{"id":759330,"date":"2026-02-18T01:19:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/759330\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T01:19:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:19:22","slug":"sacramento-state-to-the-mac-is-realignment-at-its-weirdest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/759330\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento State to the MAC is realignment at its weirdest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Until Saturday Newsletter \ud83c\udfc8\u00a0| This is The Athletic\u2019s college football newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox.<\/p>\n

Hey, you big star. This is a college football newsletter just for you. Let\u2019s get right to it.<\/p>\n

Big MAC: Sacramento State joined the \u2026 what?<\/p>\n

The MAC, a conference mostly based in and around Ohio, is adding Sacramento State from the FCS\u2019 Big Sky Conference, as announced yesterday. It\u2019s doing so on \u201ca five-year term,\u201d whatever that might mean. The Hornets seem to believe they\u2019ll be in the NFC West by then.<\/p>\n

As with Mountain West newcomer North Dakota State, Sacramento State\u2019s move is happening immediately for the 2026 season, meaning it isn\u2019t allowed to play in the FBS postseason for two years.<\/p>\n

But unlike NDSU (and successful FBS newbies like Appalachian State and JMU), the Hornets were not big winners\u00a0during their 33 years in FCS. Only two playoff wins, though both were in the 2020s. No semifinals since 1988, in Division II. After last season\u2019s 7-5 finish, head coach Brennan Marion\u00a0left to become Colorado\u2019s OC<\/a>. Local rival UC Davis has long been a superior program.<\/p>\n

All realignment moves are ultimately about money, but this move is\u00a0extremely\u00a0about money.\u00a0Sac State is\u00a0expected to pay $18 million to join the MAC<\/a>, $16 million more than Northern Illinois is paying to join the Mountain West. A key seven words: Yesterday\u2019s MAC statement touted Sacramento State\u2019s \u201crecord of investment\u201d and \u201ccommitment to continued growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years now, Sacramento boosters have heavily promoted those investments, at one point trying to tempt the Pac-12 with\u00a0talk of an Ohio State-sized NIL budget<\/a>. \ud83e\udd28
\nThis week, school president Luke Wood\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0the MAC move will deliver \u201can estimated economic impact of $975M and national broadcast value of $675M over the next five years.\u201d \ud83e\udd28\ud83e\udd28\ud83e\udd28<\/p>\n

(Joining the NFC West would add eight figures to the Hornets\u2019 value, sure. But the MAC\u2019s current ESPN deal\u00a0reportedly<\/a>\u00a0pays about $8M per year \u2026 for the league\u2019s 13 teams to split. Elite teams in the Big Ten and SEC might fall halfway short of $675M in five-year TV money.)<\/p>\n

Beyond that diamond-eyed math, I can see some logic.\u00a0Stakeholders believe they have the financial power to create a champion where there isn\u2019t one, and they believe their metro population of 2.4 million people will begin falling in love with it. (Over the last few years, the Hornets have ranked around 12th in FCS in attendance, rarely selling out their 21,000-seat stadium.)<\/p>\n

Neither the Pac-12 nor the Mountain West were interested enough to add Sac State, and the NCAA declined its request to join FBS without a conference invite. (In 2017, it approved such a request for Liberty, a program that had won a bit more consistently in FCS.)<\/p>\n

So the idea appears to be:\u00a0Buy a ticket into the weakest FBS conference, flood the field with NIL cash and quickly springboard into the Mountain West or Pac-12 and beyond. Money\u00a0powered JMU\u2019s rise<\/a>, after all.<\/p>\n

Sure. There is a dollar amount that could convince any five-star to move to the radiant city of Sacramento. And sure, gathering enough of those players on one roster would mean dominating the MAC. Maybe the Pac-12 and Mountain West will look silly for not buying in, then watch as the NFC West bids against the Premier League and Marvel Cinematic Universe for the Hornets.<\/p>\n

But as \u201cThe Audible\u201d discusses today,\u00a0this whole thing\u00a0just feels like a pyramid scheme<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Quick Snaps<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udd28 \u201cOnce upon a time, extra years granted were strictly based on season-ending injuries. Now, athletes should be able to dissect loopholes within the archaic NCAA eligibility system.\u201d\u00a0FAQs about all these high-profile players suing their way back to school,\u00a0answered<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udde2 It\u2019s 2027 recruiting season! So far, Oklahoma and Texas A&M have impressed the most important teenagers.\u00a0Everything to know, for now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcc8 \u201cHe was like what he is now, except 20 pounds lighter and goofier.\u201d Bruce Feldman on\u00a0how a two-star QB turned into<\/a>\u00a0a Heisman winner and likely No. 1 NFL Draft pick.<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udee9 What\u2019s the world\u2019s hardest coaching job? In\u00a0our panel on a variety of sports<\/a>, Ralph Russo nominated Alabama, where every day means having to live up to Bear Bryant and Nick Saban.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcf0 News:<\/p>\n

