{"id":162852,"date":"2025-06-27T15:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T15:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/162852\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T15:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T15:04:13","slug":"sacramento-state-is-dead-set-on-joining-the-big-time-but-what-will-it-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/162852\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento State is dead set on joining the big time. But what will it take?"},"content":{"rendered":"

SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 One of the hottest football programs in the country resides in a nondescript office building, sharing space with the audiology clinic, nursing school and cardiovascular wellness program. Take the elevator to the third floor, turn left and you\u2019ll find the Sacramento State coaching staff\u2019s offices.<\/p>\n

One is occupied by a 37-year-old first-time head coach wearing a gold chain inscribed with \u201cGo-Go\u201d \u2014 the name of his offense. Sitting on the desk next to him is his ubiquitous cowboy hat. He knows it\u2019s unusual for a college coach to have tattoos on his hands and neck, but over the years, it became his thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the young coaches say I\u2019m like the Allen Iverson (of coaching),\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Brennan Marion has been on the job for only six months, but he has already managed to transform a program of modest history into a destination for recruits and transfers who might not have otherwise considered an FCS school. Part of the sales pitch is the aggressive effort by the school, with an enrollment of 31,000 and an alumni base of 280,000, to move up to the FBS level.<\/p>\n

The program is expected to spend $4 million on name, image and likeness (NIL) in calendar year 2025, between donations and revenue sharing, according to assistant general manager Chris Parry. Marion\u2019s salary is $750,000, and the program has a $2.7 million staff pool. All three figures are believed to be the highest in the FCS.<\/p>\n

Seemingly overnight, long-sleepy Sacramento State has transformed into one of the flashiest athletic departments in college sports.<\/p>\n

A men\u2019s basketball program that has never won its conference or played in the NCAA Tournament and, as of last season, played in a 1,012-seat arena, hired former Sacramento Kings star Mike Bibby as its head coach. He, in turn, brought in NBA great Shaquille O\u2019Neal as the program\u2019s general manager.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the football program\u2019s recruiting weekends include Power 4-style photo shoots, with players posing next to a Mercedes-Benz GT, and buffet dinners at a ritzy downtown nightclub. This is the same program that did not notch its first FCS playoff win until 2022 (it won one again in \u201923) and went 3-9 last season.<\/p>\n

The real ONE\ud83e\udd1e\ud83c\udffe pic.twitter.com\/yI42l7YtlI<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jacob Chambers (@jacobchambers__) June 10, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

Sac State\u2019s 2026 recruiting class is ranked just outside the top 50 nationally on 247Sports. Five-star quarterback Ryder Lyons, who grew up in nearby Folsom, took an unofficial visit there before committing to BYU. Top-10 receiver Xavier McDonald took official visits in June to LSU, Ole Miss \u2026 and Sac State.<\/p>\n

Already on board is Jaden Rashada, the former four-star quarterback known for a massive NIL deal gone wrong at Florida, who spent his first two seasons at Arizona State and Georgia. So is running back Rodney Hammond Jr., who ran for 1,400 yards at Pittsburgh. And former Texas and Alabama receiver Agiye Hall. Marion and\/or his assistants had relationships with most of the transfers they brought in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love coach Marion\u2019s offense, and I like what he\u2019s building here,\u201d says Rashada, a Northern California native, of the former UNLV offensive coordinator.<\/p>\n

Fueling the transformation is an administration adamant about crashing the top level of college athletics and support from a group of willing donors dubbed the Sac12<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people in this community with real money \u2026 and they\u2019re really all in on making this a top-tier football program,\u201d Marion says. \u201cIf we\u2019re announced FBS \u2014 when we\u2019re announced FBS \u2014 the only schools on the West Coast that will have more than us financially when it comes to helping players in NIL will be USC and Oregon.\u201d<\/p>\n

But unlike those big-name recruits, no one in the FBS is interested in Sacramento State.<\/p>\n

The university\u2019s application to transition to an FBS football independent starting in 2026 was denied Wednesday by the NCAA Division I Council, making it clear that the climb toward national and even regional relevancy can\u2019t just happen overnight.<\/p>\n

The denial came a week after the NCAA oversight committee recommended to the council<\/a> that it deny Sacramento State a waiver to move up without a conference invitation, something it last approved for Liberty in 2017. An invite signals a university\u2019s readiness to make such a drastic jump solo.<\/p>\n

University president Dr. J. Luke Wood posted on social media Wednesday morning that Sacramento State remains undeterred:<\/p>\n

Sacramento State has met every meaningful benchmark for FBS membership, and we believe our university, our students, and the entire Sacramento region deserve major college football. We\u2019re full steam ahead and we still plan to be playing FBS football in 2026. pic.twitter.com\/NoEcQ7EmyG<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Dr. Luke Wood (@DrLukeWood) June 25, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

