Sacramento State football has big expectations for 2024 season

and yeah here to help us with that that and more here two of uh his head coaching ten year for our sack State Hornets of which Jason Ross is a longtime voice of we're very very excited to welcome in once again taking on oh God I hate these guys you hate the Spartans I hate this I just every time I just I hate the Spartans I hope they kick the you know what out of them uh it is coach Andy Thompson Andy it's Dave you know Jason as well how are you this morning doing great it's game week we're couple days away from kicking off this season and I'm excited to be on you guys' show you guys do a great job appreciate that it's you know I remember last year having you on all the momentum you know a couple of huge wins last year it was really a fun season for the most part what's the difference if any in Andy Thompson now as opposed to when we talked to you last year in your what what we would say the rookie year if you will oh man man uh lot I would say I hope I'm improving every day that's what I ask of my players and I've learned a lot year one it's a challenging job um but man is it fun get a chance to try to impact a lot of people our organization just keeps on growing here as far as how many players we have on the team now we have 117 players um our support staff um you know they made a rule where now anybody can help you coach out at practice they used to only give you 12 guys but now you can have unlimed lied so we've got a lot of people that have volunteered their time or that are um you know just starting the profession um that come out and help us so trying to be organized with that and then um you know still engage and have real conversations with your players as a head coach because you don't get a chance to you know have that position group all the time so always something to do but it's it's a lot of fun before Jason gets to his important question I have a typical stupid question you said how many 10 how many you have 117 on our roster okay and and I'm putting you on the spot but about approximately how many of them are new would you say yeah that's a great question um you know probably 40 okay 45 you know um there was 95 here all summer working out in the Sacramento heat um so we had some guys that started you know a little bit later that are freshman that are coming on and that's that's including Walk-Ons that's including you know I got a guy that's you know on his seventh year of college football and I got a guy that you know is s that hasn't even turned 18 that's in the program so that's the unique thing of college football is you you know you really have some wide ranges because of the the co still out there as far as guys having years so yeah you gotta gotta keep them all happy here's where I'm heading so just I don't know that I know 117 people so I'm assuming definitely do you're you're well known in this area if they all walked into your office one by one right now I'm assuming you'd know all their names yes but do you do you have have to do like tricks or something to because you got to learn names in a really short time coach plus all the other X's knows I feel like this is an underrated part of being a college football coach you have to know family members and all that right you have to know 117 players and 40 something of them are brand new do you have like a linebacker rhymes with a d his name is Fred like how do you do that you got a lot of these charts I think I can show you one you know so that's just the defensive side of the ball um and then you got an offensive one then you got you know you got multiple kickers um so definitely a challenge um I do think um you know the time we spend together though especially in the month of August we just you know we finished our I think our 20th practice yesterday maybe no 22 21 sorry they're all running together but we do spend a lot of time in the month of August two-thirds of the entire your your practices for the entire season are in the month of August a lot of people don't know that about college football um so we have plenty of time to get to know each other's name um the the the real big deal is you know these years are longer now there's 12 game season and then in our level if you want to win the national championship you got to play four more so that's 16 games um and so you you have to have depth and you've got to have depth throughout your your program and that's something we've continued to improve um as we've been here now I've been here and some of the guys have been six years years in since 2019 and we're trying to do that obviously college football is changing by the hour sometimes it feels like and by the week on on the rules and um and I was listening before you guys got in here you know the salary cap and and talking about how you have to maneuver and we spend a ton of time on that um because we can have 63 scholarships but we can break those up to 85 so we're always looking at okay where's this guy in his career and then how can we help do we need to bring an older guy in a younger guy in so constant talking about your roster and where you're at and making sure that you have enough um strong players so that you can make a full season run yeah and then how about that adjustment you said that it's constantly changing the portal is still relatively new you lost a few but you gained a few you know I don't know when players tell you they may depart the program and others that you bring in how much of a challenge is is kind of dealing with now that reality of the of the transfer portal I think you just either as a college football coach some one of the best you know things you have to have is be able to adapt if you don't adapt you're going to die or you're going to get fired which they fired 32 head coaches last year just at the FBS level so um I I say that not because oh you you know I'm a football coach I get to coach for a living I'm very thankful but you do have to adapt with the different times so you know there's a transfer window in January where they can come in and say hey coach you know I'd like to do another spot and then they have it again in April and the April one's probably the hardest because again in April you you've just spent six week 16 weeks kind of building your team and then somebody can say you know I'd like to go somewhere else and so that was probably the biggest adjustment this year we had a couple guys at the you know end of their career um that decided to do that that's the first time you know and that was just two of them um but we were able to you know create a new opportunity and had some guys that came in and are going to help us so you know