By admin 
The guys in green who often hold a pinky up and declare, “Stingers Up!” are the great unknown in the MAC mix.
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Sacramento State’s first official football foray in the Mid-American Conference and the land of the upper-division Football Bowl Subdivision, or the FBS, played out Wednesday morning in Detroit at Ford Field, the home of the NFL’s Detroit Lions and the MAC’s annual conference championship game.
This was media day, when everyone is unbeaten and booming of optimism. The day started with the preseason conference coaches’ poll projecting stalwart MAC teams Western Michigan and Miami of Ohio to finish first and second, respectively.
Sac State is picked to finish 12th in the 13-team conference, ahead of Massachusetts. This isn’t a slight on the guys in green as much as it is the Hornets looming as the curiosity of the bunch with just three starters returning from a 7-5 season, and the program ushering in a new coach and an army of new players to punctuate this new era.
But the Hornets will embrace this projection as a slight as the team with the most to prove. Sac State is in its first season in the FBS after 29 years in the Football Championship Subdivision-based Big Sky Conference. The move up is costly venture of an adventure with a price tag of more than $23 million for a five-year, football-only commitment. Sac State replaced Northern Illinois, which joined the Mountain West Conference.
“Excited to be here,” Hornets coach Alonzo Carter said in his typical good cheer. “It’s a blessing to be here, and let’s get this going!”
Carter called it a historic season for Sac State. It can also be argued that this is the biggest season of intrigue in the 72-year history of the program. Sac State president Luke Wood agreed with that assessment, telling The Sacramento Bee in a text message recently that “this is huge for us.”
That the NCAA waived a long-standing clause that transitioning teams could not be bowl eligible adds to the fun, Wood said. Five MAC teams competed in bowl games last season, which means more exposure, more money and a grand way to cap a season. Wood said the Hornets can be a bowl team within two years.
One strength to that argument is that Sac State’s recruiting base is a fertile one — the state of California.
In a social media post Wednesday morning, Wood pointed to the coaches’ poll as a source of motivation.
“I’m sharing this now, so at the end of the season, I can show how we outperformed low expectations,” Wood wrote on X in a repost of the MAC preseason poll.
Sac State’s rise and what the MAC is all about
The Hornets moved up from small-college status to Division II in 1973, and then up to Division I-AA (now called the Football Championship Subdivision, or FCS) in 1993. Getting to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) was a goal for Wood and athletic director Mark Orr, and they got there earlier than expected. They were prepared to play as an FCS Independent this season as they explored FBS options.
The MAC is entering its 80th year of football competition, and the MAC is exactly what it sounds like it is — the middle of the country — with deep roots in the Great Lakes region, spanning Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and beyond. The MAC schools have some cool mascots, too, including the Arkron Zips, the Miami Redhawks, the Central Michigan Chippewas, the Toledo Rockets, the Kent State Golden Flashes and so on.
And then there is Sac State, the first California entry in the MAC mix. The MAC also includes the Buffalo Bulls of New York and the Massachusetts Minutemen of Boston, giving the MAC a reach coast-to-coast.
In this new era of college football realignment, travel is part of the game, more than ever. Consider that Cal and Stanford are in the East Coast-heavy ACC; and USC, UCLA and Oregon are in the Big Ten. Translation: Everyone is a road warrior.
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Carter said Sac State will add to the MAC, a conference that likes to say it’s all about that “MACtion,” which includes Wednesday night games on ESPN. This schedule includes Sac State playing middle-of-the-week games Nov. 4 at home at Hornet Stadium against Toledo and Nov. 11 at Central Michigan.
“We celebrated in the locker room (after learning of Sac State being accepted into the MAC), and we were dancing,” Carter said. “(Players) were pouring water on me. Yeah, we’re excited. As for travel, teams have to come to us, too.”
Carter said the Hornets will be fast and fun on both sides of the ball.
“We have a mantra, and we say ‘FVP’, which stands for Fast, Violent, Physical,’” the coach said. “We’ll be up-tempo, Green Line, 100 mph. You’re going to see effort, a team having fun, a team playing relentless. I know coming from California, people don’t know what to expect from us.”
Sac State opens its season against a MAC opponent, Aug. 29 at Eastern Michigan. Sac State’s home opener is Sept. 5 against Mississippi Valley State, before a road game Sept. 12 at Fresno State.
Why the MAC wanted Sac State
MAC Commissioner Jon A. Steinbrecher at media day said the MAC wanted Sac State as much as the Hornets wanted in. Sac State’s momentum included rising to FCS prominence in 2019 under coach Troy Taylor, who led the Hornets to three Big Sky Conference crowns in the program’s best stretch in program history before he was hired away by Stanford.
Sac State made the FCS playoffs four times, including once under coach Andy Thompson, now at Stanford, and the Hornets nearly made it last season under one-and-done coach Brennan Marion, now the offensive coordinator for the Colorado Buffaloes.
“We’ve been accused of being a little sleepy conference over here, right?” Steinbrecher said with a laugh. “I think we shook it up a little bit, and it was a host of factors (on why the MAC wanted the Hornets).
“One, it gave us an opportunity to monetize an asset, which is membership in the Mid-American Conference, that we’ve not done. We found an institution that really wanted to evolve from the FCS to the FBS, and we’ve not been the place to do that. You look back over the last six year, and Sac State has been one of the top teams in the FCS. That’s a school that’s growing at a time when not a whole lot of schools are growing.
“They’re going to have record enrollment, and they’re investing in the sport.”
Hornets to watch
Sac State’s weakness last season was quarterback play. That was not the case in 2024, when Carson Conklin earned Freshman FCS All-American honors after firing 28 touchdowns. He transferred to Fresno State after a new coaching staff arrived, started some games and is now back to lead the Hornets, saying, “I never really wanted to leave in the first place.”
Conklin is reunited with offensive coach Bobby Fresques, who has called Conklin “a difference maker and a leader.”
The offensive line under position coach Kris Richardson has been the foundation of the program’s success since he joined the program before the 2019 campaign. That trend has to continue. The new faces in the trenches include former Rocklin High School tackle Garrison Blank after his transfer from UCLA. He casts a shadow at 6-foot-7 and 330 pounds.
A Rocklin graduate also heads the defense in veteran linebacker Derek Houston. Paired with fellow backer Alex Rocha, this unit figures to be a defensive strength.
2026 MAC Football Coaches Preseason Poll
(First place votes in parentheses, followed by total points. Coaches were not able to vote for their own teams.)
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1. Western Michigan (9) – 138 points
2. Miami (4) – 134
3. Toledo – 115
4. Ohio – 107
5. Central Michigan – 101
6. Buffalo – 81
7. Eastern Michigan – 76
8. Kent State – 64
9. Bowling Green – 59
10. Akron – 52
11. Ball State – 34
12. Sacramento State – 28
13. Massachusetts – 25