Wood told The Athletic that the school plans to explore an appeals process and refuted recent reports that Sac State would play 2026 as an FCS independent.<\/p>\n

The school has already announced it will withdraw from the Big Sky Conference next summer and join the Big West Conference for all sports except football.<\/p>\n

Sacramento State has tried to pitch the Mountain West and Pac-12.<\/p>\n

The Pac-12 has focused on active FBS programs and is expected to add Texas State<\/a> as an eighth all-sports member. It does not have an interest in Sacramento State, according to sources briefed on the league\u2019s stance. The Mountain West said in January, after adding Northern Illinois as a football-only member, that it would pause further expansion. The programs Sacramento State is competing with are generally more established and already playing at the FBS level.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the denial, Marion says other schools have been trying to get the Hornets\u2019 committed recruits to defect but predicted 90 percent of the class will still sign with Sac State. He also says FBS membership is still coming.<\/p>\n

\u201c(State) senators are involved, congressmen are involved \u2014 people are very serious about us going to FBS in this region,\u201d he says. \u201cJust me, personally, if I was on the NCAA Council, I don\u2019t want to go against the state capital of California.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wood put it this way: \u201cI\u2019m glad that people get to see that these things aren\u2019t easy. Because it\u2019s going to make the victory even more sweet. Because we will be FBS.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, how did Sacramento State, one of 23 universities in the Cal State University system, become such a flash point?<\/p>\n

The university announced last September that it intended to capitalize on a years-long feasibility study that delved into how athletics can take off and become a primary moneymaker for the school. That decision comes despite the university facing a $37 million budget deficit in the coming fiscal year. The Cal State University system is also set to face a $375 million budget cut in the 2025-26 budget plan by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.<\/p>\n

Wood told inquirers in an AMA on Reddit this spring that the school was leaving millions of dollars in media rights on the table as a member of the Big Sky Conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe investments that we have made will ensure that our next media deal is in the millions, not $100,000s,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

In 2025, here\u2019s how a school tries to ascend in college athletics:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Flex with your facilities. Sacramento State, which has had some of the most downtrodden athletic facilities in the country, is upgrading its football home, Hornet Stadium, to a 25,000-seat multiuse venue expected to be completed by the fall of 2027. It\u2019s estimated to cost as much as $300 million, which Wood confirms will be funded by money allocated to the athletic department, as well as sponsorships and donor pledges. This season, the men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball teams will leave The Nest, a relic of a bygone era, and play in The Well, a 3,200-seat renovated event center on campus.<\/p>\n

When Bibby played for the Kings, he sometimes played pickup hoops at The Nest. Twenty years later, Bibby was shocked to learn the Hornets still played there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Damn!\u2019\u201d Bibby recalls, laughing.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the football program\u2019s move into the office space at Folsom Hall raised concerns by its fellow tenants about the upheaval, according to The State Hornet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Secure the necessary funds for transformation. A local coalition of lawmakers, business leaders and Sacramento State alumni called the Sac12 announced in 2024 $35 million in pledges to NIL funds for the athletic department. That number soon bloated to a reported $50 million. The organization was named after the desire to prove a worthy entrant into the remade Pac-12<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But most of those financial commitments, according to athletic director Mark Orr, are contingent on the university receiving FBS status in football, and Marion, Bibby, Shaq and others won\u2019t have them at their immediate disposal.<\/p>\n

The $50 million represents a stark contrast from Sac State\u2019s recent existence, with the school reporting $836,000 in donations for the 2024 fiscal year.<\/p>\n

The athletic department reported operating revenue of $43 million, including $10.2 million in student fees, $10 million in indirect institutional support and $16.7 million in direct institutional support from the university.<\/p>\n

Despite the influx, there is always a need for more. The top FBS schools in the country are set to start paying athletes department-wide $20.5 million in revenue sharing each year.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Attract big names, whether they sign on or not. In December, former NFL star quarterback Michael Vick was linked with the vacant Sacramento State football coaching position, generating more headlines. Orr confirmed preliminary talks with Vick took place, but nothing substantial materialized.<\/p>\n

Vick was hired as the head coach of HBCU Norfolk State, and Sacramento State hired Marion, whose offense helped UNLV make back-to-back Mountain West title games.<\/p>\n

In late March, Bibby was hired, making $560,000 annually, according to his contract. A month later, O\u2019Neal agreed to become the university\u2019s general manager for men\u2019s basketball. Shaq\u2019s son Shaqir has signed with the Hornets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mike Bibby had assistant coaching stops with the Puerto Rican national team, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Memphis Grizzlies summer league teams and the NBA G-League Ignite. He was also head coach at Shadow Mountain High School in Arizona. (Michael Chow \/ The Republic \/ USA Today Network via Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

