Sacramento State will walk into Eastern Michigan on Aug. 29 and open a season that changes the program’s level of play. Alonzo Carter, 57, is the man leading it, and the game marks Sacramento State’s first step into the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision after three decades in the Football Championship Subdivision.
The date is why this matchup matters now. Sacramento State’s first home game follows quickly, with Mississippi Valley coming to town on Sept. 5, which gives the opener at Eastern Michigan the feel of a first test rather than a tune-up. For Carter, it is also the latest stop in a football life that has moved from McClymonds in the mid-1980s to Berkeley High, Contra Costa College, San Jose State and, most recently, University of Arizona.
Carter’s path has always run through Oakland football. He was a standout cornerback at McClymonds, came back there as a track coach while touring part-time with MC Hammer in the early 1990s, and later leaned on the same connection in a way that says plenty about how he has worked. He once sold a drop-top Corvette, a gift from MC Hammer, to pay for new warmups, and he tapped Hammer for uniforms when he became head football coach at McClymonds. That kind of grit helped define him in a city where most Oakland Athletic League coaches were homegrown and where McClymonds, Oakland Tech, Fremont High, Oakland High and Castlemont long set the standard.
That history makes Sacramento State’s move feel larger than one road trip. California universities have been cutting football to cover budget shortfalls, yet Sacramento State is banking on television revenue while trying to finance a stadium upgrade and push into a higher tier. The switch raises the stakes immediately, because the program is not just changing leagues; it is asking whether it can keep pace after spending so long in the lower division.
What happens next is clear enough. Sacramento State leaves for Eastern Michigan first, then comes home for Mississippi Valley on Sept. 5, and Carter’s first season in the FBS will start being judged almost as soon as it begins. The opener will not answer every question about how competitive the team can be, but it will show whether the move up looks like a leap forward or the start of a much harder climb.
