Cal Poly, UC Davis to Wage First of Two Golden Horseshoe Battles

Saturday, March 20

Davis, CA / UC Davis Health Stadium

1:05 p.m.

UC Davis

Photo by: Owen Main | Cal Poly Athletics

Cal Poly, UC Davis to Wage First of Two Golden Horseshoe Battles

3/16/2021 2:59:00 PM | Football

WEEKLY NOTES: CAL POLY (PDF) | UC DAVIS (PDF) | BIG SKY
AUDIO STREAM | VIDEO STREAM | LIVE STATS

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- The first of two Battles for the Golden Horseshoe during the 2020-21 spring football season takes place Saturday at UC Davis Health Stadium as Cal Poly (0-1, 0-1 Big Sky) travels to face the No. 21 UC Davis Aggies (1-1, 1-1 Big Sky).

Kickoff is set for 1:05 p.m. The game will be broadcast live on ESPN Radio (1280 AM and 101.7 FM) with Chris Sylvester (play-by-play) and Stephan Hodges (color) calling the action. Pregame show starts at 12:30 p.m. The game also will be streamed on Pluto TV Channel 1063 and WatchBigSky.com and will be broadcast on CW 31 in the Sacramento area. Links for audio and video streams as well as live stats are available on the football schedule page at www.GoPoly.com.

The Beau Baldwin Era at Cal Poly opened last weekend, more than 15 months after he was named Cal Poly's 17th head football coach on Dec. 11, 2019, and the Mustangs fell 34-24 to Southern Utah. Cal Poly outscored the Thunderbirds 17-3 in the second half, but couldn't complete the comeback from a 31-7 halftime deficit. Southern Utah won in San Luis Obispo for the first time since 1988, snapping a 15-game losing streak, and also earned its first win on the road since 2017.

UC Davis has split its first two games, opening with a 27-17 win at Idaho and falling 18-13 at Weber State. Coach Dan Hawkins' Aggies gave up just 17.5 points per game during the first two weeks, but scored just 20.0, and are averaging 194 yards per game on the ground and 209 through the air.

Quarterback Hunter Rodrigues completed 36 of 57 passes for 382 yards and four touchdowns in his first two starts with the Aggies. His favorite target has been Carson Crawford with 10 catches for 148 yards and a pair of scores. Veteran Ulonzo Gilliam has rushed for 208 yards in two games while Lan Larison has added 104 yards on the ground.

Cal Poly fans are anticipating major changes, particularly on offense, with Baldwin at the helm. The Triple Option is gone and the new offensive package likely will result in three or four wide receivers on most plays with one running back instead of two slotbacks, a fullback and a pair of receivers in the formation.

Baldwin guided Eastern Washington for nine seasons, compiling an 85-32 overall mark with five Big Sky titles and six NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision playoff berths, including the 2010 national championship. In the last three years before he became Cal Poly's head coach, Baldwin was offensive coordinator at Cal, leading the Bears to a pair of bowl games.

Baldwin greeted 53 returning lettermen shortly after his arrival on campus, including 17 starters (10 offense, seven defense) off the 2019 squad which went 3-8 and shared ninth place in the Big Sky with four other schools.

Topping the list of returnees are sophomore quarterback Jalen Hamler, junior running back Duy Tran-Sampson, defensive lineman Myles Cecil and linebacker Matt Shotwell.

Hamler completed 62 of 108 passes for 1,167 yards and 12 touchdowns while also rushing for 522 yards and nine more scores. Tran-Sampson, a second-team All-Big Sky fullback, rushed for 1,037 yards and eight touchdowns but will miss the spring season due to a leg injury. Shotwell, a third-team All-Big Sky selection, led Cal Poly in tackles for the second straight year with 89 (90 in 2018) and Cecil, an All-Big honorable mention in 2019, made 35 stops after garnering 39 tackles in 2018.

