{"id":4833,"date":"2025-10-14T23:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T23:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/4833\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T23:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T23:05:11","slug":"sacramento-state-adds-youngstown-state-to-2026-football-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/4833\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento State adds Youngstown State to 2026 football schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Sacramento State Hornets have added the Youngstown State Penguins to their 2026 football schedule, according to a report from NECBlitz.<\/p>\n<p>Per the report, Sacramento State will host Youngstown State at Hornet Stadium in Sacramento, Calif., on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, which will mark the first-ever meeting between the two schools in football. The Hornets will pay the Penguins a $350,000 guarantee for the contest.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Sacramento State will host Youngstown State football on 9\/19\/2026, <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bZFiyHlu0E\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/bZFiyHlu0E<\/a> has learned. This would replace a previously known game for the Hornets. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FBSchedules?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@FBSchedules<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NECBlitz (@NecBlitz) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NecBlitz\/status\/1978137728987332767?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">October 14, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sacramento State is currently a member of the Big Sky Conference in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The Hornets <a href=\"https:\/\/fbschedules.com\/sacramento-state-applies-to-join-fbs-as-independent-next-year\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">applied to the NCAA to move up<\/a> to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) as an Independent next season, but their petition <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/id\/45591501\/ncaa-denies-sacramento-state-fbs-waiver-2026-season\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">was denied<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>According to its most recent <a href=\"https:\/\/hornetsports.com\/documents\/2025\/10\/7\/SacNotes101125.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">game notes<\/a>, Sacramento State will compete as an FCS Independent next season:<\/p>\n<p>The 2025 season will be the team\u2019s final in the Big Sky Conference. Sacramento State will move the majority of its sports to The Big West in the fall of 2026. At this time, football will compete as an FCS independent next season.<\/p>\n<p>Sacramento State was previously scheduled to host the Lamar Cardinals on Sept. 19, 2026, but will now square off with Youngstown State instead. The status of the Sac State-Lamar contest is currently unknown.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to hosting Youngstown State and possibly Lamar next season, Sacramento State will also travel to face the Fresno State Bulldogs on Sept. 12. As an FCS Independent, the Hornets can schedule nine more games for a total of 12 contests.<\/p>\n<p>Youngstown State now has three opponents for its <a href=\"https:\/\/fbschedules.com\/2026-youngstown-state-football-schedule\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2026<\/a> non-conference schedule. The Penguins are scheduled to open the season on Sept. 5 on the road against the Kentucky Wildcats before hosting the Duquesne Dukes on Sept. 12.<\/p>\n<p>FOOTBALL SCHEDULES<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sacramento State Hornets have added the Youngstown State Penguins to their 2026 football schedule, according to a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122,5481,5482],"class_list":{"0":"post-4833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-sacramento","9":"tag-sacramento-headlines","10":"tag-sacramento-news","11":"tag-sacramento-state","12":"tag-youngstown-state"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4833","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=4833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}