What do Sac State and UC Davis football have to do to make the FCS playoffs?
The football season still has plenty of legs left to it for Sacramento State and UC Davis, but now the margin for error is microscopically thin.
As first-year Sac State coach Brennan Marion reminds his players regularly, the urgency is now. This is a coach who stresses that every game is a fresh start, with the mission to go “1-0.”
“Those that win in November, remember,” Marion said.
The Hornets bounded into this season preseason ranked in the FCS, armed with 71 new players, a new coaching staff and high hopes to secure the program’s fourth playoff berth since 2019, a run that included three Big Sky Conference championships.
At 5-4 overall and 3-2 in the Big Sky, Sac State would need to win its final three Big Sky games in order to present a viable argument for making the 24-team playoff bracket. Eleven conference champions across the country earn automatic playoff bids to go with 13 at-large bids that are selected by the FCS Playoff Committee. Every bit of data will be crunched: big wins, quality losses, bad losses, strength of schedule, comparative scores and more.
UCD entered the 2025 campaign ranked in the Top 10, rose as high as No. 6 and stand at 5-2 overall and 4-1 in the Big Sky with three regular-season games to go. The Aggies took a jolt to their Big Sky title hopes with a 38-36 home loss to upstart Idaho State last Saturday.
That was one of several upsets that rocked the FCS, a day in which No. 2 Tarleton State lost to No. 25 Abilene Christian, 31-28; No. 5 South Dakota State fell to unranked Indiana State, 24-12; No. 10 North Dakota lost to unranked South Dakota, 26-21; and No. 14 Lamar fell to Incarnate Word, 24-17.
UCD second-year leader Tim Plough took his team’s line FCS loss this fall hard. He burdens the expectations of coaching his alma mater.
“It’s disappointing, obliviously,” the coach said after Saturday’s game. “You don’t want to lose at home. It’s a big goal of ours at the beginning of the season to win all of our home games, and we didn’t get that done. I think we all have our hands in the loss - from the players to the coaching staff. When we lose a football game it starts and ends with me, and I must do a lot better.”
UCD’s remaining schedule is daunting, but the motivation is clear: secure the program’s fourth FCS playoff since 2018.
The Aggies play at Idaho in Moscow on Saturday and will face a team that is 3-1 this season in the Kibbie Dome. UCD on Nov. 15 heads to No. 3 Montana State in Bozeman, where the Bobcats are especially difficult to beat. That contest will air on ESPN2.
The Big Sky finale is Nov. 22 at home against Sac State in the annual Causeway Classic.
What an FCS insider expert has to say
Sam Herder covers college football extensively as a Senior FCS Analyst for HEROSports, which does national stories, notebooks and rankings, and he is an FCS Top 25 voter. He has a pulse on all things FCS. This week, Herder posted his projections for the FCS playoffs.
Herder sized up the Aggies in a text chat with The Sacramento Bee: “If UC Davis wins out, including beating Montana State, to finish 9-2, it should get a Top 8 seed and a first-round bye. Going 2-1 (down the stretch) should get Davis into the bracket at 8-3, especially with a projected year-end Top 10 strength of schedule. If the Aggies drop two more games to finish 7-5, though, they will be competing with several 7- and 8-win teams on the bubble.”
Sac State’s path to the FCS postseason is a bit more murky. The Hornets have an FBS loss at Nevada, 20-17, and they are 5-3 against FCS competition. The crushing loss was the 32-24 home setback to Cal Poly, which is 3-6 overall and 1-4 in the Big Sky, including a loss last week to a Portland State team that came in 0-8.
Sac State’s best “quality” Big Sky loss was to current FCS No. 2-ranked Montana, 49-35, on Oct. 24. The Hornets visit Portland State on Saturday, host Idaho on Nov. 15 and then head to Yolo County to take on UC Davis.
Said Herder of Sac State’s chances: “At 5-4 with no ranked wins, Sac State likely has to win out to get into the playoffs. It should make the bracket at 8-4 and a ranked win over UC Davis. If the Hornets go 2-1 down the stretch to finish 7-5, they’ll be on the bubble with several other 7 and 8-win teams. Now, if one of those wins is over UC Davis, that’s a different-looking 7-5 Sac State team compared to a 7-5 team that beat unranked PSU and Idaho and lost to ranked UC Davis.”
In other words, the best course of action for UCD and Sac State? Just win, baby.