Thankful for tankful of talent

Depth has been paying dividends for Sacramento State’s offense this season with 15 players scoring touchdowns – seven did so last Saturday in a 51-16 victory over Idaho State – and eight linemen starting at least one game. Center Nathan Mejia and left guard Jackson Slater are the only linemen to start at the same position in each game.

Slater has started 30 consecutive games dating to 2019. The only lineman with a longer streak is fellow junior Ivan Garza, who has started each game this season and 32 in a row. He has split his eight starts evenly between left and right tackle this season.

Ivan Garza has split his eight starts this season between left and right tackle.

Aidan Meek started at right tackle in the season opener at Nicholls State, but the sophomore broke his clavicle in that game. He returned to start at right guard Oct. 14 at Northern Colorado and moved back to right tackle the following week against Montana State.

Right guard Kendall Riley also started and was injured in the opener. He returned in the 40-32 loss to Montana State. Kaden Richardson filled in for Riley at right guard for four games. The junior is the son of Hornets offensive line coach Kris Richardson and the little brother of Kooper, the former Hornets tackle who now assists his father.

Trey Stiefel and Jordan Stanley have also come to the rescue on the line. Stiefel started three games at left tackle when Garza switched to the right side. Stanley has made two starts at right tackle. He left Sacramento State after playing with the Hornets in 2019 and returned as a senior this season to be reunited with his twin brother Jett.

Jett Stanley is a defensive lineman who has started 33 consecutive games, the longest streak of any current Hornet. He was the Defensive Player of the Week in the Big Sky Conference after collecting three sacks Sept. 16 in the 30-23 victory over Stanford.

Center Nathan Mejia finds his helmet to be a tight squeeze during practice.

Kris Richardson enjoyed the luxury of having the same starting five on the line throughout the regular season in 2022 with Slater, Mejia, Garza, Stiefel and Brandon Weldon. Stiefel sustained a knee injury in the Causeway Classic, so Weldon moved to left tackle and was replaced at right guard by Riley in the two playoff games.

Sacramento State is No. 7 in the FCS rankings despite playing musical chairs on the offensive line. There have been five different starting combinations this season. The starting five in the past two games has been Slater, Mejia, Garza, Riley and Meek. Whatever continuity those five have developed will be put to the test Saturday in Missoula when Sacramento State tangles with No. 3 Montana.

Montana and Idaho are tied atop the Big Sky at 4-1 with the Vandals’ loss coming against the Grizzlies on Oct. 14. Montana lost to Northern Arizona in the Big Sky opener for both teams on Sept. 23.

Push will come to shove Saturday when the Hornets try to run the ball against the Grizzlies. Montana leads all FCS teams in fewest rushing yards allowed at 76.8 per game. The Grizzlies have yielded four rushing touchdowns. Sacramento State is averaging 189.9 rushing yards per game after gouging Idaho State for 273 and three touchdowns.

Sacramento State should go to the FCS playoffs for the fourth consecutive year. The Hornets are 6-2 with three weeks to go in the regular season and teams with seven wins are virtually guaranteed of going. UC Davis and Portland State are both 4-4, so the loser of Saturday’s game in Davis will have no chance of reaching seven victories.

The Hornets and Aggies will meet in the 70th edition of the Causeway Classic on Nov. 18 in Davis. Sacramento State has won three in a row against UC Davis after losing seven of the previous nine meetings. The Aggies lead the series 46-23.

Standing at helm of Hornets

Andy Thompson was hired by Sacramento State coach Troy Taylor in 2019 and succeeds him this season after Taylor left for Stanford.

Troy Taylor had a habit of squatting on the sideline in three years as Sacramento State’s head football coach. Andy Thompson will not stand still, much less squat, in his first year at the Hornets helm.

His title has changed, but Thompson has no intentions of changing his style. In three seasons  as defensive coordinator, Thompson covered as much ground on the sideline as any player on the field. The Energizer Bunny has nothing on Thompson except for the drum, fluffy tail and long ears. 

Troy Taylor

Count on Thompson beating a path in the sideline turf today when Sacramento State plays Nicholls State at 4 p.m. The Hornets’ are visiting Louisiana for the first time since a 56-0 loss to Louisiana Tech in 1977.

