Big Sky Conference

Sears remains positive during Sac State rebuild

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Jody Sears has been on the ground floor of rebuilding projects before.

Sacramento State’s third-year head coach got his first Division I job on on Todd Berry’s staff at Army in 2000. The Black Knights won four games in Sears’ three seasons coaching at the academy.

Sears joined Paul Wullff’s staff at Eastern Washington as the defensive coordinator in 2003 for his first Big Sky Conference gig. The foundation for EWU had already been laid by Mike Kramer in the late 1990s; under Wulff and Sears, Eastern won two Big Sky titles and advanced to the FCS playoffs three times in five seasons.

Sac State head coach Jody Sears

Sac State head coach Jody Sears/by Brooks Nuanez

The success helped boost the staff into the Pac 10. But Washington State proved to be a titanic challenge to rebuild. From 2008 until 2011, Wazzu won just nine of 49 games, including posting a 4-32 record against Pac 10 competition. WSU’s only FBS win in Wulff’s season came against Washington in the Apple Cup. The following season, WSU went 0-9 in Pac 10 play and the only win was a overtime victory over SMU in Pullman.

Washington State posted a pair of conference victories and won four total games in 2011 but Wulff, who is now Sears’ offensive line coach at Sac, was fired after the season. Sears took a job on John L. Smith’s at Weber State as the former Idaho coach looked to build on the recent successes of longtime head coach Ron McBride, who retired after the 2011 season. But Smith did not make it six months in Ogden and never coached a game at Weber State. Instead, he jumped ship to become the head coach at Arkansas when Bobby Petrino was fired amid a cloud of controversy.

Weber State named Sears the interim head coach. With the program in turmoil from Smith’s quick bolt as well as NCAA sanctions for academic issues that Sears inherited, Weber won two games in 2012 and 2013, leading to Sears’ dismissal.

Sears took a job as Marshal Sperbeck’s defensive coordinator at Sacramento State before the 2014 season before Sperbeck was abruptly fired with NCAA sanctions looming. Sacramento State’s talented roster — quarterback Garrett Safron was a three-time All-Big Sky selection, wide receiver DeAndre Carter a two-time All-America and middle linebacker Darnell Sankey a future NFL player — helped the Hornets win seven games in Sears’ first season in 2014.

Since then, wins have been hard to come by. Sac started linebacker Manoah Pearson, safety Manny Scott-Anderson and nickel back Elijah Wallace as true freshmen in 2015. Defensive tackle Wyatt Ming started the first eight games of the season as a redshirt freshman and classmate George Obinna started the final four. Defensive end Ben Sorensen, linebacker Tyler Meteer, cornerback Ernest Jenkins and safety Austin Clark all started at least half of Sac State’s games as sophomores. Sac won one Division I game, 38-13 over Idaho State in Sacramento, during a 2-9 campaign.

Sac State quarterback Nate Ketteringham (6)/by Sac State Athletics

Sac State quarterback Nate Ketteringham (6)/by Sac State Athletics

This season, the rebuilding continues. Sacramento State enters Saturday night’s contest with Montana State (2-2) as the only one of the 13 teams in the Big Sky Conference without a victory. Northern Arizona, UC Davis and Portland State all only have one win, all coming against Division II opponents. But Sac even blew that chance for what should’ve been a scheduled win. In their first and only home game this season, Sac State lost 38-30 to Division II Western Oregon. MSU destroyed the Wolves 55-0 in Bozeman two weeks later.

Sac State’s 0-4 record is a product of youth — starting quarterback Nate Ketteringham is a sophomore and the offensive line features no seniors. But it’s also a product of a process, Sears said. And despite the early struggles — Sac State also lost 31-3 at Fresno State, 14-7 at Weber State and 42-34 last week at Idaho State — Sears remains positive when he looks at the big picture.

“I’ve been on 0-4 teams before that weren’t even half as good as this team,” Sears said. “Those first two years we were at Washington State, we were the worst team in college football history. This team is by far, in terms of culture, in terms of attitude might be one of the best teams I’ve been around. You have to stay true to your conviction, keep moving forward and stay positive because we aren’t going to allow anyone to walk around woe is me.

