DALLAS, Texas — The opportunities on Saturday are off the charts when the Aggies visit an SMU team ranked No. 17 in the nation and coming off a road win five days ago over Florida State in Tallahassee. 

"We're excited to go compete against one of the best teams in the country and see what we're made of," head coach Tim Plough said. "What a great opportunity to go have fun, rip it and see how well we can play."

Knocking off an FBS team is something the Aggies have done on four occasions since moving from the Division II to FCS level in 2004. The first time came a year later when UC Davis shocked Stanford on The Farm, 20-17. There have also been wins in 2010 and 2018 at San Jose State and most recently in 2021 in the season-opener at Tulsa.

An Aggie victory on Saturday would be huge but there are plenty of other reasons the contest against the Power 4 opponent from the ACC was scheduled.

"These games are what they are," Plough said in his press conference Monday. "What I love about coaching at Davis and coaching the players we coach is that they are really smart guys. They live in reality. They understand what these games mean and what they are about."

"First and foremost, this game is about creating financial support for our athletic program," Plough added. "I want to play teams that we can get enough from financially to help support our other sports. I take pride and honor that we're a program that can do that for the other teams here on campus. That means a lot to me. I don't want to go play a random team. I want to go play a team that has the financial capability to help us."

It's not the first team Plough's teams have done this and it won't be the last with the Aggies taking games at Cal (2024) and Washington (2025) in his first two seasons as head coach, while contests at UCLA (2027, 2029) and Washington State (2028) are on future dockets.

But helping to provide financial support for the athletic department is not the only reason the Aggies are measuring themselves up against the nation's No. 17 ranked squad on Saturday.

"The second thing this is about is our guys having the opportunity to go out and test themselves against elite competition," Plough said. "I've been in a lot of these games as a coach and a player. Obviously, the challenges are that our opponents have a gigantic budget that allows them to handle NIL a lot differently than us. They have a bunch of talented players but what a great challenge for our guys to go against one of the best teams in the country at the Power 4 level."

Plough emphasized the importance of the team's mindset going into Saturday and says in every game there is always a formula to win.

"I always say the same thing to the team when we play these games and that is 'do we want to just play in the game or do we want to win the game,'" Plough said. "I don't just want to show up, shake their coach's hand and say thanks for the money. I want to try to win the game, and to do that we have to play great and have a plan. When I say formula to win I mean some games you play the formula might be two plus two and all you've got to do is solve that to win the game. Sometimes, it's a long division, multiplication, fraction, decimal point formula that I would never be able to solve in a math class, and that's really what this game is. There is a formula to winning the game. We've just got to solve that formula, and our staff has been burning the midnight oil all week to try to come up with a plan that will put our players in the best position to do so."

HOW TO FOLLOW:
Watch (ACCNX): Robert Lee (Play-By-Play), Mo Hasan (Analyst)
Listen (Sactown Sports 1140 AM (Flagship), The Varsity Network: Scott Marsh (Play-By-Play), Scott Gordon (Analyst)
Live Stats

GAME 2 RECAP NOTES: UC DAVIS 49, AT SAN DIEGO 17 (SATURDAY, SEPT. 5, 2026):

• Quarterback Treynor Cleeland threw five touchdown passes to lead No. 6 UC Davis (2-0) to a convincing 49-17 nonconference win against San Diego on Saturday evening at Torero Stadium. In his second career start, Cleeland finished 22-of-31 for 294 yards with his five touchdown passes and one interception.
• Samuel Gbatu, Jr. was the recipient of two of Cleeland's five touchdown passes that were one shy of J.T. O'Sullivan's school-record six against Mesa State in 2000. Gbatu Jr. finished with nine receptions for 129 yards that were the third-most receiving yards of his career and his 11th 100-yard receiving game.
• Matteo Perez ran for a career-high 123 yards on nine carries including a 79-yard touchdown run in the third quarter that was the longest of his career and tied for the 13th-longest in UC Davis history.
• Jordan Fisher scored a pair of touchdowns and marked the third time in his career he has had both a rushing and receiving score in the same game. Fisher finished with a team-high 12 rushes for 64 yards, while he had four receptions also for 64.
• Edward Khutsishvili and Tyler Hennessy both had the first touchdown receptions of their career.
• Brayden Rosa had a team-high six tackles in addition to his interception, a forced fumble and 1.0 tackle for loss (-1 yard). Hayden John had a game-high three pass breakups that were also the first of his UC Davis career, while Huegel picked up the Aggies' lone sack for a five-yard loss of Nankil.
• The Aggies' offense did not allow a single sack after giving up just one in the team's season-opener last Saturday at Portland.

