The Stats Perform poll has us fifth and them tenth.

Our line comes from the Bobby Blend, a combination of the well-known computer ratings and our own proprietary power ranking, which is still in testing. On a neutral field the four public ratings can't split them: SP+, Sagarin and Massey lean our way by a hair, and Congrove leans theirs. Sagarin has us 0.20 better, then hands UC Davis 5.04 for being home. Massey is the only computer picking us. Massey is invited to the tailgate.

Neither of these teams has beaten anybody. The Blend ranks our three wins, Southern Utah, Utah Tech and Drake, 42nd, 107th and 116th of 128 FCS teams, and theirs, San Diego, Portland State and Stetson, 88th, 106th and 126th. Both of us got run over by an FBS team on back-to-back Saturdays: UC Davis lost 56-10 at SMU, and Oregon State happened.

Bill Connelly tracks how often the team that wins each of his five factors wins the game. Success rate is just how often an offense stays on schedule: half the yards it needs on first down, 70 percent of them on second, all of them on third or fourth. Explosive rate counts runs of 15 yards or more and completions of 20 or more. Finishing drives is points per trip inside the opponent's 40. Field position is where drives start. Turnovers are half skill and half a ball bouncing, so the expected margin gives full credit for interceptions and half for fumbles.

All the numbers for both teams come from uneven matchups. Read the chart for where each team is strong and where it is soft. This weekend will tell the truth.

We win finishing drives, 5.00 points a trip to 4.25. They win the explosive row on offense, and our 6.1 is down from 10.1 last year and under the 7.8 FCS median. Explosiveness is Connelly's 86 percent row. If we don't lose the big play battle, we win.

Treynor Cleeland, #5, scrambles on 2.1 percent of his dropbacks, against an FCS average of 6.5; last year Caden Pinnick scrambled on 14.0 percent. Cleeland holds it instead: 62.1 percent of his dropbacks go 2.5 seconds or longer, the 96th percentile in FCS. All nine of Cleeland's big-time throws, high-value, high-difficulty, came after the 2.5-second mark. In the quick game, he averages 5.8 yards an attempt.

In a clean pocket, he throws for 8.7 yards an attempt with a 114.5 passer rating. Pressured, it's 3.4 and 39.2. That drop is the 94th percentile variance in FCS, where the average gap is 2.01 yards, and his 3.4 under pressure beats only eight of the 70 qualifying quarterbacks.

Only 13.5 percent of his aimed passes go to the left third, the 13th percentile in FCS, where the average is 19.1. Pinnick was at 12.3 last year. Nothing in Davis, California is right wing except this pass offense. It's a Sean Hannity passing game.

Samuel Gbatu Jr., #8, is the main target: 44 targets, 32 catches and 468 yards (41 percent of their passing yards), 30 of the targets in the middle third (Coach Pease can our offense please copy this). He is the only receiver they move around the formation, and no other receiver has more than 18 targets.

The Aggies use play-action more than anyone in the Big Sky, 41.4 percent of dropbacks, the 94th percentile in FCS, but he is worse when doing it: 6.7 yards an attempt against 8.1 without, and a turnover-worthy-play rate of 4.9 percent with play-action against 1.2 without. The fake is their favorite play, but one of their worst.

Coach Plough last week, per the Enterprise: "We, as a staff, we have to get a game plan and, schematically, get the run game going again. I don't think it's been good the last four games." He's right. Their first-and-10 runs go for 4.42 a carry. Their first-and-10 throws go for 9.48 a play.

56.4 percent of their 101 designed carries go outside, second among the 117 FCS teams with 60 or more, against an FCS average of about 35, and their gap-scheme share of 68.4 percent is the Big Sky's highest. Left end is the money run: 27 carries, 209 yards, 7.74 a carry. Right end is 4.60 a carry. They haven't had as much success up the middle.