“You know what? Grab a rifle and go to Afghanistan if you want to talk about woe is me.”

Ketteringham threw for 370 yards and three touchdowns against Western Oregon. But three Sac turnovers, including two interceptions by Ketteringham, coupled with nine penalties for 90 yards and allowing Paul Revis to take a punt 74 yards for a touchdown spelled doom for the Hornets in their opener.

Against Fresno State, Sac went toe to toe against the FBS Bulldogs for three quarters, entering the final frame trailing 10-3. Fresno scored three unanswered touchdowns in the first eight minutes of the fourth quarter to win going away.

Former Sac State linebacker Darnell Sankey (44) and current linebacker Tyler Meteer record a sack against Washington in 2015/by Sac State Athletics

Former Sac State linebacker Darnell Sankey (44) and current linebacker Tyler Meteer record a sack against Washington in 2015/by Sac State Athletics

Despite being outgained 520 – 270 in total offense in Ogden, the non-conference matchup with Weber State was tied 7-7 with less than two minutes to play. But WSU quarterback Jadrian Clark’s 10-yard touchdown with one minute, 42 seconds left lifted Weber to its first win of 2016.

Last week, Sac fell behind 21-0 when ISU true freshman Michael Dean ripped off a 62-yard touchdown run with 7:47 left in the first half. Isiah Hennie scored twice in the final four minutes before halftime to help Sac cut the lead to 21-14. Dean’s 91-yard touchdown run put ISU back up 35-17 late in the third quarter but Ketterinham would not quit. He threw a touchdown and ran for another in the final frame but Nikko Taylor intercepted him and returned the pick for a touchdown to help ISU notch its first Division I win this season.

“We were plagued by inconsistent play again on Saturday,” Sears said. “Putting ourselves down by three scores but then coming back and putting ourselves in a position to tie it up at the end, there’s some good ingredients that are coming forth but our inconsistencies with the little details and fundamentals and fits and blocking the right guy and throwing it to the right guy, your day 1 stuff, we have to continue to fine tune that.”

Jeff Choate is exactly one game into his first season through the Big Sky. His team fell 17-15 in a hard-fought affair against North Dakota last week. When he watches Sac State, he sees a team with a good collection of talent.

“Having not been through this league before, I would bet most coaches would say the same thing about Sac State: they have very good skill talent, specifically on the offensive side of the ball and that’s a concern,” Choate said.

“They are what I would expect them to be. They are a team from the largest metropolitan area in the conference and they have access to a ton of good skill players. They have a ton of really good skill players.”

Sac State defensive end George Obinna (99)/by Sac State Athletics

Sac State defensive end George Obinna (99)/by Sac State Athletics

Choate went on to praise Ketteringham, calling him a “really, really talented player” who is “probably at his best when using his legs”. He expressed concern with slowing down Hennie, Sac’s 5-foot-7, 165-pound pint of dynamite who doubles as one of the league’s most dangerous kick returners. Choate also gave compliments to Pearson, a preseason All-Big Sky selection who is one of seven players in the league averaging 10 tackles per game this season. Choate mentioned senior safety Nick Crouch, Obinna and junior captain Sorensen as players MSU has to be on alert for.

“They’ve given up explosive plays at times and they’ve given up some turnovers, not unlike what we did this last week against UND,” Choate said. “They are a dangerous, dangerous outfit. I think they are getting better week by week. There was a vast improvement Week 2 from the Fresno State game to Week 3 when they played Weber and it was a very competitive game against Idaho State. They’ve had three tough road games, now they are at home. We can’t overlook this team.”

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About Colter Nuanez

Colter Nuanez is the co-founder and senior writer for Skyline Sports. After spending six years in the newspaper industry with stops at the Missoulian, the Ellensburg Daily Record and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the former Washington Newspaper Association Sportswriter of the Year and University of Montana Journalism School graduate ('09) has cultivated a deep passion for sports journalism during his 13-year career covering the Big Sky Conference. In August of 2014, Colter and brother Brooks merged their passions of writing and art to found Skyline Sports.

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