Coaching friends will collide when Sacramento State visits Stanford and coach Troy Taylor
Handshakes, hugs and compliments will be exchanged with genuine gratitude and appreciation among familiar faces on Saturday afternoon.
And then there will be a game: Sacramento State vs. Stanford.
Even coaches refer to each other as “brothers” in a sport big on unity and family, and brothers of any family relish the chance to show the others what they’ve got. Be it in the backyard as siblings or as grown men with headsets and laminated play sheets matching wits in football venues as vast as Stanford Stadium, it’s on. It’s a battle — bare knuckles, grins and grimaces — and on The Farm, old friends will collide.
Stanford is coached by Troy Taylor, who headed the Hornets the previous four years, punctuated by three successive Big Sky Conference championships. Sacramento State is headed by Andy Thompson, the Hornets’ former defensive coordinator, whose top assistants were also brought in by Taylor at Sacramento State before the 2019 season — longtime Taylor pals Kris Richardson and Bobby Fresques.
“Whenever you’re playing against people you know, you want to compete like it’s your brother,” Thompson said. “Yeah, you just want to compete. I’m looking forward to our guys going out and doing that. It just so happens we know Troy and he knows us, so that’ll make it fun.”
He added: “We’re going down there to play a game, and for these guys, man, they’ve got a chance to be on a Pac-12 stage. More than anything, I want them to enjoy it.”
Taylor said the familiarity between the coaches “adds another layer to all of it,” which means layers of intrigue and chess-match duels and the like. He said he wished his Hornets coaching pals well, adding with a laugh, “except on Saturday.”
Richardson said the Hornets will “treat this like any game, and we’ll compete. We’re getting ready for the Big Sky schedule.”
Richardson then beamed in talking about his decades-long friendship with Taylor, their championship run at Folsom High School and then at Sacramento State. It was Richardson’s intent to remain with the Hornets, where he appreciates his role as assistant head coach and offensive line coach, and a place where he’s been able to coach his sons, Kooper, now assisting the Hornet coaches, and Kaden, a Hornets center. He also coached them at Folsom High. That’s the definition of a football family.
“I’m doing exactly what I want to do, living in the same house in Folsom from when I coached there,” Richardson said. “I’m having a blast. It’ll be great to see Troy, and we had so much fun together, but we’ve got a game to play.”
Streak on the line
The FCS-ranked No. 8 Hornets (2-0) have a 21-game regular-season winning streak, last falling in a non-playoff game to Cal in 2021. Sacramento State will treat the Stanford contest like any other road game, even though it is a 130-mile trip to the South Bay. But Bay Area traffic is rarely a kind thing, and car and truck congestion can transform a 2½-hour trip into a five-hour chore. Sacramento State on Friday night will stay in a hotel in San Mateo after doing a walk-through in Stanford Stadium.
Stanford is 1-1, beating Hawaii and losing to No. 5 USC.
Among the fired-up Hornets is preseason All-American linebacker Armon Bailey. After practice on Wednesday, he praised Thompson’s leadership while appreciating Taylor’s contributions. And he promised the Hornets will come out laser focused.
“A lot of people think FCS teams like us can’t compete with Pac-12 FBS guys, but we can, and we’ll play as hard as we always do,” Bailey said. “We’re excited at the opportunity.”
Sacramento State is 2-8 all-time against Pac-10 and Pac-12 competition, beating Oregon State in overtime in 2011 and Colorado with a walk-off field goal in 2012. Those Hornets teams were coached by Marshall Sperbeck.
Hornets vs. Pac-12
The Hornets stunned Oregon State 29-28 in Corvallis in 2011 when Jeff Fleming hit Brandyn Reed for an overtime touchdown and then hit him again for the winning two-point conversion. In beating Colorado 30-28 the following season in 2012, Edgar Castaneda was the hero, making a 30-yard field goal as time expired in Boulder.
Sperbeck in a jubilant locker room afterward awarded Castaneda a full scholarship. The place erupted.
Sacramento State lost its only meeting with Stanford, in 2010, when the Cardinal had perhaps their greatest team. Coached by Jim Harbaugh, the Cardinal went 12-1 and finished ranked No. 4 in the country. Stanford, led by eventual NFL stars Andrew Luck and Richard Sherman, beat the Hornets 52-17 in an opener in the “Bill Walsh Legacy Game” to honor the Hall of Fame coach who led the Cardinal and the San Francisco 49ers.
“We’ve got nothing to lose in the fact that, win or lose, we’re going to play the next week in Idaho,” Thompson said. “So, really, it’s a conclusion of our nonconference schedule. It happens to be against someone we know well.”
This story was originally published September 15, 2023 at 12:00 AM.