Dr. Mike makes a good point; this thread has strayed from its original subject which was about Coach Marion's ("surprise!") departure for another position elsewhere. However I wanted to reply to Kadeezy's note about Dr. Wood's announcement regarding the addition of class sections. That is good news because after all is said and done the primary mission of schools in the UC and CSU systems is to educate.

I am sure the Sac State community can rely on what Dr. Wood has told them.

While classes are cut and faculty is laid off....

Cal Poly is doing very well in the NCAA Volleyball Tournament, defeating BYU in the first round and USC in the second. Next up is Kentucky, the top seed in their corner of the bracket.

NCAA field will be announced this afternoon/evening. (3:00??) 31 autobids, 33 at-large.

NIT Volleyball (officially something like NIVC...) has been "paused" this year...
https://www.triplecrownvolleyball.com/news/triple-crown-sports-announces-pause-of-2025-nivc-postseason-tournament?_gl=1*18cx44p*_ga*MTQwNzAyNzQ0MS4xNzY0NTE2MTA5*_ga_SSWHYSWMHB*czE3NjQ1MTYxMDkkbzEkZzAkdDE3NjQ1MTYxMDkkajYwJGwwJGgxOTM5NTIxMTgx*_gcl_au*MTQ5MDk0NjQ0OS4xNzY0NTE2MTA5

A 7:00 PM PST kick-off is not going to help a team that is living on Eastern Standard Time.

I read agalum's comment as more of a keep "the state", that is state government, out of the business of creating athletic conferences. It's one thing to have colleges within a state combine on their own to form a conference. It is something else to have the State create and oversee a conference.

In women’s basketball tonight it was UCD 70, Sac 67 in OT.

This was the last Causeway event for the 2025 calendar year. The current Causeway score is UCD 37.5, CSUS 5.

And Dr.Wood just received a 6% raise,....while the school is cutting classes, laying off employees....

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article313102879.html

Ags get 6th seed in the NCAA men's water polo championships and open up against host and 3rd seed Stanford on December 5th.

I suppose Troy Taylor is still too much of a risk…

“Don’t let your mouth write a check that your a** can’t cash.”

That probably needs to be updated for the PayPal and Venmo generation.

Shhhh!

Cal has released HC Justin Wilcox, effective immediately.

https://calbears.com/news/2025/11/23/athletics-news-cal-announces-coaching-leadership-change-in-football-program.aspx

Ooops. I see that this was posted earlier....here is the release on the Cal athletic website.

For several years Davis and Sac played football in the same conference, the Big Sky.

Sac has left the Big Sky, presumably believing that an invitation to join the FBS level Pac "12" or the MWC, was inevitable.

No such invitation has been extended to date.

The Big Sky increased the number of conference games for its member teams.

This leaves teams with fewer available dates for non-conference games.

Davis, like most schools, has filled out its non=conference schedules a few years in advance. There are no open dates in which to schedule any non-conference opponents.

As an aside, Sac feels Davis should simply break its contracts with some of those scheduled teams to make an opeinig to play the Hornets.

Was it Mattos or Volek who said that at some point Sac could no longer afford to play Davis, suggesting that Sac was moving up and could not play down to a lower division school,

Well it happened, at least for a while.

Men's water polo defeated top seed Long Beach State in the Big West tournament final. Ags will get the conference bid to the NCAA Championship.

This year's championship tournament will be held at Stanford on December 5-7. The brackets are to be announcerd tomorrow, November 24.

We split cross country this year with UCD men placing better in the NCAA regionals than Sac, but Sac's women doing better than UCD women. That's a mild upset in itself.

Both women's basketball teams are doing well, with only one loss each, but the season is young. No commmon opponents.

With all that is going on, or going off, at Sac, they may lose a lot of coaches too.

From the Bee article on the game:

“I’m just glad that (the Causeway trophy) is going to stay here for all eternity. That’s where it belongs. It should be here.” Tim Plough

Portal opens January 2.

There is another portal related to head coaching changes. As people have noted, Marion doesn't stay in one place very long, but don't know that he did enough this year to draw the attention of teams looking for head coaches. However everything about Sac football is in flux....schedule, league affiliation, divisional status, facilities...chaos theory run amok.