NCAA reportedly denies Sacramento State’s FBS waiver, leaving football program in limbo
The attempted rise in accelerated Sacramento state to the FBS was slowed down. The Division I Council I of the NCAA voted on Tuesday to refuse the request for renunciation of the school to go from the FCS level without official conference invitation, according to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports. The vote will become official once the meetings end on Wednesday.
“We are obviously aware of the decision today, but we remain perfectly confident that we will have the opportunity to go to the FBS here in the near future,” said football coach of the first year of Sacramento, Brennan Marion, to Matt Zenitz de CBS Sports. “There are things in progress on which I cannot go into details at the moment, but our complete expectation is that we are going to go to the FBS in the near future.”
The Hornets previously informed the Big Sky last week that they would leave the League by June 30, 2026 and announced a transition to the Big West for non -football sports from July 1, 2026. This leaves the homeless football program, faced with the possibility of competing as FCS independent next season while the school continues to seek an FBS invitation.
The NCAA decision depends on its rule “invitation in good faith”, which forces schools to obtain an official offer from an FBS conference before reclassifying. The state of Sacramento, for the moment, does not have one. The FBS surveillance committee recommended refusing renunciation at the beginning of the month.
The state of Sacramento withdraws from Big Sky while the Hornets advance with a risky bet on the future success of FBS football
Cameron Salerne

The decision marks a net contrast to 2017, when Liberty obtained a similar derogation authorized to compete as an independent FBS for five years before joining the USA conference. The state of Sacramento had underlined this precedent in its request, but NCAA officials stressed how the landscape of university football has changed in the years that followed.
“Although an exemption from the requirement of invitation in good faith was granted in 2017, this decision was taken at another era, under a different set of facts and rules,” the committee wrote in its recommendation for refusal. “The members of Division I have adopted current legislation to assert the importance of the nature and purpose of the subdivision reclassification process, choosing to place this decision -making authority with the Council.”
The decision provides for a significant impact on the Sacramento state realignment calendar. Without derogation or invitation to the conference, the Hornets are faced with uncertainty about the place where and how their football program will compete in the near future.
The denial also takes a blow to the long -term aspirations of the state of Sacramento. A group of boosters formed the “bag12” last year, aimed at positioning the school for a future PAC-12 invitation. Their objectives include the collection of $ 50 million in zero financing, the construction of new stages and the guarantee of realignment costs. Without an invitation to the FBS conference and their derogation refused, the ambitious climb of the state of Sacramento is now stuck in limbo – forcing the university to recalibrate its next stages in an increasingly competitive university football landscape.