\u201cYale football head coach Tony Reno has\u00a0stepped down<\/a>\u00a0for health reasons, just months after leading the Bulldogs to a Football Championship Subdivision playoff win.\u201d
\n\u201cBYU\u00a0expelled<\/a>\u00a0former football standout Parker Kingston from the university Friday night after he was arrested and jailed earlier this week on a felony rape charge.\u201d
\nCartography: Conferences have become total messes<\/p>\n

With the MAC annexing part of California, almost every FBS conference has now added at least one team far outside its traditional geography. The MAC had begun to feel special for resisting the call to establish an outpost on a far-flung moon (though I suppose it\u2019s time to remember that random blip when\u00a0UCF was a MAC member<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The worst parts of this geographic jumbling happened in the last few years, when the SEC continued mudsliding into the Big 12\u2019s old turf, the Big Ten devoured the heart of the Pac-12 (the biggest Rubicon, IMO) and the ACC sought every coast except the Atlantic. All of that is why the Mountain West claimed DeKalb, Ill., (elevation: 880 feet) and Texas State gets to frequently visit Pullman, Wash.<\/p>\n

But this border gore has been ongoing for a couple decades. Compare the current setup\u00a0to, say, 2004<\/a>, when the ACC hadn\u2019t yet taken northern schools from the Big East and the Big Ten hadn\u2019t\u00a0launched 2010s realignment<\/a>\u00a0by claiming Nebraska, one of several schools that\u00a0told the Longhorns to shove it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I calculated\u00a0the geographic midpoint of each FBS conference, comparing 2004 to 2026.\u00a0Using advanced technology (doodling in Paintbrush on Google Maps screenshots), I am sharing those midpoints with you. Tap to zoom.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

That extremely well-designed map doesn\u2019t account for the Mountain West\u2019s Hawaii, an obvious geographic outlier, and it doesn\u2019t display the Western Athletic Conference, which dropped football in 2012. RIP.<\/p>\n

The point is: Almost every conference is slopping its way toward a soupy mishmash in the middle of the country,\u00a0like they\u2019re all sliding toward a hole in the earth.\u00a0The ACC\u2019s center is no longer Tobacco Road, but somewhere in Kentucky. The Big Ten drifted from Chicago to Omaha. The Pac-12\u2019s new coast is on Great Salt Lake.<\/p>\n

The Sun Belt is the only real exception, having now defined itself as FBS\u2019 actual Southeastern conference, partly by losing its former oddballs like Idaho and New Mexico State. Thank you, SBC, for becoming FBS\u2019 only honest league.
\nAlso, don\u2019t be fooled by the Big 12\u2019s midpoint remaining basically unchanged. Its longest drive used to be Colorado to Texas A&M (14 hours) \u2026 and is now UCF to Utah (34 hours). Far away!
\nTechnically, even Conference USA moved midward despite changing its entire roster in the meantime. But nobody should be mad at CUSA, merely a helpless passenger. (Its epic\u00a0membership timeline<\/a>\u00a0is one of my favorite Wikipedia graphics.)<\/p>\n

For over a century, college football had regional identities.\u00a0Then we kept watching it change. We had no idea how great it was, since we never had reason to suspect there would one day be Washington-Maryland conference games, let alone that it would pressure smaller leagues into crafting their own bizarre artwork.<\/p>\n

Anyway, end on a happy note: The top comment on every post (including ours<\/a>) about Sacramento State joining the MAC is by someone celebrating the imminent Ball-Sac rivalry. What a Tuesday night kickoff at 5 p.m. PT that\u2019ll be!<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it for today. Other than sports stuff, the only things I know about Sacramento are things I\u2019ve learned from\u00a0Tom Ziller<\/a>, \u201cLady Bird,\u201d Blackalicious and the Deftones. Email me at untilsaturday@theathletic.com if you have Sacramento lore the people should know about.<\/p>\n

Love Until Saturday? Check out\u00a0The Athletic\u2019s other newsletters<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Until Saturday Newsletter \ud83c\udfc8\u00a0| This is The Athletic\u2019s college football newsletter. Sign up here to receive Until Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[331,7,49,48,7147],"class_list":{"0":"post-759330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-sacramento-state-hornets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116089007046871338","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}