Twelve of their 13 third-down runs have gone up the middle, for 1.92 a carry. On third-and-short they gain 1.90 a play, where the Big Sky gains 3.93. On third or fourth down with two yards or less to go they have run ten times out of ten chances. All ten went to Jordan Fisher, #20, or Mason Walsh, #38. Ten carries, 24 yards. When they do go on fourth down, they have converted four of eight, and all four of their fourth-down runs went up the middle.

One more, and it's the hardest tendency in the file. By the stat crew's direction tags, not one of their 33 fourth-quarter carries has gone right. Second down, 9.8 percent right. Inside the 40, 5 percent. They don't trust the right side of their line, and Thurston plays there.

UC Davis's game notes list the 3-4 as their primary defense, but they mostly line up with an extra corner in nickel, which has contributed to their run defense woes.

Against the bad FCS teams they've played their line has stuffed 29.0 percent of the carries they face, meaning the back is down at or behind the line, allowing only 2.18 line yards. Both of those are very good. They give up 3.82 a carry against a median of 5.11, and last season the same program stuffed 16.8 percent and gave up 5.48. The front is real, but they aren't stuffing the other 71 percent, which is their problem.

At Portland State they stuffed 42.9 percent of the carries, their best game, but 17.1 percent of the runs still went ten yards or more. Despite all the stuffs the Vikings averaged 3.3 yards per carry. PFF, which grades every player on every snap, graded that game their worst against the run, 61.5, and the Stetson game their best, 93.8, where the median FCS team-game is 72.5. They shred at the line or get shredded ten yards later. Montana brings a line averaging 3.38 line yards, past the 90th percentile of last season's FCS, and stuffed on only 14.8 percent of its carries after 23.3 a year ago. Eli Gillman only needs to break out a few times.

They have two standouts on the d-line: Jaden Few, #7, at DE and Julian Fernandez, #93, at DT. They both are in the 98th percentile at their positions for stop rate, which is just how often a run snap ends with a tackle that leaves the offense behind schedule: Few on 15.1 percent of his, Fernandez on 14.9. Behind them, the run fit the Griz need to find is the safety Teeg Slone, #21. PFF grades his run defense at 40.1, the 2nd percentile of 329 FCS safeties with 100 or more snaps.

In the games PFF charted, only 10 out of 226 snaps were in man. They sit back with seven in zone 9 out of ten snaps, blitzing at a low rate.

It has appeared to work against the FCS teams they have faced: 62 completions on 107 throws for 669 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions, a 111.0 passer rating against 133.09 for FCS as a whole last season. Then SMU completed 27 of 32 for 454 yards and seven touchdowns, 13.48 net yards a dropback, nine completions of twenty yards or more. SMU scored 56 points on 55 defensive snaps. Fifty-six on fifty-five. PFF graded the Aggie coverage 33.2 that afternoon and their tackling 38.2, and the front stuffed six of 22 carries. The front was fine. Nothing behind it was.

Portland State, the only other scholarship offense they have seen, got a 63.0 coverage game out of them, an average day against a bad team. PSU had the worst offense in this conference by expected points last season. San Diego and Stetson are Pioneer League. Ah Yat has thrown 143 times in four games at 65.7 percent. No FCS team has sent that at these guys yet.

Drew Cofield, #11, is the corner to leave alone: 22 targets, seven catches, 32 yards and a 41.1 rating allowed. PFN grades him 91.4, seventh of 683 FCS corners. Now take him off the list. Ten other Aggies have been targeted five times or more, and nine of them give up ratings between 91.3 and 158.3. The tenth, Hayden John, #1, a safety who has missed a game, is at 47.9. Chaz Gilbreath, #14, has been thrown at six times and caught on six.

Attack the nickel corner. Jeremiah Brown, #26, a sophomore, gets targeted once every 4.4 coverage snaps in the slot, more often than 86 percent of the 107 FCS slot defenders. Brown gives up 2.44 yards per coverage snap in the slot, worse than all but seven of the 107, and misses 26.7 percent of his tackles, where the median FCS corner misses 15.4.

