Stingers Up!: How Sac State Hornets did ‘the impossible’ in rise to FCS title contention
Bill Kutzer was there for the early days of the football program.
As a wide-eyed young coach, he basked in the glory of Sacramento State rising from nothing to something, and then he winced at the rubble of a collapse. Then Kutzer was inspired by the ascent again, then witnessed the dip.
So, yes, the Hornets gridiron experience has been a wild ride, a roller-coaster often fortified with rails.
Now 82, Kutzer reflected this week on the Hornets then and the Hornets now, their remarkable rise to power in the FCS, their national No. 2 ranking, their 10-0 record and how savory it all really is. The retired kinesiology professor will arrive at Hornet Stadium on Saturday morning around 10 a.m., well before the 2 p.m. kickoff against rival UC Davis in the 69th Causeway Classic. He’ll be there to embrace old friends, to share old stories. He will parade around throwback Hornets colors amid a sea of Sacramento State alums who may need a lift out of their seats but not a refresher on memory lane.
And then he’ll soak in the game.
“We had great times back then, then some lean times, and to see what’s happening now is just awesome,” Kutzer said. “The thing I know is that when everyone is on board, from top to bottom, from the guys in the equipment room to the president of the university, then this can happen. You can have success. I’ve seen it, and I saw the support when it dropped at Sac State. Now look. We’re back to having great coaching and a president on board. Everyone’s on board.”
Kutzer was hired by famed Hornets coach Ray Clemons in the mid 1960s to coach the school’s freshman team. The 1966 freshman team went 6-1. The 1967 team went 7-0.
“We were unscored on in ’67, and we called ourselves the ‘Rat Pack’,” Kutzer said.
The “Rat Pack” helped lead Sacramento State to the 1968 Junior Rose Bowl to face Hall of Fame coach Eddie Robinson and Grambling. The Hornets inspired people then. In the infancy days of the program, not so much. Sacramento State’s first team was in 1954, and its first victory came in 1955. The first conference championship was in 1964 and then another came in ’66, under Clemons. By the mid 1970s, the Hornets crashed — winless.
Bob Mattos took over as coach in 1978 and struggled to field a team.
“We were interested in any live body that could walk and chew gum and knew what a football was,” Mattos said years ago.
Mattos produced his only championship team in 1986.
The next conference-championship Hornets team didn’t come until 1995, under fiery first-year coach John Volek. In 2018, the Hornets were winless in the Big Sky Conference. Attendance had plummeted. Students grumbled that football should be dropped. Senior Day to honor graduating players that season was canceled due to poor air quality from wildfire smoke. It seemed eerily fitting.
The Hornets sought out a difference-maker coach to salvage the program.
‘I want Troy Taylor!’
When Robert S. Nelsen attended the Big Sky meetings following the 2018 campaign, Sacramento State’s president had one coach in mind to lead the football fortunes. One guy only.
“I told our search committee, ‘I want Troy Taylor!’ and they said, ‘You can’t have Troy Taylor. Well, I want Troy Taylor!’” Nelsen said this week with a laugh. “Well, we got Troy Taylor, and now look at us.”
Taylor was the feel-good homegrown product from Cordova High School, The Bee’s Player of the Year in 1985. He set a bevy of passing records at Cal, got into coaching and became a hot name, be it at Folsom High School, or at Eastern Washington of the Big Sky Conference or at Utah of the Pac-12, where he was the offensive coordinator.
Sacramento State couldn’t offer the money Utah gave him, but it did give him a seven-year contract, a major commitment in college sports. That deal is a roll-over seven-year contract. In short, Taylor can stay as long as he’d like. Taylor told The Sacramento Bee last week he has “no intention” of leaving the Hornets. There’s much more work to do, he said. His teams have gone 22-1 in the Big Sky and a win over UCD would ensure a Big Sky championship three-peat.
Taylor and his stellar staff are on the cusp of winning three titles when it took the Hornets 64 years to win their first three.
Nelsen: ‘Build a dynasty’
Volek coached the Hornets from 1995-2002. He worked tirelessly to get the Hornets relevant, producing prolific teams but no playoff outfits, though he was close. He was an advisor of sorts at Sacramento State when the Hornets sought out a coach in the winter months of 2018.
Volek raves at what he sees in the Hornets: A team that relies on the ground game with Big Sky leading rusher Cameron Skattebo, but can tear teams apart with the pass behind Asher O’Hara and Jake Dunniway. A team that makes few mistakes. A team that is in shape, thanks in large part to the tutelage of highly regarded strength coach Ryan Deatrick. A team that hits on defense and seals games with late stops, like against storied Montana in front of a national ESPN audience at Hornet Stadium, punctuated by fans pouring onto the field.
