Sacramento State's plan to bluster its way from FCS to FBS appears to have hit a snag.
Earlier this week, the FBS Oversight Committee recommended to the Division I Council to deny Sac State's petition for a waiver to join FBS as an independent. That same group previously granted the same waiver to Liberty in 2017 but, nearly a decade later, the Oversight Committee says times have changed. The fact that the two FBS conferences west of the Rockies, the Pac-12 and the Mountain West, both went through recent rounds of expansion and did not extend an invite to the Hornets likely served as a red flag to the committee:
"The committee noted a conference invitation is of paramount importance for entering into the reclassification process because the invitation signals an institution’s readiness to enter the process. Although a waiver of the bona fide invitation requirement was granted in 2017, that decision was made in a different era, under a different set of facts and rules... Due to the significance of the bona fide invitation from an FBS conference requirement and the lack of compelling mitigation explaining why that requirement, one that several other FCS institutions have met in recent years, has not been met, the committee does not support relief.”
The Sacramento business community has supported Sac State's FBS push -- they called themselves SAC-12 -- by releasing renderings for a new 25,000-seat stadium and claiming a ridiculous $35 million NIL war chest. Beyond that, Sacramento State has also been, ahem, boisterous on its way out of the FCS, or so it thought.
In a Reddit AMA this spring, Sac State president Dr. Luke Wood called FCS football "essentially JV."
But with no FBS invite coming, Sacramento State is essentially stuck in a self-imposed purgatory for the time being.
Matt Brown of Extra Points reported that Sac State is expected to announced Wednesday it will leave the Big Sky for the Big West in Olympic sports and compete as an FCS independent in football. Brown writes:
(I)t’s also entirely possible that Sacramento State’s very aggressive and public campaign simply turned some administrator minds against the school. Other schools that have been very public about wanting to change conferences or classifications, like Augustana, Tarleton State, New Haven, Memphis and others have either been unable to do so, or had to wait much longer than initially expected. I don’t think that’s completely a coincidence.
With Sac State not expected to leave FCS, South Dakota AD Jon Schemmel said, in a since-deleted tweet, what every other FCS AD and head coach was undoubtedly thinking:
Not one to back down (or one to learn his lesson), Wood responded with fighting words.
Meanwhile, Sacramento State has not exactly rivaled North Dakota State for FCS dominance. The Hornets won three Big Sky titles under previous head coach Troy Taylor, but the 2024 team went 3-9 under previous head coach Andy Thompson. Brennan Marion is now re-booting the Hornets program, and his president has put an enormous target on his first-year head coach's back.