Throw at the linebackers. Passer rating allowed by LB Porter Connors, #39, has been a perfect 158.3, eight catches on eight targets for 107 yards, which is as high as the formula goes. PFN has him 680th of 756 FCS linebackers.

We will win in the trenches

The two starting o-lines weigh 1,518 and 1,515 pounds.

Their pass rush is Sam Goligoski, #31, and not much else: 11 pressures on 35 rush snaps, and he plays only about a fifth of the dropbacks they have faced. Jaden Few is next, with 8 on 115. The team has 46 pressures, 6.69 per hundred rush snaps against an FCS median of 8.13, and five sacks.

A cheat sheet where to attack for Coach Pease

Cleeland is going to stand in there, so the rush can squeeze his lanes without worrying about him getting out, and he holds the ball long enough for four to arrive: 2.83 seconds to throw on average, and 4.16 on the plays that ended in a sack.

Against the blitz his passer rating falls from 107.1 to 80.1 and three of his five sacks came against it, but his big-time-throw rate goes from 5.4 percent to 8.5. Send extra now and then but primarily rush four and let him hold it. On third-and-long, we need to attack their left guard, Jayden Montanez, #67, and their right guard, Jezniah Thurston, #66. PFF grades them 20.3 and 21.2 on passing downs. That is 167th and 166th out of the 180 guards in FCS with 30 true pass sets. Bracket the middle at medium depth, where Gbatu lives and Cleeland throws for 10.6 yards an attempt, and invite the short throw to the right, where he is 4 of 10 for 2.0.

With the starters in and Oregon State counted in full, this defense has allowed 6.13 net yards a dropback, against an FCS median of 6.49, and it is still applying a ton of pressure. We just need our DBs to count to three, please.

The corners are holding up. PFF grades Chris Johnson II at 83.5 in coverage, the 98th percentile of the 289 FCS corners with 60 coverage snaps, and he has allowed three catches for ten yards on ten targets. Brady Beaner grades 76.5 and Sage Salopek 70.9, both over the corner median. The grades drop once you move inside to the safeties. Kade Boyd is at 57.9, Brock Beaner 58.7, and Devin Dunn 48.6, all under the safety median. Tanner Williams grades 42.5, the 5th percentile of 199 FCS linebackers, and has allowed 13 catches on 15 targets for 145 yards. Eighty of Cleeland's 126 aimed passes have gone to the middle third, and the middle third belongs to the safeties and the linebackers.

I made Colonel Mustard a Cheat Sheet

Left, middle and right here are the stat crew's play tags. The 13.5 percent above is PFF's chart of aimed passes.

Montana nets 3.4 more yards a punt than UC Davis and allows 4.3 fewer a return. Half of Dylan Mauro's punts get returned, and one went 78 yards for a Portland State touchdown. Ryder Barinowski has 18 touchbacks on 23 kickoffs. UC Davis has zero on 24.

Which leaves Zach Jones, #3: five punt returns, 162 yards and two touchdowns, a 79 and a 61, both against Stetson. Five returns is not a rate. He told the Enterprise after that game, "I believe I always have the chance to break a return." Everett O'Donnell believes otherwise. The punts belong to Everett O'Donnell, whose 3.87 seconds of hang time is the 72nd percentile of FCS punters, and I want every one of them high and outside the numbers.

Their kicker, Robert Meyer, #88, has not made a field goal longer than 33 yards as an Aggie. So Fourth down in the fringe won't be much of decision for Plough, expect him to go for it outside the 28. Jo Silver is 2 of 5: a 50 and a 39 made, a 36 blocked by Drake, and misses from 54 and 55 at the ends of halves. He is 17 of 17 on extra points, and I'd like him to get sick of kicking them.

