Tim Plough is taking UC Davis to San Diego on Saturday evening for the first time since becoming head coach, and the trip lands close to home. He grew up in the San Diego area, went to Ramona High School in the Eastern Inland area of San Diego County and will walk into a game that feels personal before the first snap.
It is personal in a way that should make the search terms obvious to anyone looking up Uc Davis Football now. Plough said at his Monday press conference that he is from San Diego and that he hopes to win and then get a California burrito after the game. His parents still live in the area and will be there Saturday night, and more than a dozen Aggies on the current roster are also from the San Diego area.
Plough’s connection to UC Davis runs just as deep. He took a football scholarship there in 2004, became a four-year letterwinner at quarterback from 2004 to 2007 and later coached nine seasons as an assistant over two separate stints before returning as head coach in 2024. Saturday’s game is the first time he will lead the Aggies into San Diego, but it is not his first look at the rivalry.
UC Davis has a 9-1 all-time record against San Diego, and Plough was part of the first eight games in the series either as a player or as an assistant coach. That history is why the matchup carries two different meanings at once: a homecoming for the coach and a series that has rarely felt balanced. UC Davis beat San Diego 38-35 in 2019 in San Diego, and Plough was on the losing side of a 28-20 game in 2008 during his first coaching campaign.
The series opened in 2006 with UC Davis beating a Jim Harbaugh-coached San Diego team, a reminder that this has long been a familiar road for the Aggies rather than a new one. Even the current roster adds to the feeling, with more than a dozen Aggies from the San Diego area. That means Saturday is not just Plough returning home; it is UC Davis returning with a coach who knows the region, knows the opponent and knows what the program has usually done there.
Plough called the 2019 win one of those close games that came down to the wire, and that is the shape of this one too: a homecoming wrapped around a matchup UC Davis has controlled for years. The question now is less whether the setting will matter than whether the Aggies can turn it into another road win before Plough gets his burrito.
