Another Sac State thread on egriz? We've really been living rent free in your heads these past few months. Well here's my take of the situation and response to some of the posts in this thread. It's a long read so add some whale oil to your lamp, tie down the canvas on your covered wagon, adjust your coonskin cap and settle in, I'll turn on my telegraph machine in a day or so so I can reply to some of the vitriol that is sure to follow.
Pertaining to football recruiting, these players came to Sac to play for Coach Marion. He connects with the culture and his track record has been to get lots of players touches and stats. Everyone currently on the Hornet roster came knowing that '25 was going to be an FCS season. Maybe some players will sit out, but given the current nature of D1 athletics that the NIL era has created, the players that ball out will be moving on to a "better program" regardless of if we will be FCS or FBS in '26 or beyond. D1 athletics is all about getting the best talent on the roster on an annual basis and free agency plays a big part in that, our FB classification doesn't change that. FWIW we had a c/o '26 4 star top 100 HS recruit make his official campus visit late this week, if the waiver decision was that big of a deal he would have cancelled his visit. Again, most of these players are at Sac to play for Coach Marion and be a part of the culture he brings to the program.
I do think the FB classification will impact how long Coach Marion sticks around, but if he lives up to the hype he will be getting poached to a more lucrative contract at a bigger program sooner rather than later anyways. I have no knowledge of his current contract, but if I were structuring it, he would be paid as an FCS HC with a trigger for renegotiation in the event that Hornet FB attains FBS status. I'm sure the lure to bring Hornet FB into FBS status was a selling point. Nonetheless, Coach Marion will need to deliver this season and none of the FBS waiver issues change that.
Pertaining to the FBS waiver, the only thing we have at this point is a recommendation to decline it from the FBS Oversight Committee. The only thing I've seen for reasoning behind the FBS Oversight Committee's decision was the lack of an invite from an FBS conference. This tells me that Sac State hits all the FBS metrics with the exception of the conference invite. It will be voted on by the D1 Council next week. I'm not sure what actual day the vote on our waiver will take place but we'll know by Wednesday at the latest. I would be surprised if the D1 Council votes against the recommendation.
That said, the next step for Dr. Wood and Sac State is likely to file an antitrust lawsuit. I don't think Dr. Wood came all this way just to go away quietly in the event of an unfavorable D1 Council decision on the waiver. The Liberty lawsuit 7ish years ago is important because it proves that you can sue your way into FBS. While the Hornets wouldn't be suing on religious grounds in this circumstance, I would assume there are other antitrust grounds that a case against the NCAA can be made on.
Additionally, the NCAA has taken some major L's in the courtroom so it could just be a matter of getting the case in front of a favorable/activist judge. I'm not an internet lawyer like a lot of you folks here are, but just going off of some of the headlines and snippets I've read on some of the recent NCAA cases, I think this is a viable path if it comes to that. The down side of the lawfare route is the time it will take and the impact it has on the FBS transition schedule. I honestly don't have any idea how fast or slow such a case will take.
So why did Dr. Wood pull out of the BSC similarly to how you egrizzers pull out of your pet ewe? Simple, Sac State is opting into the House Agreement so that we can pay...er I mean "revenue share" with our "student athletes". Since the BSC hasn't (isn't?) opting into the House Agreement, we can now have an "unlimited" amount of scholarships and push our FB roster size to 105 players and not be limited to the 65 scholarships that the BSC stipulates. This will allow Hornet football to ramp up to FBS G5 levels of institutional support while remaining in the FCS. With your big brothers in Bozeman opting into the House Agreement, I'm curious to see what their approach is going to be in order to take full advantage of the opportunity.
With the Big West's Board of Directors unanimous vote on June 5th to extend Sac State a membership invite, we'll now be able to park our Olympic sports in a regional footprint that will, according to AD Orr at the BW Introductory press conference, save Sac State "hundreds of thousands of dollars" which will be "reinvested into the athletic programs." Oh and here's the kicker, we get to jettison the BSC for $250k and not the $1M since we got our formal notice of departure before July 1st.
I think I hit on all the main points I read in this thread. Let me know if I missed something.
Oh almost forgot, it was a catch. Cry more.
