This is the annual rivalry game that began when Dwight David Eisenhower (I Like Ike) was president and Davisites were driving tractors instead of Teslas.
As I have noted here previously, while the Hornets can’t match UC Davis’ long-ago 18-game win streak in this series, they did remain for years as the only four-year school in college football history to defeat UC Davis twice in the same season. Until, of course, Eastern Washington accomplished the same feat in 2018.
Sac State made it happen in 1988 when the Hornets ended those 18 years of Causeway futility with a come-from-behind, heart-stopping, last-second, 31-28 win on Toomey Field. The winning score came when quarterback Bryan Pendergast hit Mark Young with a short pass, then Young turned the corner and raced past everyone to complete a 53-yard touchdown play.
I remember it all so well, as thousands of green-and-gold clad Hornet fans poured out of the east bleachers and danced on the sacred Toomey Field turf until someone finally turned off the lights.
The long and painful hex removed, the Hornets followed that up two months later with a much more workmanlike 35-14 win in the first round of the NCAA Division II playoffs.
Oddly, 1988 was the last season that Jim Sochor coached the Aggies and it was the only time he lost to the Hornets (twice, actually) after 18 straight wins.
During one five-year stretch, the series became absolutely non-competitive, with Aggie wins of 38-3, 34-0, 28-0, 39-0 and 32-7. Later, the Aggies posted back-to-back wins of 51-6 and 52-14.
In fact, the streak became so long and so dominant that Sochor once said “It’s not a rivalry until they beat us.”
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