New head coach Ken Niumatalolo makes his debut on Thursday night as a highly anticipated season begins for San Jose State Spartans football.
On Thursday, San Jose State will host Sacramento State at CEFCU Stadium. San Jose State will combine a veteran coaching staff and young lineup, while Sacramento State is a top Division I FCS team that cannot be taken lightly.
Thursday’s game will be only the second meeting between Sacramento State and San Jose State, exactly 11 years after San Jose State shut out Sacramento State 24-0 in San Jose.
Seven years after the first classes at California State University, Sacramento, the Sacramento State Hornets football team debuted in 1954 at what was then Sacramento State College. For nearly four decades, Sacramento State football competed at the NCAA Division II level before moving up to Division I-AA (now FCS) in 1993.
For the last four decades, San Jose State and Sacramento State have had cycles of success and struggle in similar time periods. Both routinely had winning seasons in the 1980s and early 1990s. But 1993 to 2018 marked much darker periods with frequent poor or mediocre seasons.
Inheriting a 2-8 program, former head coach Troy Taylor instantly delivered success with a 9-4 record, Big Sky Conference championship, and NCAA playoff appearance in his debut season of 2019. By 2022, Taylor did the unthinkable: A three-peat in the Big Sky, only one loss in 24 conference games, and three straight NCAA postseason appearances.
In 2023, Sacramento State defensive coordinator Andy Thompson was promoted to head coach after Taylor resigned for the job at Stanford. Thompson led Sacramento State to an 8-5 record in 2023, including a win at Stanford against his former boss and the program’s first Division I playoff win. That team scored an average 30.54 points per game while holding opponents to 27.2 points.
In its preseason top-25 poll, the American Football Coaches Association panel of FCS head coaches ranked Sacramento State tenth. The level of talent on the roster shows why. Sacramento State returns 13 starters, including three All-Big Sky honorees from 2023: left guard Jackson Slater, wide receiver Jared Gipson, and punter Cal McGough. 247Sports rates Sacramento State’s 2024 recruiting class the highest in the Big Sky.
On defense, Sacramento State does have a seventh-year senior, defensive back Davion Ross. How did he gain those extra years of eligibility? Redshirting his first year in 2018, retaining a year of eligibility when the Big Sky canceled its 2020 football season during COVID, and finally medical redshirts for missing all of 2022 and 2023 with injuries.
