SACRAMENTO, Calif. — To the untrained eye, MMA fighting may look like they’re just rolling around on the ground, but there’s a lot more to it, according to MMA enthusiast John Cinco.

“Everything is like a chess match,” Cinco said.

When Cinco’s not at the gym or work, his time is spent studying at Sacramento State University for his accounting degree this fall.

He is excited to start at Sac State as they are now, according to the university, the first campus in the country to offer an MMA athletic program called COMBAT-U, starting in the new school year.

It's a program that Cinco said he hopes to join.

“I’m over here training [at Urijah Faber’s Ultimate Fitness] to get ready and be fit for that [COMBAT-U], some conditioning and ultimate fitness. Then I’m going to enroll in a COMBAT-U once it opens up.”

The gym Cinco is training at close to Sac State is UFC hall-of-famer Urijah "The California Kid" Faber’s gym, who is leading the new Sac State program and helped establish it.

“It’s the first-ever university-backed combat program under the athletic department,” Faber said. “Offering all sorts of stuff that’s never been done before: scholarships, help with admissions and even help with visas for foreign students.”

Faber said, many times people who enter MMA may have never believed university could be an option for them or have had to put studies on hold to pursue MMA. The new program, he said, changes all that.

“This is going to give a new avenue for higher learning,” Faber said. “Getting knowledge from people that maybe have been in their shoes and can show them a different way to think, a different way to dream and a different way to accomplish things.”

Faber said ultimately, he would love to see a course, or courses, involving the business side of MMA and UFC, as the business opportunities around the sport are endless.

The opportunity the program offers, like the scholarship, is not lost on Cinco, who said he will continue to work two jobs at the DMV and a bar while studying unless he can lessen the cost of tuition.

“Having the scholarship would really help me to maybe even work a little less and spend more time with school,” Cinco said.

Even if he doesn’t get it, Cinco said he’s still thrilled he has the chance to pursue two passions that can help set him up for life.