The Big Sky still has a 63 scholarship maximum, partials can be divided among up to a total of 105.
I don’t see how Sac can bring in that amount of players and not exceed the 63 scholarships, divided or not.

They can run off an equivalent number

When interviewed on the Big Mountain podcast, Rocco said that UCD was going to honor its commitment to all athletes currently on rosters next year. They would opt in the following year.

That was before the judge in the House case indicated that she wanted athletes currently on rosters grandfathered in. The NCAA and the major conferences (the defendants) are not in favor of that, but the alternative is going to trial before the same judge.

Article from today's Sac Bee by Joe Davidson:

Sac State football signs 50 via transfer portal, most in nation. Who’s coming?

Brennan Marion vowed to upgrade the football roster at Sacramento State when he became head coach in December.

He wasn’t kidding, and he isn’t finished.

In the whirlwind nature that has become college athletics, Marion has gone to the transfer portal to rework the existing Hornets roster. Because scholarships are only a year-to-year binding deal, change is allowed and does happen at this level.

On top of securing the top recruiting class in the FCS during the signing period, Marion has brought in a national-leading 50 players through the portal. Some players were starters from higher-level FBS programs and were four-star recruits in high school. Some played for some of the top college programs in the country, or were at least on the roster.

At FCS-level Sacramento State, Marion is offering players in the portal an opportunity to compete for a starting job, to be part of the rolling momentum of a program that seeks entry into the FBS and could well be a preseason Top 10 team in the FCS this fall.

Mostly, Marion is offering players a chance to experience his motto of “One great year can change your life,” something he embraced growing up in Pennsylvania before coaching took him across the country.

“That’s what we say, and now I have players who come up to me now and say that line,” Marion said. “We can turn your career around here, even if we just have you for one year, because one year can change your life. We did the same thing when I was (the offensive coordinator) at UNLV the last couple of years. We brought in 30-plus guys and reached the conference championship game both times."

‘We’ve flipped our roster’

Before the portal became a crucial part of college football in 2018, programs largely built their rosters or retooled through high school recruiting. Now the portal affords programs a chance for a quick fix with significant upgrades for players who have already been vetted, so to speak, in the college game.

It can come across as cut-throat, welcoming in scores of new players to take the roster spots of those already in place. But such is the nature of the game now. New coaches bring in their people, be it coaches or players.

“Some may wonder, ‘What are you doing, flipping the roster like that?’” Marion said. “From our perspective, we want to bring in the best players we can. We’re getting mainly FBS transfers, guys who played some at their previous schools but want a fresh start. We’ve upgraded our roster. We’ve flipped our roster.”

Sacramento State has floated the idea that NIL — name, image and likeness — funding can swell up to $50 million in coming years, especially if the football program’s recent waiver to the NCAA to move up in classification as an independent is approved.

What Marion can assure is a chance to be part of a football movement in the only top 20 media market in the country that does not have an FBS program. Sacramento State won Big Sky Conference championships in 2019, 2021 and 2022 and reached the FCS playoffs in 2023 before sliding to last place in the Big Sky last fall amid injuries and late-game losses.

College football teams are allowed to carry 105 players. Marion can’t keep all of the hold-over players and still bring in new players because the roster would be too large, certainly.

So Marion has encouraged existing players to jump into the transfer portal, and he has endorsed them with glowing comments on social media.

Marion has helped outgoing players land

“Anyone who has been under my tutelage, whether it’s been years or weeks or months, I want them to succeed in life and in their careers, in any field they want, and I’ll help them transfer,” Marion said. “We want them to get offers. That’s our job. When you keep it pure, it’s really just helping the kids. If a player here went through a plan and a process and did it every day, I’ll help them for the rest of their life. The guys who have remained here want to show that they belong.”

Entering the weekend, Marion said he has 65 players in place. In the summer, he will have as many as 50 more additions, meaning more coming and going.

“I still have a few more surprises coming,” Marion said.

