Running backs coach James Montgomery, right, provides instruction and support to a player during spring football practice. Establishing strong bonds throughout the team is an important approach the new staff believes in. Photo by Jessica Vernone

Terms of Endearment

Hornet football will build on strong relationships—and lots of offense

Dixie Reid

“I haven’t felt this excited about Hornet football for a long, long time.”

The new era of love and football has come to Sacramento State. The Hornets kick off the 2019 season Aug. 31 at home against Southern Oregon.

First-year head coach Troy Taylor, operating under an unprecedented-for-Sac State seven-year contract, fully intends to win. It’s what he does, and always has. He just doesn’t talk about it.

Taylor would rather talk about love.

“I love this game,” he says. “I brought in coaches who are good people with good hearts who love the game, love working with the young men. If you bring those people together, you attract players who want to be here, who love competing, love football, love going to school at Sacramento State.

“We want to win, but I don’t think talking about winning makes it happen. The places I’ve been, we never talked about winning. It’s all about the process and loving what you’re doing.”

Will that be enough to turn around a program that in 65 seasons beginning in 1954 has had winning records 21 times, losing records 39 times, and records when wins and losses were the same five times?

The answer might reside somewhere in the long-term commitment Sac State and Taylor made to each other, based on a shared desire to infuse stability and new possibility into an often-maligned program, all while also stirring Hornet pride.

But make no mistake. Winning more than losing, earning championships, performing well every week, capturing the attention of the Sac State community and the Sacramento region in general – those things are the desired results of putting love in Hornet hearts.

“With Coach Taylor’s winning record and bringing in local coaches and talented local players, that means he intends to build for the future,” says Hornet football faithful Ana Sandoval ’81 (Government/Journalism), who proudly performed as Sac State mascot Herky during the 1980 football season.

“I haven’t felt this excited about Hornet football for a long, long time,” she says. “Instead of wondering if we will ever win, I know we can win.”

The Making of Hornet Football

The new guy’s path to Hornet Stadium

Taylor, 51, came to Sac State after a great career as a high school and college quarterback and coach. Everywhere he has gone, programs have improved, and his teams have won. Having built his reputation for creating offensive excellence and developing players, he was ready to come home to the region where his football journey began.

His cannon-like throws and nimble footwork led Rancho Cordova’s Cordova High Lancers to a 14-0 season and a section championship in 1985. He graduated from UC Berkeley in 1989 as the then-all-time Golden Bears passing leader with 8,126 yards.

At Folsom High, one stop in his coaching career, the Bulldogs won the 2014 California Interscholastic Federation Division I championship and set state records for most points scored in a season and most passing yards for four consecutive seasons. Quarterback Jake Browning, whom Taylor coached from fifth grade through high school, set national records at Folsom before moving on to the University of Washington, where he was Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year in 2016.

Taylor left the high school ranks in 2016 for the Big Sky Conference and Eastern Washington, where he coached the Eagles’ sophomore quarterback, Gage Gubrud, to two NCAA FCS single-season passing records (yards, 5,160; and touchdowns, 48). Taylor then spent two years as offensive coordinator at Utah, which in 2018 won the Pac-12 South title for the first time.

Taylor is Sac State’s 11th head football coach, and expectations are high.

“We want to win the Causeway Classic every year,” says Mark Orr, director of athletics, referring to the annual showdown with UC Davis. “We want to compete for the Big Sky championship every year and go to the NCAA playoffs. We want to win football games. We’ve had winning seasons, but now it’s all about being consistent.”

From 1954 through 1992, the Hornets played in NCAA Division II, moving to Division I-AA in 1993. In 2006 that division’s name was changed to the Division I Football Championship Subdivision. The Hornets have won just four conference titles, last claiming a championship in 1995 when they won the American West Conference title with a 3-0 conference record to go with an overall 4-6 mark. Sac State joined the Big Sky Conference in 1996.

Since moving to Division I in 1993, Hornet teams have posted consecutive winning seasons only once, going 6-5 in 1999 and 7-4 in 2000.

Fans with long memories will recall the program’s glory years: In 1968, Sac State finished 8-3 and played Grambling State in the Junior Rose Bowl. Twenty years later, the Hornets were 10-3, winning two playoff games before losing in the national Division II semifinals. In 2017, the Hornets defeated seven Division I opponents, a program record.

But a deflating 2-8 record followed in 2018, ending coach Jody Sears’ tenure and opening the door to Taylor. How might that play out?

“I want us to have the most explosive offense in the country, the best defense in the country, the best special teams, and the highest graduation rate,” Taylor says.

“If we do all the right things, those things will result in championships.”

For what it’s worth

Taylor took a sizable pay cut to come to Sacramento State, where his base annual pay is $242,000. That’s about $1.7 million through the duration of his seven-year contract. Taylor’s 2018 base salary at Utah was $525,000, plus a bonus of $87,500, a total about 2½ times his annual take at Sacramento State, where he is the highest-paid coach.