“I’ve got to be me. I’m who I am,” Thompson said Tuesday evening after practice. “It wouldn’t be a good deal if I tried to be somebody else. This is not going to be just about me. It’s going to be about the team.”

Thompson will continue to direct the defense. In the NFL, defensive-minded head coaches are more unlikely to gamble on offense for fear of putting the defense in jeopardy. Thompson has every intention of breaking that mold.

Taylor is an offensive-minded head coach and rarely played it safe with the Hornets. Thompson will follow suit even with a background in defense because “we want to be aggressive. We want to be attacking.

“That’s been successful here,” added Thompson, who was the defensive coordinator at Northern Arizona for 10 years before coming to Sacramento in 2019. “I think the kids feel you’re confident in them if you can go for it. At the same time, you’ve got to be smart. That’s why you get paid to be the head coach.”

Mark Orr, Sacramento State’s athletic director, interviewed three of Taylor’s assistants – Thompson, Bobby Fresques and Kris Richardson – after Taylor  left for Stanford. The three made a pact to stick together regardless of who got the job. Fresques joked in the spring that he and Richardson let Thompson “have all the headaches.”

“It’s good to know that now,” Thompson quipped after learning of the conspiracy Tuesday. “There’s stuff you don’t know about being a head coach until you are. I’m just trying not to make the same mistake two days in a row.”

One mistake Thompson wants to avoid is distancing himself from the players now that he is in charge. He would much rather earn the respect of his players than expect it just because he is head honcho.

“I want to build great relationships, but you have to make sure you hold people accountable,”  Thompson said. “For me to do that, I have to get to know people and not just live in a bubble and make decisions and think people are just going to do it because the head coach said to do it.”

Hornets reload without Taylor

Two seasons with two quarterbacks capable of running Sacramento State’s offense made Bobby Fresques’ job as the quarterbacks coach almost too easy. Jake Dunniway and Asher O’Hara made the most of being interchangeable as the Hornets won 21 of 25 games and two Big Sky Conference championships the past two seasons.

 “It worked because we were successful,” Fresques explained. “If we’re not successful, then one of them is going to be disgruntled. By both of them being really good, it’s like the old saying ‘Iron sharpens iron.’ They made each other better. Neither one of them could afford to be complacent. And we got the best out of both of them.” 

Offensive coordinator Bobby Fresques

That was then, however. Fresques now faces the challenge of finding a new starting quarterback or possibly two who can share playing time. And now that Fresques will be calling plays, the game plan will depend on who is behind center. Fresques was promoted to  offensive coordinator after head coach Troy Taylor bolted  to Stanford.

Fresques, associate head coach Kris Richardson and defensive coordinator Andy Thompson all interviewed to succeed Taylor. Fresques credits Mark Orr, Sacramento State’s Director of Athletics, for not going outside to find a new head coach who would have likely dismissed all of Taylor’s assistants in favor of assembling his own staff.

There was also the possibility of Taylor taking some of his assistants with him to Stanford. Fresques said he, Thompson and Richardson made a pact to remain with the Hornets regardless of who would be named as  head coach. Fresques laughed when asked if he and Richardson conspired to let Thompson take the helm – and the stress.

“Exactly,” Fresques said. “The head coach responsibility is big and Andy is finding that out. But there is no better guy for the job. If they didn’t go in house, we could have been a 12-1 football team (in 2022) with a whole new staff. We’ve built a great foundation. I’d like to think we’re not going to change anything or skip a beat.”

The beat will go on because Fresques inherits an offense with six returning starters. Dunniway and O’Hara graduated along with wide receiver Pierre Williams and guard Brandon Weldon. Sophomore running back Cameron Skattebo, the 2022 Big Sky Conference Offensive Player of the Year, used the transfer portal to go to Arizona State.

Kaiden Bennett

Williams, Weldon and O’Hara were all first-team selections in All-Big Sky voting last year. O’Hara was named the conference’s best all-purpose player after rushing for 19 touchdowns and passing for 11. The Hornets have experienced depth at running back, wide receiver and guard. Quarterback is the question mark.

