FARGO -- Almost a year ago in this space, your favorite columnist offered the cliched view that Sacramento State president Luke Wood was either crazy or crazy like a fox for attempting to launch his university into the college football netherworld by asking the NCAA to allow the Hornets to enter the Football Bowl Subdivision as an independent.
No conference. No affiliation. Just a floater, hoping to latch onto a real home at some undetermined point in the future.
Wood failed, which worked out perfectly for Sac State. The Hornets stayed in the lower level Football Championship Subdivision in 2025 and spent the meantime trying to buy their way into FBS conferences like the Pac-12 and the Mountain West.
The blood, toil, tears and sweat came to fruition recently when Sac State and the Mid-American Conference announced the Hornets would be a new football-only member -- just like North Dakota State will be a football-only member of the Mountain West -- for 2026. Unlike NDSU, Sac State's membership in the MAC lasts only until 2030.
Which was just one of several aspects of Sac State's leap to FBS that has pundits, keyboard warriors and social media thickos blowing their stacks over Woods' big move.
Also part of the recipe: The $18 million cash Sac State is paying to the MAC, the $5 million ransom to be collected by the NCAA for moving from FCS to FBS and the stipulation the Left Coast school will pay travel costs for the middle-of-the-country schools (and Massachusetts) that make up the once-aptly named Mid-American Conference.
There was also plenty of tut-tutting and chortling because, sources say, Sacramento is in California and every other MAC school is not. They are, in fact, a long way away.
Sources have also indicated the University of California and Stanford University are not on the Atlantic Coast, which is where the conference in which they play is located. Nor, in fact, is North Dakota located in the mountains or the west, despite the name of the Bison's new conference. That train left the barn a couple of years ago, friends.
Let's try on this contrarian (and correct) view for size: Maybe Sacramento State is doing exactly the right thing for Sacramento State.
And maybe this is going to work just fine.
And maybe -- and this will surely be controversial here in Real America -- the right thing for Sacramento State looks nothing like the right thing for South Dakota State, Montana State, Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota ... all of whose fans and media have had a lot to say about Sac State.
Truth is, Sacramento State looks a lot more like an FBS school than any of the remaining Dakotas and Montana schools not already in FBS.
Sac State has an enrollment of 31,000, massive compared to any of the Dak-Mon schools.
It is located in the 20th largest television market in the good ol' US of A.
Sacramento's metropolitan area has almost 2.5 million people and is one of the fastest growing areas in California.
It is located in the most populous state in the country at 39.5 million people. That's 36 times larger than Montana, 43 times larger than South Dakota and 49 times larger than North Dakota.
California already had six FBS programs and three NFL teams, making it unlikely an FCS program was ever going to stand out no matter its success.
California is generally considered the third-best state for producing Division I football players and, if you feel the need to quibble, it is surely in the top five. California had 143 players in the NFL in 2025, behind only Texas and Florida.
And in the era of the transfer portal, what better place to be located for bounce-backs than a state that produces so much Division I talent?
Honestly, Sacramento State has a much better profile to be an FBS school than NDSU -- other than things like the Bison's 18 total national championships in the old College Division, Division II and FCS.
But it's not like the Hornets have been dogs. Since 2019, Sac State has three conference championships in the Big Sky and four FCS playoff appearances with a 2-4 record. (And Sac State didn't play in the spring of 2021 because the Big Sky tapped out of the COVID-delayed stupid season.)
In that same time frame, USD has one shared conference title and four playoff appearances with four wins while UND has one shared conference title in the silly spring '21 season and five playoff berths with two victories.
Surely, Woods' play was to get to FBS at any cost and wait for the expected next shake-up in 2032 to make another move. If there is one thing NDSU learned it's that life is easier in the conference realignment world when you're already in FBS. If the goal is the Mountain West or Pac-12 next time around, Sacramento State is now in a better position than the Dak-Mon schools.
Heck, yes, it's a ridiculously expensive risk. Heck, no, there are no guarantees it will work. But if the Dak-Mon's conservative play is to sit around and wait, hoping to be FBS and re-join NDSU someday, then good luck. It might very well work. But hope is not a plan.
Sac State took the bold route, which is the path NDSU chose. Like the Bison, Wood chose to control his school's football future instead of letting fate do the job. It's a massive gamble. But it's the right gamble for Sacramento State.