportunity.

FOLLOWING THE LEADERS
As a team, UC Davis continues to pace the Big Sky Conference in defense (318.3 ypg), with EWU a fairly distant second (361.0)... The Aggies also lead the league in rushing offense (228.5) and passing defense (202.8)... Individually, Weber State's Josh Davis took over the top spot in rushing (106.0) but Ulonzo Gilliam, Jr. remains the only other Big Sky runner to average more than 100 ticks per game (103.0)... Isaiah Thomas leads the conference in punt returns (10.7) and has the league's longest runback of the year (30 yds vs. Cal Poly)... Punter Daniel Whelan holds court atop the Big Sky punting department, leading in average (51.3), longest punt (67) and punts of 50+ yards (6).

#PUNTERSAREPEOPLETOO
After going the entire Cal Poly game without a punt, Daniel Whelan put on another show in Saturday's win vs. Idaho State... He finished with five punts for 260 yards, including a career-long 67 yarder... At one point, Whelan had a 50-yard punt to the Bengal 13 wiped out by an illegal formation penalty – only to respond with a 55-yarder to the Bengal 13... That was one of three punts inside the 20 and one of three of 50 yards or more... He raised his Big Sky-leading average to 51.27 (11-for-564) yet remains ineligible for the NCAA statistical leaders, which requires a minimum of 3.6 punts per game... Whelan's career average jumped up to 43.26 (145-for-6,272)... In comparison, the top two punters in UC Davis history are Colton Schmidt (41.12 from 2009-12) and Colby Wadman (40.96 from 2013-16), both of whom went on to NFL careers... The Dublin, Ireland product has 63 career punts inside opponent 20-yard lines... While no official records exist for this stat, Schmidt had 80 such punts while Wadman had 68 as four-year starters... Whelan began the season earning a spot on the FCS Punter of the Year watch list for the second straight year.

For older notes plus rosters, depth charts, statistics and other info, please visit the full set of Game 5 notes. 

 

ABOUT UC DAVIS:
With the addition of equestrian and women's beach volleyball in 2018, more than 700 student-athletes represent the fifth-ranked public school in the nation on one of 25 intercollegiate athletics teams.

UC Davis, a national leader in Title IX gender equity and leadership, is centrally located between San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, and the Napa Valley; and offers an unrivaled student-athlete experience that features the ideal combination of elite academics, Division I athletics and personal growth.

Ranked annually in the top 10 in diversity and students' social mobility, UC Davis is uncommonly committed to preparing student-athletes for life after graduation with Aggie EVO — an innovative student-athlete outcomes program that helps young women and men develop passions, gain real-world experience, and enjoy a successful launch to full-time employment or graduate school. Through Aggie EVO, Intercollegiate Athletics provides unmatched resources and a vast network of working professionals to ensure post-graduation success for its student-athletes.