Sac State, UC Davis officially enter new sports conferences. Will the rivals meet?
The academic year doesn’t officially start for Sacramento State until Aug. 31 and for UC Davis on Sept. 21, but for the athletic programs for the longtime rivals are officially in go-motion now with the dawn of a new sporting era.
On Wednesday, July 1, Sac State officially became a member of the California-heavy Big West Conference for non-football sports (football has joined the Midwest-heavy Mid-American Conference), and on the same day, UCD became an official member of the Mountain West for non-football sports.
UCD played in the Big West for 20 years, while its football program has been a mainstay in the Big Sky Conference since 2012.
The Big West Conference on its athletics page announced the addition of Cal Baptist of Riverside, Sac State and Utah Valley into the Big West, which includes schools that do not field football as budget cuts doomed those programs years ago. The hashtags on the Big West athletics webpage page include #OnlyTheBold, #SurfToSummitt and #BeBold.
Sac State joins existing Big West members Cal Poly, Cal State Bakersfield, Fullerton, Northridge, Long Beach State, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara. Sac State baseball was a Big West member from 1996-2002.
“This is an exciting day for Sacramento State and Hornet Athletics,” said Sacramento State athletic director Mark Orr in a statement. “The Big West offers an outstanding platform for our student-athletes, coaches, and university community. We are eager to begin competition, while we also look forward to enhancing existing rivalries and establishing new ones. Sacramento State aligns perfectly with a league known for excellence and innovation. The future is bright for Sacramento State and The Big West.”
UCD will remain in the Big Sky for football but could draw interest from the Mountain West in football down the road. Existing members of the Mountain West are Air Force, New Mexico, Nevada, San Jose State, UNLV and Wyoming. The schools that departed the Mountain West to join the revamped Pac-12 are Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State.
Decades-long FCS powerhouse North Dakota State has joined the Mountain West for football only. The Mountain West on its athletics page announced the formal addition of UCD and others.
“Today marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for UC Davis athletics,” Aggies athletic director Rocko DeLuca said in a statement.
Will Sac State play UCD in anything?
Sacramento State and UCD will not face each other in football this fall, at a minimum pausing a rivalry that started in 1954 when the Hornets started their gridiron program.
The schools would have remained on-field rivals had Sac State not departed the Big Sky. Both schools have maintained that they are open to resuming the rivalry, DeLuca told The Sacramento Bee last fall that he would not break contractural agreements with other schools to make that happen, though Sac State’s Orr said the Hornets would cover those broken-contract fees.
In men’s soccer, UCD will play at Sac State in a nonconference game on Aug. 20. The basketball, baseball and softball non-conference schedules have not been finalized, though logistically, it seems that UCD and Sac State could still meet in those sports as they have for decades.