Recruiting still comes down to people skills, Marion said. A player can be wowed by the potential of a program, the future, but there has to be a connection between coaches and players for it to work.

“I’ve always been a player’s coach,” Marion said. “That used to get frowned upon - a player’s coach. But a player’s coach, those are the guys who are winning and adapting to the changing college climate.” The Hornets want players who fit in Marion’s wide-open “Go-Go” offense and they want stoppers on defense because college teams score in bunches.

Who are some of the new Hornets?

In recent weeks, Sacramento State has signed out of the portal the following:

▪ Jaden Rashada, a 5-star quarterback recruit out of Pittsburg High in the Bay Area. He attended Arizona State and Georgia.

▪ Oscar Moore, a safety who played in 23 games over two seasons at UTEP and was a 3-star recruit in high school in Texas.

▪ Savion Red, a running back who rushed for 687 yards and eight touchdowns for Nevada in 2024 who originally signed with the Texas Longhorns as a star prep player from the state.

▪ Sam Adams II, a running back who played in 31 games with the Washington Huskies and was the No. 3 prospect in the state coming out of high school, according to 24/7, a national recruiting site.

▪ Malik Tullis, a defensive lineman who played two seasons at Eastern Michigan and was a 3-star recruit in Georgia.

▪ Gavin Thomson, a receiver who attended Pittsburg and UNLV, where he played for Marion in 2024.

▪ Melvin Swindle II, a defensive lineman who played in 35 games at Eastern Michigan over three seasons and was a 3-star recruit from Michigan.

▪ Dylan Hampsten, a defensive lineman who played in 13 games for San Jose State in 2024.

▪ Warren Smith Jr., a 3-star cornerback recruit from the Bay Area who played at Washington State in 2024.

▪ Diesel Gordon, a defensive back who was a 3-star recruit in Texas, played at Washington in 2023 and at Butler Community College in Kansas last season.

▪ Deven Wright, an edge rusher who played at Boise State and Texas State.

▪ Jordan Herman, a 6-foot-8, 335-pound offensive lineman who played for Florida in 2022 and 2023 and for Charlotte in 2024.

Overloaded on talent? Can a roster have too much talent? Is there such a thing? Can everyone fighting for the same spots cause friction?

“It’s funny to me, at previous stops for me, the thing was filling up rooms with the best players to create the best competition,” Marion said. “Some say recruiting rankings don’t matter. It actually does matter how much talent you have. You want to have the best people you can get in the building, in the room.

“With (the Texas Longhorns), when I was coaching there, everything was about recruiting rankings, having the top recruiting class, getting the top guys, everyone in the room a starter or stars. At UNLV, we had a lot of talent, because that’s the goal. Everyone wants to nr a starter, so you want that competition.”

Marion added, “It’s my greatest challenge as a coach here. I love it. It’s fun. It’s what can make us unique and special. We have a chance to be really good in the summer, and it’ll be exciting to see what we can do.”

https://www.sacbee.com/sports/college/article305501421.html

“At FCS-level Sacramento State, Marion is offering players in the portal an opportunity to compete for a starting job, to be part of the rolling momentum of a program that seeks entry into the FBS and could well be a preseason Top 10 team in the FCS this fall“

Glosses over the fact that they’ll be an “FCS” team with an asterisk , ineligible for the playoffs, and possibly not in compliance with Big Sky scholarship limits. They should be listed as an independent this year. Players joining a team to play for nothing, no playoffs, no conference championship, and no listing in many FCS rankings, like Delaware last year.

I don’t think the players or the coach particularly care about playoffs or championships. They are assembling 100 guys looking for a last best stop to build or rehab their personal brand and highlight reel to hopefully get noticed by a pro league or P4 school that may be a better ticket to a pro career. In essence they are playing for themselves, not Sac State. The upside for Marion is to demonstrate ability to engineer an immediate turnaround because he is already auditioning for his next gig. Assuming he doesn’t flame out, he’s one or two year max at Sac. When a P4 school next fires a coach, immediate turnaround at any cost is the service they will be looking to buy. What Wood is betting the farm on, is can all of these mercenaries with their own motivations be leveraged as a coherent team long enough to make Sac look like a viable FBS contender. My guess is that everyone involved has a max 1-2 year horizon. And perhaps Marion is just an early adopter of the new world order. It’s kind of a Silicon Valley approach - move fast, break things, ignore messes and consider humans as commodity resources instead of individuals.

cynical …….. but spot on.