By PFF's count their offense sits in the 82nd percentile of FCS for explosive plays and ours in the 16th, and 19 of their 24 explosives against FCS teams came through the air. PFF graded our coverage 36.9 at Oregon State. Inside a three-score margin, their offense has stayed on schedule on 49.4 percent of its snaps and ours on 43.4. They have Gbatu, and a returner with two touchdowns in one game. Our front is good but not deep. It's a night game on the road, and, so far, their defense gets off the field on third down better than all but eleven FCS defenses. Plough's three wins over Montana, as a play-caller or head coach, produced 45, 49 and 30 points.

An Aggie fan account, in our mentions Thursday morning: "Greetings from the heartland of California. Unlike the loud mouths at Sac, we are realistic about who we are. The Aggies are way over ranked and have real issues on offense. We are good, but not great. I think the Griz win by double digits". No disagreement on Sac. Whoever runs that account is welcome in Missoula anytime.

The account has the numbers on its side. Their quarterback is a 3.4-yard passer once somebody arrives, and Montana has arrived 75 times in four games. Their coach says the run game hasn't been good, and their third-and-1 and 2 plays have gained 1.90 a snap.

Theirs is named Gunrock and he didn't have a starter, or at least he didn't in 2017. That year The California Aggie reported that UC Davis had no designated person inside the suit, and that anyone who wanted a turn could reach out to the mascot coordinator as long as they were taller than 5-foot-2 and shorter than 6-foot-3. One student said the suit was "difficult to move around in because it has a lot of fake muscles."

Monte has been on the job since 1993, and he has a coaching tree. Benny the Bull and Clutch the Rocket Bear both came out of the Monte suit, and both are in the Mascot Hall of Fame with him.

The case for the horse is his record against horses. UC Davis has beaten Cal Poly, the Big Sky's other Mustangs, nine straight times, and the two of them play for a trophy called the Golden Horseshoe. Nine straight over a horse. Adjust for opponent.

The National Park Service has already timed this one: "Bears can run as fast as a racehorse both uphill and down." The government has it as a push, if it were a race. It is not a race.

Monte's base look is the bluff charge, which the Park Service describes as "charging and then turning away at the last second." It's a double-mug. He shows it twice and Gunrock flinches both times. The third one he brings. Gunrock does the one thing the Park Service tells you not to do, which is run. Monte runs him down around the 30 and comes away with a handful of fake muscle. Against a grizzly its advice is to lie flat "with your hands clasped behind your neck." Horses don't have hands. The mascot coordinator is taking sign-ups for the second half.

The original Gunrock was a thoroughbred stallion the Army stationed on campus from 1921 to 1931, and UC Davis's own history counts 476 mares on his résumé. We are not running the Brother Index on him.

Two confirmed pairs, and one of them is the quarterback.

Treynor Cleeland, #5, starts at quarterback. Roice Cleeland, #63, is listed as a backup at three spots on the line, center among them. The Aggies are one depth-chart move from a brother snapping to a brother. Both are from Vancouver, Wash., both went to Jesuit High in Portland, and both bios name the same parents: Cameron, who played tight end at Washington and in the NFL, and Mindy, a four-year softball starter for the Huskies.

The bios are a year behind each other. Treynor's still says "Brother, Roice, plays football at Washington." Roice's says "Brother is a freshman on the Aggie football team." Treynor is a sophomore. They also disagree about Dad. Roice's bio gives him "a seven-year NFL career." Treynor's says eight. Somebody ask Mindy.

Porter Connors, #39, is a linebacker and Rex Connors, #4, is a safety, both fifth-years from Pleasant Grove, Utah, and Rex is the best player on the Davis football team. But he hasn't played a snap yet this season, at safety or anywhere after hurting himself last season taking handoffs. It gets worse: Rex and Porter are twins. The twin factor counts double, per my own rules. Twin telepathy takes two twins on the field, though, and so far this year it has had one. I'm counting the Connorses at one and a half.

Two Richardsons, two Williamses and two Johnsons also made the sweep, and the hometowns rule out every one of them. Week 4 Brother Index: UC Davis 2.5 confirmed, 0 suspected. Griz 4 confirmed and 3 suspected, where Week 3 left us. The closest anybody has come all season, and it took half a twin.

