Sacramento State ‘Full Steam Ahead’ for FBS Despite Not Receiving NCAA Waiver

In the fall of 2024, Sacramento State launched a highly public campaign to jump from the FCS level to the FBS. The Hornets’ efforts, however, were not enough for the members of the NCAA Division I council, who on Tuesday voted not to offer the football team a waiver to compete at the FBS level as independents.

Sacramento State University president, Dr. Luke Wood, posted a short statement on X criticizing the decision Wednesday morning. “Sacramento State has met every meaningful benchmark for FBS membership, and we believe our university, our students, and the entire Sacramento region deserve major college football,” he wrote.

In his statement, Wood pledged: “We still plan to be playing FBS football in 2026.” Wood did not elaborate on his plans for propelling his football program into the FBS level by 2026. But there are some options, including potentially suing the university.

The Hornets campaign began in earnest in the middle of the latest round of realignment, when the Pac-12 announced it would add five Mountain West schools in 2026. Sacramento State announced it was jockeying for a bid to an FBS conference, and that a group of local politicians and business leaders had created a group called the “Sac-12,” tasked with raising the requisite funds to earn a bid into the Pac-12. The Hornets would have also been interested in another FBS conference like the Mountain West.

The Hornets announced plans for a new, 25,000-seat football stadium. They also announced a partnership with the Sacramento Kings for the men’s and women’s basketball teams to play in their arena, and $35 million in NIL (name, image, and likeness) collective commitments—though both were contingent upon them securing FBS membership. 

The Hornets weren’t able to secure an offer from an FBS league this past year, however—one of the key requirements in an application with the NCAA to jump levels. (James Madison, for example, made a wildly successful move from FCS to FBS in 2022; but the Dukes enjoyed an invitation from the Sun Belt Conference to support them.)

In early April, the Hornets decided they wouldn’t wait: they filed a petition with the NCAA for their football team to compete at the FBS level as an independent. 

The Hornets continued to make  headlines while the NCAA committees mulled the request. In late April, they announced that Shaquille O’Neal would serve as a high-profile basketball general manager. Then, last week, the program announced a move from the Big Sky to the Big West Conference in 2026 for all sports except football.

After Tuesday’s decision, though, Sacramento State is looking at a future in which their football team is an FCS independent while the rest of their programs compete in the Big West.

To get to the next level, the Hornets could potentially sue on antitrust grounds, arguing that the requirements for FBS membership—and the attempt by an NCAA committee to bar them from it—constitutes an illegal restriction, and would cause financial harm. “Forcing a school to rely on the whims of conferences [to] let them compete for the economic benefits of a higher division is just the sort of arbitrary gatekeeping that draws harsh antitrust scrutiny,” Boise State law professor Sam Ehrlich wrote on X last week.

They could also continue vying for an FBS conference slot, and re-submit their application at a later date. The Pac-12 needs at least one more current FBS playing member. Sacramento State doesn’t appear to be in the cards for the Pac-12 at this point, but another conference might be looking for a replacement team if they lose a program to the Pac-12 in the future. 

Either way, Sacramento State isn’t giving up. “We’re full steam ahead,” Wood wrote.