Welcome back, coach: Garceau lifts Rio Linda back into playoff contention in return

Fifteen Rio Linda Golden Knights senior football players were honored Friday night before their final home game.

Another 10 to 12 seniors elected not to buy into what Jack Garceau was offering and quit before the season started, and that was before the burly head coach returned to the same sidelines where he led Rio Linda to a CIF State championship in 2018. That team was led by star running back Cam Skattebo, now with the New York Giants.

No matter. Garceau said he would gladly run with this bunch of Knights, who are likely headed to the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division V playoffs after a 35-13 victory over the Dixon Rams to cap the Golden Empire League campaign. Rio Linda’s playoff plans depend on a section seeding committee that meets Sunday to sort out the brackets.

Garceau stepped aside following the 2019 season, which also was Skattebo’s senior season. The longtime special education teacher remained on the Rio Linda campus and witnessed the program’s decline in a few short years.

“Things were sputtering around, and their coach left last year, and then they had an interim guy, and I talked to all the guys that coached with me before, and they were all in to come back and try to turn things around,” Garceau said. “Slowly but surely, we’re getting it done. But, yeah, it’s been an adventure for sure, but it’s fun.”

Garceau is an old-school coach. His assistant, Frank Negri, 90, is even older old-school. Neither coach believes in the spread offenses that most teams run now. There are no Run-Pass-Options, or RPOs, in the Knights’ playbook. There is just a NOOR — No Option Other than Run. Negri joked before the game that the last time he called a pass play was during the Nixon administration more than 50 years ago.

“The referees loved me and (former Rio Linda coach) Mike Morris when we coached against each other,” said Negri. “We were all at the bar by 9 p.m.”

Negri started the Knights football program in 1962 and moved to Foothill High in 1965, where he faced off against Morris, the longtime Knights coach, for decades. Negri won more than 200 games at Foothill and remains a football lifer. He has said assisting the Rio Linda staff is a feel-good, full-circle story.

Corey runs wild for Rio Linda

For the record, Knights’ sophomore quarterback Louis Means was 3-for-4 for 48 yards, including a 26-yard scoring toss to Imara Bell. But it was Joseph Corey’s running that was the difference. The Knights senior had 289 yards on 32 carries with scores of 1, 25 and 1 yards. And, for the record, the Knights did not attempt a pass in the second half.

Corey and teammates have bought in. But old school sometimes doesn’t work for some new school athletes in 2025, and Garceau watched a group of guys leave the program, including some who would have likely started this season, he said.

“We have a standard of toughness set by Mike Morris, first, and that’s kind of where we all started,” Garceau said. “He established that, and then we carried it on and, you know, that was something that kind of went away. It wasn’t like anybody was doing a bad job, but just a different philosophy. They liked to be spread out and throw the ball. That’s not us. We run. We had some kids that we had to get rid of. We had to cut ties with a few, and then there was some that were just like, ‘Yeah, this isn’t for me anymore.’”

The Knights were a combined 12-32 and just 4-20 in league play in the five seasons after Skattebo and Garceau moved on. The Knights have rebounded from three consecutive 3-7 seasons to produce a 5-5 record this season, including 3-3 in the GEL.

Garceau doesn’t bring up Skattebo’s 396-yard, three-touchdown state title game much. He doesn’t have to spin that yarn. Rio Linda players have either heard of the Legend of Skatt or seen countless social media posts of one particular run during the 38-35 victory over San Gorgonio in the CIF State Division 5-AA championship game in Rio Linda. In it, Skattebo shook off 10 defenders on the way to a 67-yard score.

“It’s kind of cool timing because with (Skattebo) getting drafted and kind of taking the whole world by storm,” Garceau said. “So, we always refer back to how things used to get done. The whole JV staff was on that 2018 team.”

Garceau said honoring Skattebo next spring is in the early stages. Skattebo’s No. 5 jersey was retired after his senior season, but Garceau said they want to make it a bigger deal as the native son has electrified this hardscrabble town in northwestern Sacramento County with his play for the Giants before dislocating his ankle, a season-ending injury he suffered last Sunday.

Dixon ends trying season

Dixon finished 3-7 and 2-5, ending a tough season that saw a junior varsity player die by suicide on Oct. 10. That rocked the football program and the tight-knit Solano County community.

A win on Friday night would have made the Rams postseason eligible, including a bowl game, a new wrinkle for section teams seeded lower than eighth.

“Our seniors made it very clear that they want to push hard for that bowl game,” Dixon coach Wes Besseghini said before the game. “And so that’s what we’re going to do is go out and give it our best shot and do the best again.”

But it was just too much Corey, who wore down an undersized Rams defense with power runs through the middle or bounced outside and around the edge into open field. Twenty-four of his 32 carries came in the second half as he ran for 245 yards, with 82 yards coming in the Knights’ first possession of the third quarter.

Corey had every positive yard in that 82-yard scoring drive that ate up six minutes and resulted in his 25-yard score. He also capped a 10-play, 80-yard drive with a 1-yard plunge for the game’s final score. That drive chewed another six minutes.