Portland State football opens a new chapter on Saturday when it faces No. 6 UC Davis at Hillsboro Stadium, a season-opening test that doubles as Chris Fisk’s first game as head coach. The Vikings are set to kick off at noon P.T., and the matchup gives them an immediate look at where they stand against one of the FCS powers in the preseason poll.
The date line on the schedule is the first thing to sort out: the opener is tied to Saturday, Aug. 29, while kickoff is listed for noon P.T. at Hillsboro Stadium on Saturday, Aug. 25. However that discrepancy is resolved, the football part of it is clear enough. Portland State is walking in with seven returning starters on offense, led by John-Keawe Sagapolutele at quarterback, Delon Thompson at running back, Terence Loville at receiver and Cru Newman as the top all-purpose threat. Tanner Beaman is also back after missing all of last year with an injury.
That makes the rebuild look more stable on one side of the ball than the other. Jaxton Helmstetler is the lone returning defensive starter, but he gives the Vikings a proven anchor after finishing third on the team with 71 total tackles and second with 6.5 tackles for loss. For Fisk, that is the tradeoff in his first season: an offense with familiar names and a defense that must be rebuilt almost from scratch. Portland State also has help up front in Zaire Collier, who returns as a second-team All-Big Sky center, and in Jordan Fisher, who is back after a 1,000-yard rushing season.
UC Davis brings the opposite kind of pressure. The Aggies are coming off back-to-back FCS quarterfinal appearances and carry a No. 6 preseason ranking, but they still enter the opener without a settled quarterback. Caden Pinnick is gone to Washington State, leaving Treynor Cleeland and Jackson Kollock to compete for the starting job. That uncertainty matters because the first game of the Fisk era is coming against a team with recent playoff credentials and one major question of its own.
For Portland State, the opener is less about making a statement than about finding out how much of the roster can hold up immediately. The first answer comes at Hillsboro Stadium, and the next one is whether Fisk’s team can turn an unsettled matchup into a clean start.