there's pluses and minuses to everything but I do think um you got to adapt the great Andy Thompson head football coach sack State Stingers up joining us right now as we do our yearly uh season preview if you will and of course you can hear Jason Ross on that call for the 53rd consecutive year congratulations on that uh coach I'm gonna go back so I'm just fascinated with the psychology of college football and how it works and especially somebody in your position you're a you're a mentor you're a leader you're a friend uh and and obviously a coach uh and that's all part of that so you mentioned 40-some uh newbies running in this year and obviously the portal and everything gives it a whole different ball game which is which outweighs the other the the Heartbreak or I shouldn't say heartbreak the sadness of seeing kids young men that you've been in their living rooms you've talked to their parents you've gotten to know them moving on or the excitement of bringing in these new faces that you're just getting to know challenging question um I would say both in the fact that you like to see um kids that work really hard get an opportunity to do what they want to do I truly believe that they they do um deserve that because of of how much they put into it but it is hard when when uh you know somebody moves on um and so you kind of just that's like a bad loss you know it it's stings it it makes you hurt in your stomach for you know a couple hours and then you kind of got to get up the next day and go hey what what what do we got to do to to move forward um the only thing I would I'm I'm a little cautious of being too critical of players because um my my career when I played I had three head coaches and I had five different position coaches and so this was 20 some years ago I'm I'm pretty old on that regard so this has been happening with the coaches you know getting other opportunities or Administration deciding they want to going a different direction and that has affected players I know it affected my career um not even never having the same position coach two years in a row um so I just don't think it was reported on and now it's be reported on because players have the freedom to move and um so uh you know I I think if you can keep guys together obviously you have a chance to to to get better because you are connected but I do think there is every year is different and every year you got to get that group together and you got to go all in and you got to try to do your very best and I think you see it at every level Pro Sports doesn't matter what sport it is it's kind of a one-year deal and then everybody looks at each other and says hey I'm gonna either be in again for the next year or I'm not you know so yeah coach how about then this year you said it year six for you you guys missed the one year for for Co but every year you've been here whether you were the defensive coordinator or now the head coach the Hornets have made the postseason you come in with a a top 10 ranking expectations have been lifted because the pr program has been lifted how have you managed that as you get ready to start this season where there's some High Hopes but you also got to you know kind of ground the team how do you how do you manage expectations we try to do it with really you know daily routine you know we gota we got to get into routine and we got to build our habits and hopefully we're building successful habits that are going to take us through a long period of time and so is is really no trick other than trying to get these guys on a really good schedule and making them feel as confident as possible that are prepared for every part um of the game and in in their life and so we try to be mentors that way and build schedules that um are reasonable that's a big word for me um kids will do a lot of things for you if they feel like it's reasonable if you're crazy yeah they're gonna say nah I'm good I'm gonna go ahead and not do that so we try to to work you know a really good schedule and then we try to make sure they're fed really well and we try to make sure that they've got a great place to live and and that they can improve um if they've got those things in place and our our administration's done a good job of supporting us um and our school and and um excited to be around sack State because there's a lot of new things going on and there's a lot of great energy the students are back this week and we had a big barbecue there was 10,000 people in the quad here at stack State you know uh doing the cupid shuffle with Coach wood up there I mean it was it was pretty Lively so um it's a fun place to be um I do think um our program is is trying to continue to proove you asked about expectations you know whatever expectations are out there I can tell you the people that are in this building have high ones for themselves because of how hard they work so nobody wants to go out there and not play well so we're always going to be critical of of how we're doing that and um we're trying to bring our best every day that's kind of our theme um going forward is if we bring our best every day we can look ourselves in the mirror and say hey it was a good day well we'll end on this note then speaking of expectations what eight and five last year I believe uh coach what are your realistic expectations from this version of this team this year yeah I think I think we always want to chase championships if you're not into chasing championships I I don't know why you're you're in the business so we always would love to win the Big Sky championship and then yeah we've been to the playoffs and that's been great but we're always going to try to expand that and take a run and try to go win a National Championship on January 6 so those are always going to be there um and um excited part is is we've got a lot of kids that have put forth a tremendous amount of time and and uh Thursday night we'll get some feedback on where we're at I think that's the biggest thing in college you don't get any preseason games these all count they all go towards your resume at the end of the year and then if you do a real good job the committee says hey you get to keep playing so U we'll get some feedback on Thursday on where we're at as a program and and we'll keep going Stingers up baby yes we appreciate you each and every year coming on please check in with us during the year if you have time and as always good luck Stingers up appreciate it thank you car Michael Dave and Jason we'll see you soon yep thanks coach your chick fla will be ready before getting on the bus you know yes n deal Jason Ross see you brother have a good coach you got a QR code on your headset or something or