![\"Mike](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a19c10fb-26eb-4ec7-ab2f-e5f5414203b0_1636408972.file.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFrom green and gold balloons, to pom-poms to Southwest Airlines offering free round-trips to select fans, the Sacramento International Airport (SMF) served as the starting point for an historic football weekend for Sacramento State University.<\/p>\n
Among the fans making sure not to miss the big game was 1967 alum Wayne Stokes.<\/p>\n
It’s a new era, so it’s exciting,” said Stokes as he waited to board his flight. “I’m looking forward to it.” <\/p>\n
This Saturday, the Sac State football team will play it’s first-ever game as part of a Football Bowl Subdivision conference when it kicks off against Eastern Michigan. The FBS is college football’s elite of level of competition.<\/p>\n
“It’s an incredible feeling. Sac State has worked so hard to get into the MAC Football Bowl Subdivision. It’s the highest level of collegiate football,” said Michelle Willard, Sac State’s Chief of External Relations & Economic Development Officer. “But, more importantly, we’re so excited for our students and out fans.”<\/p>\n
Southwest Airlines provided 35 fans with round-trip tickets to attend Saturday’s inaugural FBS game.<\/p>\n
“This is a milestone moment for Sacramento State, and Southwest Airlines is honored to play a small part in it,” said Lillian Santos-Stables, Southwest Airlines Regional Community Outreach Manager, Corporate Responsibility.<\/p>\n
As for the football team, the players were able to sleep in a little later than the first fans on the early-morning flight connecting through Denver, <\/p>\n
The team was scheduled to board a private charter closer to noon.<\/p>\n
The Hornets’ matchup is against Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, MI.<\/p>\n
Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday. <\/p>\n
See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | Download our app<\/a> | Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a> | Make KCRA a preferred news source in Google<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sac to Mac: Sacramento State football embarks on historic weekend From green and gold balloons, to pom-poms to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1321,38929,75948,9591,121,123,122,11572],"class_list":["post-446511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-college-football","tag-fbs","tag-mac","tag-ncaa","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sacramento-state-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}