It is amazing what a college athletic program can accomplish when they are not concerned with…you know…college.

They didn’t come to Sac for the education.
They didn’t come for the chance to be in the playoffs
They didn’t come to be on a ranked team.
Most don’t have a shot to play pro and will realize that when they don’t start at sac or if they do don’t standout..
Not many have biographies that show they are self motivated, while a few seem to be un-amenable to discipline.
I imagine come mid-October most will be thinking what am i doing here?

If sac is spending a lot of $ on these players one has to question whether that $ would be better spent when they start playing FBS schedule, something that is easier said than done without a conference affiliation.

if this was an episode of Storage Wars, it would be like Sac just bought every unit at auction based on what they could see peering in the door. Statistically some or even most are going to be junk but there’s also going to be some pay dirt. And we should not discount that raw talent in a go-go offense scheme has the potential to find itself in the end zone a lot - if they can play together. From what I understand, go-go doesn’t always favor a star player but does require everyone to protect whoever does end up with the ball.

In a 4-year recruiting cycle, people know there is competition and not everybody will start as a freshman. People transfer or find joy in ways other than starting. In this scenario of a whole team of 1-season guys, all of them must think they can be the guy this season, though this is numerically impossible. Can teamwork and discipline be maintained once people start realizing they transferred to keep another bench warm? Or will there be midseason desertions?

Wood didn’t deliver the PAC12, he hasn’t delivered on the promised stadium. They have to deliver a season that is both winning and entertaining to keep momentum alive.

Applying Storage Wars to this situation I think Sac State aspires to be like Renè (the 300-lb German guy with the busty wife). Perhaps his wife's breasts are a symbol of their ambitions ?

It's also possible they wind up like Barry, the old guy who blows so much of his family's money on crap lockers. Prior to these moves by Sac State, they were more like Mary, buying cheap lockers with the stated purpose of refurbishing things + re-selling them.

UCD is more like Ivy Calvin, the ex-college football player who runs Grandma's Attic. Ivy is really smart, rarely loses big, but he's rarely the biggest winner. Everything's ok except somebody keeps dumping old pee-stained mattresses at his shop.

Jaden Rashada breaks silence on lengthy transfer process, Sacramento State pick: 'I had more pure intentions'
Brennan Marion's Hornets have cleared the runway for Rashada to be QB1 in Sacramento

Jaden Rashada's college recruitment has been under a microscope since he announced his commitment to Miami almost three years ago. The decorated quarterback from the 2023 recruiting class has become one of the most recognizable faces and cautionary tales of the NIL era due to a series of high-profile events, which includes a fallout with Florida that resulted in a lawsuit against, among others, coach Billy Napier.

"We are definitely in on (Jaden) being our guy," Marion told CBS Sports. "For us in every room, we want guys who can be draft picks, starters and stars. In every room, if you look at what we are doing in the transfer portal and what we have done with high school recruiting, every single room had that. Except for the quarterback room, we did not upgrade to the level I liked."

Whole article here: https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/jaden-rashada-breaks-silence-on-lengthy-transfer-process-sacramento-state-pick-i-had-more-pure-intentions/

Georgia QB Jaden Rashada sues Florida coach Billy Napier, among others, over botched $13.85M NIL deal

Georgia quarterback Jaden Rashada has filed a lawsuit against Florida coach Billy Napier, top Gators booster Hugh Hathcock and former football staffer Marcus Castro-Walker over a failed name, image and likeness deal that would have paid the quarterback $13.85 million, according to a suit filed in federal court on Tuesday.

