SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — When the news came in February that Sacramento State's elevation to the highest level of college football would come a year earlier than expected with an invitation to the Mid-American Conference, coach Alonzo Carter broke out his old dance moves and performed the “Return of the Mack” for his players.
Then it was time to get to work as Carter had been on the job for only about two months and his one-year runway for the transition
from being a Championship Subdivision team to an Bowl Subdivision team was gone.
“It was post signing day, post portal period closing so it was a little surprise," he said. "We knew there was a possibility, but we figured we’d have a year to build it. But once it sunk in and it was going to be ‘26, I went back to my players and told them, ’Hey man, we’re playing this now.'”
Luckily for Carter, both dancing and coaching football are second nature for him. The former backup dancer and choreographer for legendary rap star MC Hammer has spent more than three decades as a football coach, going from a head coach at the high school and junior college level near his hometown of Oakland to an assistant at both San Jose State and Arizona.
Carter said lessons he learned as a young man on tour have carried over to his coaching career and he looks forward to having the rap star come to a few games this season.
“I’m very thankful for having MC Hammer in my life,” he said. “A lot of people go how do you go from dancing to coaching? Well, he gave me a lot of responsibility then. He put me in a leadership position, leadership role. Just watching his work ethic, seeing how he moved day to day becoming one of the all time best in the history of hip hop.”
Athletic director Mark Orr said that Carter is a much better football coach than dancer and believes he's the right man to shepherd the Hornets through this challenging transition.
Sacramento State won three Big Sky Conference titles and made the playoffs four times in a five-year span from 2019-23. The Hornets went 7-5 last season in the first year under Brennan Marion, who left for the offensive coordinator job at Colorado.
Now Carter takes over a team with just a handful of returning starters and 72 newcomers on the roster, including quarterback Carson Conklin, who returns after spending last season as a backup at Fresno State. The Hornets have about $7 million from the school in NIL funding and a stadium that will hold about 22,000 fans with hopes of building a new stadium soon.
The move to FBS is part of a larger strategy to raise the profile of the athletic department at Sacramento State in hopes that it will do the same for the entire university. Enrollment is up to about 32,000 students and has increased nearly 7% since 2014.
“Athletics, particularly college football, is a front porch and a gateway for prospective students and for alumni to get engaged with their university,” Orr said. “We see it in our admissions applications. We see it on our alumni engagement. We see in our community partnerships. So it’s really important.”
Orr hired former NBA star Mike Bibby as men's basketball coach before last season and now the Hornets are headed to the FBS level for football. Playing football in the MAC will require four long road trips to the Midwest, starting with the opener at Eastern Michigan on Saturday. The other Hornets programs will stay local after joining the Big West, with 10 schools in California plus Utah Valley.
“There are a select number of universities that are able to play FBS football. It’s not a sign up,” Orr said. “You have to be invited to play FBS football. There’s 10 FBS conferences in the country and the Mid-American Conference fits, while it may not fit geographically, it fits a lot of the mission and ideals we have as a university and as athletic programs.”
The move up a level gives the Hornets a chance to play two midweek “MACtion” games in November on an ESPN channel, along with three other nationally televised games, including a home matchup against fellow first-year FBS team North Dakota State on the main ESPN channel Sept. 19.
They also will be bowl eligible immediately following an NCAA rule change with a chance to make their first bowl game since losing the Pasadena Bowl to Grambling State in 1968. It also means that a terrific season could put the program in the mix for a College Football Playoff berth and some big-time exposure and money.
There also is another benefit that is particularly exciting for the players — being part of the EA Sports video game.
“That’s a dream for me," running back Jamar Curtis said. “Honestly, I’ve never been in a video game my whole life. I’m excited. I got little nephews and stuff, little cousins, they use me. So I feel like that’s exciting.”
The excitement goes beyond the players, with linebacker Derek Houston saying he has noticed a different buzz around campus since the move up. Now the key is capitalizing on that to build a team that can contend in the MAC.
“Not everyone really knows what the FCS is,” he said. “They don’t think it’s really D-I, so when you get the FBS label, people get really excited about it.”
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