PLOUGH ON GAME 2 WIN:
"I'm fired up to find another way to get another win on the road. I feel like the team improved from week one to week two, even though I think we're playing below the standard of where we can play in all three phases. But figuring out ways to win on the road, that's what good teams do. I thought a lot of guys had some high moments tonight, which was cool to see. I thought all three phases had signs of where they can be really good and things we got to keep working on. But that's the cool thing - you either win or you learn. I would love to be able to do both, and we're still doing both right now, so we're excited."

MORE ON THE 2026 AGGIES

• UC Davis is currently No. 6 in the AFCA FCS Coaches Poll, which is the highest the Aggies have been ranked since the 2019 preseason when they were No. 5.
• UC Davis has six players on its roster who earned preseason All-American honors in DB Drew Cofield, LB Porter Connors, DB Rex Connors, RB Jordan Fisher, WR Samuel Gbatu Jr. and TE Winston Williams.
• Each of the team's preseason All-Americans also earned All-Big Sky recognition prior to the 2026 campaign, along with DL Trent Carrade, OL Zaier Collier, P Dylan Mauro and DL Rayne Mayo Jr. to give the Aggies a total of 10 preseason All-Big Sky picks.
• Gbatu Jr. (Water Payton Award) and Rex Connors (Buck Buchanan Award) are on preseason watch lists honoring the top offensive and defensive players in the FCS.
• The Aggies have a total of 13 starters (7 offense, 6 defense) and 20 players (12 offense, 8 defense), as well as four specialists from its two-deep of a year ago returning.
• The team returns both a 1,000-yard rusher (Jordan Fisher; 1,141 yards) and 1,000-yard receiver (Samuel Gbatu Jr.; 1,169 yards) from a year ago. The pair combined to get into the end zone 22 times in 2025 with each reaching paydirt on 11 occasions (Gbatu Jr. - 11 TD receptions; Fisher - 8 TD rushing, 3 TD receptions).
• QB Treynor Cleeland, who was named the starter during training camp, got into two games in 2025 (2-4, 26 yards) as the Aggies' third quarterback. UC Davis' 2025 starter was Caden Pinnick, who transferred to Washington State and won the Cougars' starting job in training camp. Grant Harper, who was Pinnick's primary backup a year ago, completed his collegiate eligibility in 2025.
• The Aggies return four players who had more than 30 tackles in 2025 in LB Jackson Sieves (67), DB Rex Connors (45), DB Drew Cofield (36) and LB Sam Goligoski (33). Goligoski was a frequent visitor in opponents' backfields a year ago with 9.5 tackles for loss (-52 yards) and 6.5 sacks (-37 yards) that were both second on the team, while Sievers had 5.5 tackles for loss (-16 yards) and 2.5 sacks (-12 yards), and Cofield picked up 2.0 tackles for loss (-3 yards) and a team-high-tying two interceptions. Sievers also had two forced fumbles and one fumble recovery.
• P Dylan Mauro is back after posting a 44.4 yards per punt average in 2025 as are both of the Aggies' top two kick returners in Zach Jones (8-224, 28.0 ypr) and Samuel Gbatu Jr. (8-146, 18.3 ypr).

ABOUT UC DAVIS ATHLETICS
UC Davis, ranked No. 2 among public universities by the Wall Street Journal in the value of a college degree, is home to 40,000 undergraduate students and 12,000 employees. Ranked top in the United States in agriculture and forestry as well as No. 1 in veterinary medicine, UC Davis is located in a true California college town nestled between world-class destinations such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Napa Valley and Lake Tahoe. Over 650 Aggie student-athletes compete in 25 Division I varsity sports, with 16 sports transitioning to the Mountain West Conference beginning in 2026–27. 

For more information, visit ucdavisaggies.com/.