Advantage Griz, but we are watching Rex.

Twenty names on the UC Davis coaching staff and not one Bobby, Bob or Robert. The roster is another story. Robert Beverly, #78, is a sophomore offensive lineman from Carmel, Calif., and at 6-8 he is the tallest man on the team. Robert Meyer, #88, is the kicker, and his bio lists his parents. His father's name is Bobby. Per the bylaws, a player named Robert rates below a coach named Bobby.

The transitive file is thick. Mike Cody, the offensive line coach, came to Davis as a player because Bob Biggs, then the Aggies' head coach, promised he could get into coaching when he was done. Bob residue. The game notes credit Bob Foster, a longtime assistant, with giving Aggie Pride its name. The all-time coaching table in the game notes has a 1919 head coach listed only as "Reverend Bobbitt." Thank god he wasn't Catholic. Two Father Bobbys would have been an issue.

Level 1 alert, and we dodged a bullet.

Kai Acia, a senior running back smoothie bowl. Rayne Mayo Jr., 320 pounds at defensive tackle, Saturday being the first condiment bowl in Big Sky history: their Mayo, our Colonel Mustard. Trey Carr, a compact: 155 pounds. Cash Bryant and Koen Parnell, two freshman receivers who sound like the tip jar. Matt Watts, another freshman receiver, has pluralized my family name without my consent.

Tom Sackinsky may be the name scout MVP as he is a defensive lineman. Fortunately for the Griz he hasn't lived up to his name, recording no sacks this season. Saturday would be a bad day to start. Blake Walls plays tight end, and Nikolas Blocker, all 5-7 and 165 of him, plays wide receiver. That neither is on the offensive line is an affront to decency.

There are 102 players on the roster, 91 of them from California and not one from Montana. The closest they come is Jayden Montanez, a left guard from Los Angeles. The Aggies' Chief of Staff is Matt Kitchen, so the rest of the staff is the kitchen cabinet.

Eric Sanders, Montana's defensive coordinator, graduated from UC Davis. His gogriz bio lists the major: "Alma Mater: UC Davis '05 (Psychology)." He coached the Aggies' linebackers in 2008 and 2009, when Tim Plough coached the QBs. That's right, Colonel Mustard has a psych degree from Davis and worked with their head coach. He better be in their heads on Saturday.

Their offense hits explosive passes to a great receiver and we have yielded the long ball. They're at home on a late night. This is their only tough game remaining on the schedule, and they know we're all that's standing between them and a top seed. The books have us as three and a half points underdogs. The Griz have missed the cover four times in four tries. Don't care. You knew I was picking the good guys.

My prediction: Cleeland gets his between the hashes early and Gbatu gets some long ones. Then the Mustardettes start arriving in a pocket he won't leave and he turns into the 3.4-yard passer. They will struggle to run up the middle and we will set a much better edge than their Pioneer League opponents. UC Davis gets to the red zone the way it has all year, 12 touchdowns on 16 trips, and this time gets stood up twice. Jo Silver makes three and O'Donnell keeps every punt away from Zach Jones.

On the other side Ah Yat has all day against a four-man rush, Brown and Connors spend the night chasing tight ends and slot receivers, and Eli gets multiple runs past the stuff and into Slone. Just so we are clear I want to state it very plainly again: there is a window ten to nineteen yards downfield over the middle of that defense with nobody standing in it, and Montana has only thrown into that spot four times all year, last among the 115 FCS offenses with sixty targets. Four. Somebody go stand there and catch the ball. Maybe even run afterwards.

I have the Aggies down for 28 points, but if the Griz really do stand them up in the red zone, Davis does not get to twenty-eight, the math doesn't work. I have written down both of those and I am keeping both, because it's my column and I make the rules.

Good Guys 37, UC Davis 28.

Go Griz.