No. 6 Sacramento State aims to bounce back against surging Idaho State in homecoming game
Among the many duties of a head football coach is keeping the pulse on the mood of the team. Are the guys collectively up, down, in the middle?
For the Sacramento State Hornets, the feel-good vibe that has been common for five seasons took a hit as it does for any highly ranked squad that suffers a home defeat in front of a national ESPN2 audience, in this case a 42-30 setback to No. 2 Montana State. But what coach Andy Thompson continues to find within his group is the zest to compete and have fun doing it. Bouncing back is a formula that has been in place since the program rebirth started in 2019. The Hornets are 5-1 following a regular-season loss heading into Saturday’s 6 p.m. homecoming contest against surging Idaho State.
“There’s no lack of effort or ‘want to’, and that’s great,” Thompson said of his FCS No. 6-ranked Hornets. “Sometimes you get knocked down, and we got knocked down the other night. Leadership is a huge part of this. We’ve got some guys who came out this week, some competitive practices. That’s a good sign. We’ve got a lot of seniors and older guys, and when you get this far into the season, you need it.”
The Hornets bounded into this season intent on winning their fourth consecutive Big Sky Conference championship. That would have matched how many times the program hoisted championship hardware since it established football in 1954, the first coming in 1964 and the last in 1995, before the three-peat run started in 2019.
This season’s title hopes were trampled by the leading rushing team in the FCS as Montana State took a step toward its 18th Big Sky crown, but it wasn’t just the run game that gave the Hornets fits. They stalled themselves with pre-snap penalties, breakdowns on offense and special teams. All of those aspects are correctable for the 5-2 Hornets, who sit at 2-2 in the wildly competitive and deep Big Sky. Montana State is 4-0 in conference, and Montana, Idaho and Idaho State each have 3-1 conference records with four games remaining. Sacramento State’s other loss was in the final seconds to Idaho, which plays Montana State this week.
The Hornets’ hopes of returning to the playoffs are alive and well as they close the Big Sky slate with Idaho State, Montana on the road on Nov. 4, Cal Poly at home on Nov. 11 and a Nov. 18 Causeway Classic contest at rival UC Davis.
The Hornets are 5-0 all-time against Idaho State on homecoming, starting in 1997, but those numbers don’t guarantee anything. It has to happen on the field, Thompson said.
“There’s a lot of football left,” Thompson said. “There are a lot of things left for us to achieve. The No. 1 focus is trying to win field position, win the takeaway battle and make explosive plays. And eliminating those. We’re going to keep going. We’re going to shake it off and keep playing. The guys have responded this week. We’ve got a lot to play for and a lot of season left. We can only do it one day at a time.”
Sacramento State entered last week with its full group of running backs for the first time in three weeks, but the Hornets were down two backs by the end of the game. Lead back Marcus Fulcher aggravated a bad ankle, and backup Ezra Moleni also left the MSU game with an injury. Elijah Tau-Tolliver stepped up and rushed eight times for a Hornets career-best 100 yards, punctuated by a 53-yard touchdown burst, the team’s longest play from scrimmage this season. Fulcher remains day-to-day.
Bengals uprising under Hawkins
Idaho State has come of age under first-year coach Cody Hawkins, the son of UC Davis coach Dan Hawkins and the former UCD offensive coordinator. The Bengals of Pocatello are 3-4 overall, but the 3-1 Big Sky mark is proof that the days of getting trampled in conference play are over for a program that had won seven of 40 games entering this season.
Hawkins brought in a new coaching staff and 60 new players. He said earlier this season: “Success for me is getting better.” The Bengals have gotten better. That was evident when Idaho State rallied from 27 down with two minutes left in the third quarter to stun Eastern Washington 42-21 on Oct. 14. The team’s only Big Sky setback was a 28-20 loss at No. 7 Montana on Sept. 30.
Idaho State leads the FCS in passing offense, averaging 346.2 a game. In Big Sky games, Idaho State is averaging 358.8 yards passing behind two quarterbacks, Jordan Cooke and Hunter Hays.
