Sacramento State football team won’t play in Big Sky’s spring league

The Sacramento State football team announced Thursday it will not play in the Big Sky Conference’s spring season, which was delayed from fall because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The opt-out decision is designed to prevent overworking student-athletes in a violent, collision sport such as this, where recovery time is vital in an era of extra caution on the toll of bodies and brains. The FCS season is scheduled to run until the middle of May, and the 2021 fall season would kick off in late August with training camp. Players on some teams could play as many as 26 games in less than a year.

Sacramento State’s decision came from head coach Troy Taylor, who earned national Coach of the Year honors in 2019 in his first season after leading the Hornets to a share of the Big Sky championship. Sac State football also surveyed its players, anonymously, and the concerns were similar: Safety.

Sac State opens its 2021 season at Cal, alma mater of Taylor and Sac State athletic director Mark Orr. Cal’s current season will be concluded by December of this year, allowing the Bears a great deal more time to rest, heal and prepare for Sac State as compared to the Hornets being ready for Cal.

“This was my recommendation,” Taylor said in a Zoom interview. “This wasn’t forced on me. We were all unified on this.”

He added, “This is just our opinion. It’s unprecedented to play a spring season and then turnaround for fall. No one has done it before. It was not worth the risk. No one loves football more than me. Our guys love playing. Would they have played this spring? Yeah. They’re warriors. The recovery time you need, the down time to let your body recover from football, that’s serious stuff when you’re messing with the rhythm of of that, and then you’re taking a real chance.”

Said Orr, “What drove this decision was the best interest of the players. If we felt it was safe, and we thought it was the right thing to do, we would have done it.”

Sac State will continue to prepare for the traditional 2021 fall season and will maintain scheduled practices and team activities throughout the 2020-21 academic year.

UC Davis also plays in the Big Sky but is still slated to play in the spring.

Sac State quarterback Jake Dunniway said there is understandable disappointment to have a fall without football and a spring without it as well, though spring drills will happen.

“We’re very competitive, but it’s good to be cautious, and we’d rather be safe and have a full team healthy and compete next fall,” he said. “We’re going to continue to prepare. That’s the best thing for us. You can never not put too much work in.”

Sac State seniors will be allowed to return next fall without losing eligibility. The opt-out will not prevent Sac State from adding recruits, either, Coach Taylor said. Taylor said the team remains united.

“We love our senior class and want to give them a great experience,” he said. “There have been a lot of awful things that have happened with COVID-19, but we’re OK. We love being around each other. It’s a credit to our guys. They want to be here.”

He added, “This is what I told our guys: There are a lot of people dealing with a lot worse things than what we’re going through in football. A lot of people are dealing with worse, losing a business, losing lives. If this is the most difficult thing we have to face in our lives, then we’ve had a good life.”

Big Sky teams have already suffered a loss before the season even started when the Pac-12 announced that its teams would only play conference games.

That means Sac State’s game at Washington in September was scrapped, including a payout of some $600,000. Portland State had September games at Arizona and Oregon State canceled, a financial hit of nearly $1 million. Larger-level football programs have played lower-level ones for decades, hosting those games in meetings they are expected to win. The smaller programs are presented an opportunity to gauge themselves by playing up, and take home a hefty check.

This story was originally published October 15, 2020 at 10:20 AM.