“It’s never been about the money for me,” says Taylor, who will earn a bonus if the Hornets win the conference title. “It’s about believing in where I am and being challenged. My goal when I left Folsom High School was to one day be a head coach, and this is a great opportunity. They’re paying me well. This is where I want to be.”

And Sac State wanted him.

“A lot of students choose to go to a university based on its football team. That’s just a reality,” says President Robert S. Nelsen, who was instrumental in bringing Taylor on board. “It means we have students here who want to be a part of that atmosphere. It means we’ll fill up the stadium. It means that students and alumni will have a sense of identity, because that’s what football helps to create.”

Football is the marquee sport for most universities, in part because of its sheer size. Sac State carries 105 players on the roster, along with 10 assistant and specialty coaches, and numerous support staff. Football also has the largest alumni base of any sport on campus.

Orr, who played collegiately at Cal, is counting on Taylor to rouse Hornet fans and create new excitement.

“Whether you went to Sacramento State or not, if you follow football and live in the area, I want the Hornets to be your team,” Orr says. “I want us to be Sacramento’s team, as much as Sacramento State is the region’s anchor university.”

Winning teams – no matter the sport – bring positive attention to cities and universities and foster community pride, says Mike Testa, president and CEO of Visit Sacramento.

“It’s valuable to a city because positive attention can attract development investment, valuable to a university in that it can generate alumni giving, and valuable to locals because it makes the place they live better.”

Building up his team

Taylor is the Hornets’ third head football coach in six years, following the departures of Marshall Sperbeck (2007-14) and Sears (2014-18).

Nelsen and Orr believed that Taylor would be the right fit, although Sac State couldn’t come close to matching his salary at Utah. But Taylor was ready to return home and realize his dream of becoming a university-level head coach.

“He’s one of the best coaches in the country and was highly sought-after, but he wants to be here,” Orr says. “He’s innovative, and his teams score a lot of points. … There isn’t a place he’s been that he hasn’t had success. He’s humble, and he believes in student athletes being committed to their academic studies.”

Taylor’s December 2018 hiring had a quick impact. During the February 2019 high school signing period, the Hornets inked four star players from local high schools: Tyler Hardeman and Joseph Wagner (Folsom), Brandon Knott (Inderkum), and Johnny Guzman (Del Oro). Taylor considers the Sacramento area the most robust recruiting region in the Big Sky Conference.

Taylor also brought other local coaching talent to the Hornets, including his friend Kris Richardson, with whom he shared head-coaching duties at Folsom High. From 2012 to 2015, they guided the Bulldogs to a 58-3 record and league, section, and state championships. Other members of the coaching staff also have Pac-12 or Big Sky experience.

“I spent 14 years at Folsom High School dreaming of this day,” Richardson says as he looks around Hornet Stadium. “We won the state championship here. Some of my best moments were here. It was my dream to coach college football, and to be back with Troy and back on this field is incredible.”

The Hornets’ new quarterbacks coach, Bobby Fresques, knows the home field better than most.

Fresques wore the green and gold from 1990 to 1992 and was among Sac State career leaders in two significant categories when he graduated: fourth in passing yards (3,757) and second in touchdown passes (27). He went on to coach at local high schools, including Folsom, and Sacramento City College.

In 2014, longtime friends Fresques and Taylor sat with more than 20,000 soccer fans for the Sacramento Republic FC home opener at Hughes Stadium. Taylor said something that night that might prove prophetic.

“This was before we even thought about coming here,” Fresques says. “Troy looked at me and said, ‘Can you imagine what Sac State could be if they filled up the stadium? Can you imagine Sac State doing that?’ And now here we are.”

Players, particularly the veterans, long to see sellout crowds and the scoreboard toting up Hornet victories. That could be a heavy lift considering they were 2-8 last season, winless in conference play.

“We’re anxious to prove to the community, to our school, that we’re a lot better than that,” says starting quarterback Kevin Thomson.

His teammate, third-year running back Elijah Dotson, welcomes the Troy Taylor era and is on board with the coach’s emphasis on love.

“We’re working hard on our craft, and once we all start to love each other, that means we will play for each other,” Dotson says.

“It feels good to know that we will get better.”

05/07/19

Dixie Reid

dixie.reid@csus.edu

Dixie Reid has been a writer for Sac State since 2012 after decades as a newspaper reporter. A Texas native with the accent to prove it, Dixie is crazy about “dear friends, big dogs, good books, great food, day trips, baking cookies, California sunshine (and fog), and kind people.”

California State University, Sacramento

Terms of Endearment

Hornet football will build on strong relationships—and lots of offense

Dixie Reid

“I haven’t felt this excited about Hornet football for a long, long time.”

Troy Taylor’s coaching résumé:

2019 Hornet assistant coaches:

Not pictured:

Dixie Reid