Bibby saw the role of general managers expanding nationwide and thought, \u201cLet me ask Shaq.\u201d The unpaid role is part talent identification, part donor stimulation, part just, well, being Shaq.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a guy like Shaquille O\u2019Neal, you don\u2019t tell him what to do,\u201d Bibby says. \u201cShaq does what the hell he wants to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Play to vacancies in the media market. Sacramento has been trying to balloon its sports presence in recent years beyond its beloved Kings.<\/p>\n

The city was granted expansion rights by Major League Soccer in 2019, and plans for a new downtown soccer-specific stadium were greenlit, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed plans, and its primary investor withdrew funding in 2021.<\/p>\n

Major League Baseball\u2019s former Oakland Athletics are playing home games in Sacramento\u2019s Triple-A stadium before they complete their permanent move to Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Attempt to write your own script. Sac State has yet to establish itself as a must-see sports draw. Former football head coach Troy Taylor led the Hornets to three Big Sky championships in 2019, 2021 and 2022, the first conference titles ever won since joining in 1996. The women\u2019s basketball team, which made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 2023, went 15-18 last season. The men\u2019s basketball team went 7-25.<\/p>\n

But now that the Hornets believe they have organized for the big time and are prepped to splash cash on stadium and facility upgrades and finally build consistent winners in revenue-generating sports, Orr believes there\u2019s no reason his school can\u2019t join the crowded Northern California sports scene. The school reported $419,000 in ticket sales for all sports in fiscal year 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the only top-20 media market in the country that doesn\u2019t have an FBS program,\u201d Orr says. \u201cThis market is thirsty for something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Sacramento State angles for its chance, Marion and Bibby are trying to take the Hornets to heights never seen in town.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make the NCAA Tournament this year,\u201d Bibby says. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s a failure if we don\u2019t, but that\u2019s our goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the transfer portal, any team that gets all the right pieces in place from year to year can mold itself from an afterthought into a contender, Bibby says.<\/p>\n

Sacramento State signed former prep phenom Mikey Williams, who intended to start his career at Memphis but never played there after he was charged with nine felonies for allegedly firing a gun at an occupied car in April 2023. Williams had his charges reduced<\/a>, pleaded guilty to one felony and served a year of probation that led to that plea being reduced to a misdemeanor. He spent last year at UCF, averaging 5 points a game.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, one of the football staff\u2019s most effective strategies is to flood the market with offers, whether or not they\u2019re realistic targets.<\/p>\n

Offensive tackle Jackson Cantwell, the No. 1 recruit in the country, is headed to Miami and likely never considered Sacramento State. But when he got an offer from the Hornets, he posted it on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was big for branding: Why is this big-time five-star No. 1 recruit posting?\u201d says C.J. Pollard, who runs Sac State recruiting. \u201cI just wanted to make it cool, and the only way to make it cool was the top dudes setting the trend. \u2018I need you to report our offer and tell \u2019em we\u2019re coming after you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Pollard also noticed that the FCS, unlike the FBS, does not have a rule banning photo shoots on unofficial visits. Instagram is now plastered with photos of recruits in a full Sac State uniform, posed in front of a carefully curated set full of Hornets swag.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funny thing is we\u2019re now on the dream-school list,\u201d Marion says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Brennan Marion comes to Sacramento State after being the offensive coordinator at UNLV. Marion was a record-setting receiver for Tulsa as a player. (Courtesy of Sacramento State)<\/p>\n

Stephanie Nguyen, a California assemblymember who graduated from the school in 1997 and is a member of the Sac12 Committee, says the enthusiasm around the school is visible. When she\u2019s at public events, people throw their pinkies in the air to signify \u201cStingers Up.\u201d The school\u2019s ambitions have been brought up to her at the state\u2019s Capitol.<\/p>\n

\u201cI go to Costco now,\u201d she says, \u201cand Sac State stuff is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for all the moves and momentum, Sacramento State is still waiting, without a future home for its football program. If the donor base, so excited at the prospect of being an FBS football program, doesn\u2019t see significant movement, will those gargantuan financial promises dwindle?<\/p>\n

Will the millions of dollars in media rights Wood says are attainable come to fruition?<\/p>\n

And, above all else, is Sacramento State, for all its chest-pounding readiness, ever going to be offered a seat at the table?<\/p>\n

The Hornets, with all their newfound recruiting swagger, could start by winning some games.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll eyes are going to be on us,\u201d says Lafayette transfer running back Jamar Curtis, the current FCS career rushing leader. \u201cWe\u2019re popping, we\u2019re buzzing across the internet, so there\u2019s definitely going to be a lot of people against us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Athletic\u2019s Chris Vannini contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

(Top photo of Brennan Marion courtesy of Sacramento State)<\/p>\n