Kaiden Bennett is the only quarterback on the roster to take a snap with the Hornets. The junior appeared in six games last season, completing four of seven passes for 26 yards and rushing for 72 yards on 12 carries. Bennett’s competition appears to be Carson Camp, a junior transfer from South Dakota. Camp was benched after starting the first seven games for the Coyotes in 2022 to extend his streak of consecutive starts to 23.

Fresques is in no hurry to name a starter. Spring practices were an opportunity to take a good long look at each quarterback candidate. The competition will resume for real in August.

“Right now it’s about putting in the offense, getting (the quarterbacks) reps and see where we’re at going into the summer,”  said Fresques, who played quarterback for the Hornets from 1990 to 1992. “You always want someone to emerge, but we’re not looking to make that decision until the fall. I told (the quarterbacks) three things – don’t compare yourself to anybody else, be a ferocious learner and never cease trying to be better.”

May the better quarterback, or two,  win and answer the No. 1 question for the Hornets as the 2023 season approaches. 

Hornets are hungry for success

Kaden Richardson listens as his father Kris strategizes with offensive linemen.

Kris Richardson has a good idea of how a college football player can eat. He raised two and coaches the offensive line at Sacramento State, which will face Richmond at 2 p.m. Saturday in the second round of the FCS playoffs. The big boys transform into magicians when it comes to food. They make it disappear without as much as a burp.

Richardson’s sons and several of those linemen devoured a Thanksgiving feast at the Folsom home of Richardson and his wife Kelly. And calling it a feast is putting it mildly. Seven tri tips, a turkey and a ham stood no chance against such hearty appetites. Richardson was spared from stuffing his refrigerator like a turkey with leftovers.

“A lot of meat got eaten and the damage to the pies was pretty considerable too,” Richardson said. Football talk was kept to a minimum because “when the guys come over, it’s a social setting. I let the guys be guys. The reality is they’re a bunch of big kids when you put them all in a room together. They start chuckling and laughing. When I peeked in the room, it was real quiet. They were probably making fun of me.”

All those years of feeding their sons, Kooper and Kaden, was like a walk in the park compared with the kitchen marathon last Thursday. Kooper and Kaden played for their father at Folsom High. Sacramento State coach Troy Taylor and Richardson coached together at Folsom, so a sideline reunion was by no means a surprise after Taylor was hired in 2019.

Kooper Richardson

Kaden immediately transferred to Sacramento State from UC Davis to play again for his father. Kooper followed in 2021 as a graduate transfer from UC Davis after being a three-year starter at right tackle for the Aggies. They did not switch sides in the rivalry to spite the Aggies, but it would be safe to say there were no parting gifts.

Kooper started at right tackle for the Hornets last season and now plays in the Canadian Football League with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Kaden is a redshirt sophomore who is paying his dues this season as a backup center.

Sacramento State has a young offensive line with right guard Brandon Weldon being the only senior starter. Center Nathan Mejia is a redshirt freshman, right tackle Ivan Garza is a redshirt sophomore, left guard Jackson Slater is a true sophomore and left tackle Troy Stiefel is a junior who was injured most of last season. Garza started 10 games in his place.

Kaden and Kooper share an apartment in Sacramento, so they can drive home whenever they want to mooch a meal or talk their mother into doing their laundry. Some of Kaden’s teammates are not as fortunate, and Thanksgiving might be just the first holiday they will not spend with their families. The season could stretch into the new year if the Hornets can make it to the FCS championship game on Jan. 8 in Frisco, Texas.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. A victory Saturday will the first for the Hornets in three playoff games since Taylor’s arrival. Sacramento State is 23-1 in the Big Sky Conference since 2019, but all those victories have not translated into success in the playoffs. The 11-0 Hornets are the No. 2 seed and earned a first-round bye for the third time in as many playoff appearances – not that the first two did them much good

Richardson could have remained at Folsom if success was all that mattered. He led the Bulldogs to state Division I-AA championships in 2017 and 2018. In fact, the Bulldogs were on their way to Norwalk for the 2018 title game when Richardson received a call from Taylor. The opportunity to coach at Sacramento State was too good to refuse.

“It was pretty simple,” Richardson said. “We always talked about Sac State being the perfect place. We always felt it was a diamond in the rough. We felt we could turn this place around and win a lot of football games. And I get to coach with one of my best friends.”