THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Sac State’s move, and its impact on the Vandals

The news earlier this week that Sacramento State was pulling out of the Big Sky Conference, with the hopes of eventually moving its football program up to the FBS level, likely struck a chord with Idaho Vandals fans. 

“Hey, we tried that. How’d that turn out?” 

Idaho (and Boise State) moved up from what was then called I-AA in 1996. And other than three bowl appearances (and victories) in 22 seasons in FBS, it mostly didn’t go well, and the Vandals dropped back down to FCS in 2018. 

Of course, that was the FCS-to-FBS exception. 

Other schools have made the move up, with varying degrees of success, so we’ll see what happens with Sac State. For now, the Hornets will be an FCS independent, as they were never invited to join an FBS league. But they hope to be in an FBS league as soon as they can. 

SINCE IDAHO rejoined the Big Sky Conference in 2018, Sac State has made the FCS playoffs four times — in 2019, 2021, ‘22 and ‘23. 

Those are the only four times the Hornets have made the playoffs since moving up from Division II in 1993, and joining the Big Sky in 1996. 

Sac State is 2-4 in those playoff appearances, getting as far as the quarterfinals in 2022 before losing to Incarnate Word. 

Over that span, the Hornets won the Big Sky once and shared the conference title twice. 

Sac State was 3-9, 1-7 in the Big Sky in 2024. 

The Vandals have qualified for the Big Sky playoffs three times since returning, all in the last three seasons. 

Idaho is 2-3 in those appearances, all under coach Jason Eck, who is now at New Mexico. Last year the Vandals reached the quarterfinals before losing to eventual national runner-up Montana State. 

Idaho is 1-2 vs. Sac State since the Vandals’ return, with losses in 2019 and ‘22, and a win in ‘23. 

This year, Idaho is scheduled to play at Sacramento State on Nov. 15, in the second-to-last week of the regular season. 

THE BIGGER question for Vandal fans is, what does this do to the Big Sky Conference? 

For starters, the league will drop from 12 to 11 football-playing members in 2026. With each team playing eight league games, now it will not play two league teams each season, rather than three. 

It always seems weird to be in a conference and not play everybody, but that’s the landscape these days. 

Right now, each Big Sky football team has two protected “rivals” that it is scheduled to play each season. 

For Idaho, those two are Eastern Washington and Idaho State.  

(Eastern’s are Idaho and Portland State). 

That means Idaho and Eastern aren’t guaranteed to play Montana and Montana State each season, which is a borderline travesty. They usually will play one, if not both, but some years, they won’t play one of them. 

So Sac State leaving increases the chances of the Vandals and Eags playing both Montana and Montana State in a season, because that is one less game Idaho and EWU would have to play against Sac State. 

This isn’t an addition-by-subtraction thing, as a win over Sac State looked good on a team’s playoff resume. 

But if it means the Vandals (and others in our region) play one more game against a team in our region, and one less against a team from Northern California, then that is a positive.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.