Sac State and UCD should — and will — face off for Big Sky football honors. Every year
The coaches talk about it. The players discuss it. So do former players, alums and administrators. And we do, too.
Why can’t Sacramento State and UC Davis lead the charge in the Big Sky Conference, the best collection of football programs at the FCS level in the country? Not just on occasion but on an annual basis?
Why can’t two programs with exceptional head coaches, leading programs rooted in the most populated state in the country — recruits, here, there and everywhere! — make this a rivalry that resonates nationally? They can, and they will. They have already offered glimpses of greatness.
But no more glimpses. It’s time to make this a regular thing. The 67th Causeway Classic between Sac State and UCD on Nov. 20 will include a playoff berth in the balance — unless the wheels fall off one of the programs. That appears unlikely. These teams are in good hands, stacked in the depth chart, heavy with local recruits and play a wide-open brand of ball. With seniors granted an extra year of eligibility due to the fall pandemic, everyone in the Big Sky scramble has an abundance of experience.
Of course, it always starts with coaches. At any level, it starts with the coaches. When you think of Alabama or Clemson, you think Saban and Swinney.
Same with the Aggies and Hornets, with Troy Taylor at Sac State and Dan Hawkins at UCD.
From decline to success
UCD was in decline and needed a jumpstart after six successive losing seasons. The transition from decades-long Division II super power to Division I was an arduous one. A program, founded in 1915, was trying to get out of the gutter. Alums bristled. Some who never understood the value of football wondered if the program should be dropped.
The Aggies got their boom hire before the 2017 season in Hawkins, a brutish fullback of early 1980s UCD vintage. He wowed the room in his first media conference, squeezed into an old lettermen’s jacket. He fired up his team with the promise of effort and results. Then he delivered the program’s first Big Sky Conference crown in 2018, punctuated with a Causeway Classic triumph of Sac State. He earned national coach of the year honors.
Hawkins is no ordinary guy, and that’s his appeal. This is a man who has jumped out of airplanes and traveled the world beyond coaching in 13 different countries. When the pandemic hit last summer, there was Hawk, refusing to let it ruin his spirit. He rode his lawn mower at his Davis home while wearing a throwback Aggies helmet.
Sac State started football in 1954, won its first conference championship in 1964 and just three more entering the 2019 campaign. There were flashes of promise but little momentum over those mixed decades. The only coach to produce a career winning record was the late/great Bob Mattos, who went 84-73-2 from 1978-92.
The Hornets heading into the 2019 campaign sought a big-name hire to usher in a new era and secured Taylor, who does not do boring. The alums are still doing back flips. Taylor was locally born and raised, starred at Cordova High School and set passing marks at Cal.
He brought to Sac State a mixture of cool calm and wit — and a unique ability to design a game plan and to lead. He makes everyone feel involved, be it the walk-on longshot or the returning All-American. Taylor could have pursued a Pac-12 head-coaching gig after working wonders as offensive coordinator at Utah, but ego isn’t part of his dialogue. He craves a challenge. Sac State is that challenge just as much as UCD is Hawkins’ challenge.
Taylor capped his first Sac State season with the program’s first Big Sky banner in 2019, sealed with a triumph of UCD in the regular-season finale. He was named national FCS Coach of the Year.
Hawkins and Taylor learned about grit and work ethic from their fathers. Hawkins’ pop worked a cattle ranch from the vantage point of horseback in Lassen County. Taylor’s father drove nails for a living in Sacramento County as a carpenter. The coaches pinch themselves at their good fortunate, to teach the game, to coach it, to compete.
Hawkins told me during spring ball that coaching, “is the greatest gift. We’re impacting lives. It doesn’t get any better than this.”
Said Taylor during Monday’s Big Sky Conference Media Day, “I draw up plays and hang out with players and compete. How lucky am I? It feels like a blessing every day. I never look at this as work. I’m doing my passion.”
‘It’s up to us to be great coaches’
In consultation with his players, Taylor pulled the Hornets out of the spring Big Sky schedule, one of 32 FCS programs across the country who did not want the spring campaign to run so close to the summer workouts. That allowed the Hornets to evaluate players and ideas even more.
UCD played a spring schedule and went 3-2. The Aggies return a wealth of talent, including quarterbacks Hunter Rodrigues and Trent Tompkins, both of whom will work behind All-Big Sky center Connor Pettek. Sac State also has quarterback depth with three battling for the job in Jake Dunniway, Asher O’Hara and Kaiden Bennett, the one-time Folsom High School record-setting passer. Sac State also returns preseason All-Big Sky running back Elijah Dotson and tight end Marshel Martin.
Said Hawkins at media day, “It comes down to details. It comes down to whoever can coach the best and play the best.”
Hawkins and Taylor both stress culture. What coach doesn’t? It may sound like tired coach-speak, culture is the soul of any program, or it’s the cancer of those who cannot manage. Taylor said love is a big word in his program. Love the game, love the process, love each other.
Hawkins understands this. He lived it as a UCD player a generation ago.
He said Monday, “I love our guys. I get emotional about it. We have that in our culture, times 10. We use love a lot. Love is a verb and an an action. Players will do whatever you want them to do, times 10. It’s up to us to be great coaches and mentors.”