If Nov. 22’s Causeway Classic was truly the 71st and final chapter of the storied series between I-80 rivals Sacramento State and UC Davis, then the sendoff couldn’t have been more dramatic.

It was a game that had everything — two Big Sky Conference rivals with a playoff berth on the line, an iconic trophy waiting on a table in the end zone to be grabbed by the winners, and 14,580 fans, the largest Causeway Classic crowd in the 17-year history of UC Davis Health Stadium, there to witness it all.

When Sacramento State Hornets quarterback Cardell Williams’ fourth-down pass from the UC Davis 29-yard-line to receiver Ernest Campbell fell incomplete with 44 seconds left, the 31-27 Aggies win was sealed. The overflow crowd had witnessed a roller coaster ride of a game that saw No. 15 UC Davis jump to a 14-0 lead, only to fall 10 points behind the Hornets heading into the fourth quarter before scoring 14 unanswered points.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I really wanted to win the game; I didn’t want to be the guy that lost the last Causeway ever,” UCD second-year coach Tim Plough, a former quarterback for the Aggies, said in the postgame press conference.

As expected, the win vaulted the Aggies, now 8-3, into the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) playoffs as an eighth seed, which earned them a bye and a home game Dec. 6 against the winner of the Nov. 29 Rhode Island/Connecticut State game. Sacramento State ends its season 8-5.

Heading into Nov. 22, the matchup — which began in 1954 (the name was officially coined in the early 1980s as a reference to the Yolo Causeway that connects Sacramento and Davis) — was billed as possibly the last Causeway Classic for several reasons.

With both school’s athletic programs in transition, UC Davis’ football program will remain in the FCS Big Sky Conference next year and in the near future, while every other UCD sports team — both men’s and women’s — will move into the higher Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Mountain West Conference for the 2026-27 academic year, while football will (ironically) remain in Big Sky.

Sacramento State’s football program, meanwhile, is planning to leave the Big Sky and is scheduled to play the 2026 season as an independent, unless they get a bid to move into a FBS conference like the Mountain West or one in a major transition mode like the Pac-12. As a result, UCD’s non-conference schedule is set for the next two years at least without Sacramento State, making the future of the Classic uncertain.

“I’m just glad that it’s (the trophy) going to stay here for all of eternity,” Plough says. “That’s where it belongs.” He adds that he believes there won’t be another Causeway Classic unless Sacramento State “change their tune of what they’re saying they’re going to do. I’m happy that was the last one. It stays here with us, and that’s where it should be.”

The Hornets’ first-year coach Brennan Marion, who came to Sacramento after being UNLV’s offensive coordinator, lamented losing the rivalry game.

“It’s the first rivalry game I’ve lost as a coach, so I guess I’ll learn from it,” Marion says. “I guess in all those other games I was an assistant coach; I’ve got to be a better head coach to get the team prepared to win the rivalry game.”

Without another Causeway Classic in the near future, both schools have recently announced major plans regarding athletic facilities. Sacramento State is looking into converting the current Cal Expo grandstand area into a new football stadium, while UC Davis has announced Aggie Ascent, a $265 million master plan to upgrade UCD facilities across their athletic spectrum.

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