UC Davis looks to repeat and Sacramento State aims to play spoiler in 70th Causeway Classic
Entering the season, the 70th Causeway Classic figured to be a showdown to cap the regular season with a lot to settle between UC Davis and Sacramento State.
You know, the typical trappings of a rivalry rumble: tailgating, dueling school colors, regional pride, a chance to secure an FCS playoff berth — or, maybe, a shot at deciding the Big Sky Conference champion.
UCD, blessed with good health and a senior-heavy leadership lineup, has done its part, storming to a 9-2 record and a No. 5 national FCS ranking. Sacramento State has not been as fortunate, undone by the most injuries for a Hornets team that decades-long sports information director Brian Berger can recall.
The 3-8 Hornets have gone from highly ranked in the FCS with Big Sky crowns in 2019, 2021 and 2022 and an FCS playoff group in 2023 to a battered group that heads into Saturday’s showdown at Hornet Stadium looking to be a spoiler as it aims to halt a four-game losing skid.
If UCD wins, it will likely secure a top eight FCS playoff seeding, meaning an opening-round bye and a home playoff game. This is the finest Aggies team in their 20-year history at the FCS after decades of good living at the Division II level.
This is Sacramento State’s most disappointing season since going winless in the Big Sky in 2018, prompting a coaching change that vaulted the Hornets to new heights. Paramount in that coaching overhaul was bringing in hometown product Troy Taylor as head coach (he’s now the head man at Stanford) and Andy Thompson as defensive coordinator.
Thompson is in his second season as Hornets head coach, and he has been pained by the injuries and the setbacks, the close ones and the brutal ones. As timing and bad luck would have it, UCD and Sac State have made the playoffs in the same season just twice: in 1988 as D-II members and in 2021 in the FCS. Sac State started its football program in 1954 and UCD in 1915.
‘I love Andy like a brother’
The head coaches of this game are dear friends, having worked on the Northern Arizona staff from 2013-16 and remaining close. Tim Plough is in his first season as Aggies head coach after serving two stints as an assistant coach at his alma mater. He was the Aggies’ starting quarterback in 2007, and Thompson was a versatile player at the University of Montana from 1999-03.
“I love Andy like a brother,” Plough said during his Monday media session. “I consider him family. Whenever you share a field, like a brother, you want to beat your brother. He wants to beat me. It’ll be a cool moment for us, the work we’ve both put in to get to this point in our careers, to be head coaches at schools we care about.
“I’m always rooting for Andy Thompson except for one game a year.”
Plough this week was named the FCS Region Five Coach of the Year as part of the American Football Coaches Association on the strength of Top 10 wins over No. 5 Idaho and No. 7 Montana, and for pushing No. 2 Montana State last week to the wire in a 30-28 setback that halted UCD’s nine-game winning streak.
Two players Plough recruited to UCD when he was an assistant under Dan Hawkins are Aggies headliners. Senior All-American running back Lan Larison leads the FCS in all-purpose yards and senior quarterback Miles Hastings has passed for 3,347 yards and 29 touchdowns and has 10,000 yards for his career.
Larison has rushed for 1,173 yards and 11 touchdowns, and he leads the Aggies with 54 receptions for 686 yards and six scores. He had 221 all-purpose yards against Montana State, and he is the only FCS player to produce two 100-yard rushing and 100-yard receiving games.
Sacramento State has been thinned on the offensive and defensive lines with injuries, and the Hornets have rotated players across the board. But injuries are part of football and no one suddenly eases up on the gas against a team that raced past them in recent seasons.
The Hornets suffered their most frustrating loss in a season dotted with them last week. Star quarterback Carson Conklin scrambled and was headed toward the end zone when he was strip-sacked, losing the ball inside the Cal Poly 3-yard line late in the game, allowing the Host Mustangs to win 26-23.
“Watching their film, they’ve had one of those years with injuries that we all dread as coaches and players, and it happens sometimes,” Plough said. “I don’t see a lack of effort or a lack of preparation. I see them playing extremely hard for their coaches and for each other, and I see a lot of talent. They’ve got guys who can win football games. They’re in every game. I’ve coached against Andy a few times. He’s had the upper hand more than I have. With games like this, you throw the records out. It’ll be physical.”
No. 5 UC Davis (9-2) at Sacramento State (3-8)
When: Saturday, 2 p.m. at Hornet Stadium
On air: KMAX 31 TV, ESPN+, ESPN1320, Sactown Sports radio
Of note: This will be Senior Day for Sacramento State, which will honor 18 seniors before the kickoff. This is the 70th Causeway but the 71st meeting as the schools met twice in 1988, with the Hornets snapping an 18-game skid to the Aggies in the regular season with a 31-28 effort, and then beating UCD in the playoffs, 35-13. The series wasn’t named the Causeway Classic until 1983, when former Hornets sports information director Mike Duncan came up with the moniker. A school-record 23,073 packed into Hornet Stadium for the 2022 game. The only Sac State assistant coaches to play in the Causeway Classic are offensive coordinator Bobby Fresques, who went 2-1 from 1990-92, and graduate assistant Taylor Powell, whose Hornets won 27-7 in 2021. Plough and UCD assistant Mike Cody (2010-11) are the only Aggies coaches to compete in the Causeway as players. Plough won 31-26 in 2007 and Cody’s teams won in 2019 (17-16) and 2011 (23-19). Sac State has won three of the last four meetings, but UCD leads the series, 47-23.
This story was originally published November 21, 2024 at 5:00 AM.