Fans have noticed. The Hornets are third in the Big Sky in attendance with nearly 14,000 a game. That may not be much in the land of FBS football at Alabama or USC, but in the FCS, that’s big. Fans have also ordered up replica jerseys of players, including the beloved Skattebo, the Rio Linda High School product whose hometown following includes up to 150 people on game night.
“I play for them, for my team, my school,” Skattebo said. He is indebted to Taylor, the only coach to offer him a full athletic scholarship.
Volek is a fan of the entire program.
“No. 1, I’m impressed with Troy as a coach and person and how he’s adapted to his talent, and that tells you a lot,” Volek said. “He really knows his people, his players. His knowledge of the game and his players is impressive. His players don’t celebrate. They have total even-keeled temperament. And what defensive coordinator Andy Thompson is doing is amazing. That’s the best tackling Sac State team I’ve ever seen.”
Volek added, “What’s the difference from when I was coaching there and now? I had five AD’s in eight years. I had a president who did not know what was going on. President Nelsen has a vision. (Athletic director Mark) Orr understands football, and Troy Taylor is a great coach. I came in to save Sac State football. Troy has saved it and elevated it.”
Nelsen is retiring at the end of this academic year. He’s soaking in every bit of the Hornets’ rise, like a giddy kid in that roller coaster seat. No need for a helmet. Nelsen was the Hornets’ honorary team captain for the team’s last game, a win at Portland State in the wind and mist. He inspired the team, explaining he grew up on a Montana ranch, wasn’t much of an athlete and once missed a free throw in his big-moment basketball game.
“I had a great time!” Nelsen said of his honorary captain duties. “Having a good football program is part of defining ourselves as a university. We want to be ingrained in the Sacramento region and we are. It starts with Troy. He talks about leading with love and not leading with fear. You can feel that love of each other and the game. He puts so much emphasis on strength and conditioning. When we were losing games before he got here, we had players hurt right and left. These student-athletes are so much better prepared.”
But will the guru coach leave?
“Troy is not going anywhere,” Nelsen said. “He may be tempted, but he came here to do something, to build something, to build a dynasty.”
Coach’s mom questions coach
Taylor said the Hornets are Sacramento’s team. There are enough fans to fill the bandwagon for FC Republic soccer, the Kings, high schools and the Hornets.
“I think it’s important the city has something they can be proud of and a college program they can follow,” Taylor said. “Hopefully, we’re doing our part. It seems like the fan base has been activated and jumped on board, which is great.”
He added, “We’re one of the best college football teams in the nation. We do it the right way. Our guys are good guys, good citizens, good students, good players They play a fun brand of football. They play clean. They’re worthy of people watching them play.”
Taylor joked that he knows his program has arrived based on the input of his mother, Roberta. She attends home games with Taylor’s wife, Tracey. She beams during games. But later?
“She’s gotten more in depth and now she’s starting to question play calling,” Taylor said with a laugh. “She wonders why I don’t run more trick plays. It used to be, ‘Great job, honey!’ Now, it’s more, ‘What were you doing on that play?’ Or, ‘Why do we always run up the middle?’”
Doing the impossible
Ray Clemons gave Sacramento State football an identity in the 1960s in an era of no water breaks and punishing two-a-day practices, and often when crowds topped just 2,00. Mattos injected fire and intensity and got the Hornets rolling with five consecutive Causeway Classic victories from 1988-92. His best team was the 1988 Hornets team that beat UC Davis twice, first in the regular season to halt an 18-year losing skid to the Aggies and then in the Division II playoffs. The 1988 Hornets team was recently inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame.
Donald Hair was the first scholarship football player for the Hornets, signing out of local McClatchy High School before the 1985 season. He was a key player at running back his four seasons, including the 1988 team that reached the Division II semifinals, and he’s impressed with the Hornets of today.
“It’s a proud moment for a lot of us to see what Sac State is doing,” Hair said. “It’s impressive. It’s such a pride thing. I’m proud to have been a part of this program, part of the history, the building blocks from Division II to Division I, and to see them ranked so highly fives us all sometning to cheer for.”
Volek brought in his own brand of intensity and personality. He was pained when his contract wasn’t extended but has been a regular at home games in recent years, armed with a grin and a cane to ease sore hips. Mattos died in 2010 at 68 from cancer. His spirit lives on in the program.
“I see some similarities between the 1988 team and the recent teams,” said Dave Hoskins, a Hornets teammate with Mattos in the 1960s and an assistant coach on the 1988 Sacramento State squad. “We had a great staff and they have a great staff now. They’re so well oiled. Great players, great coaching, and you put that all together, and they’ve done the impossible. I’m more than delighted. I’ve seen it all there. It’s come light years from then to now.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2022 at 5:00 AM.