Under fourth-year head coach Dan Hawkins (21-17 at UC Davis (133-78-1 overall), UC Davis '84), UC Davis returned 50 lettermen, including 20 starters, from the 2019 squad which finished 5-7, one year after posting a 10-3 record, the school's first winning season in football since the 2009 and 2010 squads both finished 6-5. That 2018 team earned a share of the Big Sky title and qualified for the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.

Cal Poly and UC Davis are meeting for the 46th time this week and the series was all tied up at 20-20-2 before the Aggies earned a 31-28 victory in 2017 at Davis, 52-10 in 2018 in San Luis Obispo and 48-24 in 2019 at Davis. In the last meeting, senior quarterback Jake Maier passed for 378 yards and four touchdowns to lead No. 21 UC Davis to the victory. The Aggies scored 24 points in the first quarter and the first 10 points of the second period for a 34-0 lead and never looked back. Cal Poly closed the gap to 34-24 a minute into the fourth quarter before UC Davis linebacker Nick Eaton intercepted a pitch in the Mustang backfield and scampered 78 yards into the end zone for a touchdown and a 41-24 Aggie lead with 11:23 to play.

First game of the series was played in 1939 and the two teams have met every year since 1978.

Baldwin is 3-0 against UC Davis, all while coaching at Eastern Washington, while Dan Hawkins is 3-0 against Cal Poly. Against the Aggies, the Mustangs are 12-10 at home and 8-13-2 in Davis.

Although the two teams are meeting for the 46th time, the official "Battle for the Golden Horseshoe" was established in 2004 as the student-run spirit clubs from both schools came together to sponsor a perpetual trophy that resides with the team that wins each year. The horseshoe-shaped trophy signifies the agricultural influence at both universities. Since the trophy was created in 2004, UC Davis leads the series 9-7.

UC Davis has won 30 conference titles, all but one in Division II, claiming the Great West crown in 2009, and has made 20 NCAA postseason appearances, all but one in Division II. The Aggies are 522-429-33 in 102 seasons of football.

Hawkins, a UC Davis alum (1984) and 2018 Eddie Robinson Award winner, replaced Ron Gould as Aggie head coach on Nov. 28, 2016. He compiled a 56-11 mark in five seasons as head coach at Boise State (2001-05) and also coached at Colorado for five years (2006-10) before becoming an analyst on ESPN. He has coached 13 teams around the world, including the Montreal Alouettes, Vienna Vikings, Willamette, Sonoma State, College of the Siskiyous and Christian Brothers High School.

Against Southern Utah last week, Mustang sophomore quarterback Jalen Hamler established new career highs by completing 23 of 35 passes for 277 yards. He threw three touchdown passes for the third time in his career. Mitch Anderson caught six passes and Quentin Harrison five, two for touchdowns. Tight end Michael Roth caught the other scoring toss from Hamler.

Cal Poly netted just 42 yards on the ground, due in part to the seven sacks recorded by the Southern Utah defense. Linebackers Fenton Will and Matt Shotwell each recorded nine tackles, Myles Cecil earned the lone Mustang sack and Dustin Grein forced and recovered a Thunderbird fumble.

Cal Poly, which captured the 2012 Big Sky title in its first year in the conference, was picked to finish 10th by both the head coaches and the media in the 13-team Big Sky this fall. Weber State was selected to claim the 2020-21 Big Sky crown, followed by Montana and Montana State. Both the Grizzlies and Bobcats have opted out of the 2020-21 spring season, along with Sacramento State, Portland State and Northern Colorado.

The Mustangs claimed four Great West Conference titles in the eight-year history of the league (2004, 2005, 2008, 2011) before moving to the Big Sky in 2012 and have earned NCAA Division I FCS playoff berths in 2005, 2008, 2012 and 2016.

The Mustangs have won 65 of their last 95 home contests (69 percent) and, overall, Cal Poly has won 107 of its last 195 games (56 percent) going back to the 2002 finale and has won 24 of its last 58 and 43 of 96 on the road while producing 12 winning seasons in the last 19 years.

Next week, Cal Poly continues its three-game road trip with a Saturday date at Eastern Washington. Kickoff is set for 1:05 p.m.