The bombshell lawsuit, which features the unprecedented action of an active SEC quarterback suing a sitting rival head coach, is the most notable NIL-related lawsuit to date. In many ways, Rashada became the face of the chaotic nature of early NIL that was full of big promises with little oversight on the heels of his Florida deal falling apart.

Whole article here: https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/georgia-qb-jaden-rashada-sues-florida-coach-billy-napier-among-others-over-botched-13-85m-nil-deal/

I am definitely not a Shakespeare expert, but I do remember this from my high school days and something maybe coach Marion should reflect on: “Pride comes before the fall” and or “Arrogance is the camouflage for insecurity” anyway, we will soon see how this plays out. Good luck to sac going forward.

I hope Sac has good legal reprentation.

Sac in 2025 will be a team playing meaningless exhibition games, running up the score against FCS teams, several of whom are among the weakest teams in the country, Northern Colorado, Cal Poly Mercyhurst. Their one FBS opponent, Nevada, was 3-10. Sacramento media will try to hype the program and keep the excitement alive, but there won’t be national interest, except as a curiosity.
Sac’s strategy of a transformational year took a big hit when they made themselves ineligible for the playoffs by starting their transition to FBS this season.

"We are definitely in on (Jaden) being our guy," Marion told CBS Sports. "For us in every room, we want guys who can be draft picks, starters and stars. In every room, if you look at what we are doing in the transfer portal and what we have done with high school recruiting, every single room had that. Except for the quarterback room, we did not upgrade to the level I liked."

I hope Sac schedules Fresno State soon and Conklin puts up 50 pts + 450 yards.

We have several common opponents - Weber, Poly, Northern Colorado, Idaho. Will be interesting to see how we stack up. To some degree, I wonder if the Causeway will be different. With basically a whole new team and staff, I’m not sure how much institutional memory remains. For many of them it may just be another game rather than any particular rivalry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIQaDUbvKas

We play them in 2026.

It would be more interesting if their record meant something at the end of the year. They have a relatively easy Big Sky schedule as they miss Montana State, and get Montana and Idaho at home

I meant interesting for us that with common opponents we can possibly have some observations as to how the last game will go. As interesting as all the Sac drama is, really what I care about is the impact on us. Hard to say if we will be up or down this year. The causeway could end up meaningless for both teams if we’re 0.5 at that point. Or it could be a very important game for us. I wonder if Mark Orr has to give up his seat as the playoff committee member from Big Sky, since he’s no longer concerned with Big Sky playoffs.

I'm watching that Sac / Fresno game.

Marion continues to recruit at a breakneck pace. According to 247 Sports, he has secured 16 hard commits already for 2026 and has given out a mind-boggling 384 offers! No wonder they have such a large coaching and support staff for football. Can you imagine the time and effort it must take to make contact with this many potential recruits?

2026 Commits:

https://247sports.com/college/sacramento-state/season/2026-football/commits/

2026 Offers by Position:

QB - 8
RB - 17
WR - 68
TE - 11
OT - 27
OL - 27
Edge - 31
DL - 41
LB - 27
CB - 44
S -22
Athlete - 61

https://247sports.com/college/sacramento-state/season/2026-football/offers/

I'll be interested to see if this actually means anything though. Coach Marion has never spent more than 2 seasons in any given job throughout his coaching career. Now, you could argue that this is his first D1 HC job so he may stay longer, but if he is wildly successful you can bet that bigger name programs will come knocking and if he leaves the recruiting network largely becomes meaningless.

“hard commits” - these days it’s often more committing to a coach than a school. If Marion pulls up stakes and leaves town, I bet the wagon train follows. There doesn’t seem to be too much hard or committed about a hard commit anymore if money talks louder elsewhere.

Highly rated commits too. They may have a wad of cash they want to spend before the NIL tightens rules. What could the draw be other than cash? Tradition, national reputation, history, value of degree; I don’t think so.

Before they sign the offers will have to be in writing.