Vongni Yang / The Collegian
SAN JOSE–It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty, but in head coach Pat Hill’s eyes, a win is a win.
Playing on the road for the first time in nearly a month while battling poor weather conditions, Fresno State (5-2, 3-1) handled San Jose State (1-7, 0-3) in the 75th meeting between the two schools with a 33-18 win in Spartan Stadium.
“Anytime you win it’s good. I’ve learned that after 38 years of coaching,” Hill said.
Behind sophomore running back Robbie Rouse’s 89-yard second half effort, the ‘Dogs scored 28 points in the final two quarters despite holding a slim 10-0 halftime lead. Rouse, who recorded his first 100-yard performance of his career a week prior, finished the rivalry game with 116 yards on 27 carries.
In part due to sloppy conditions, the first half provided little offensive consistency and yielded just 165 yards on 31 plays from the Bulldogs. But throughout the game, Hill stressed that the Bulldogs’ six penalties set back the offensive production.
“If you’re down in a position to score points, it’s very hard to make up first-and-20,” Hill said. “We shot ourselves in the foot tonight offensively with penalties. None of those penalties were administrative calls, they were all judgment calls.”
All six of the Spartans’ drives in the first two quarters resulted in punts. Likewise, the ‘Dogs mustered just three points after four offensive series, a 43-yard Kevin Goessling field goal that found its way in despite hitting the left upright.
On Fresno State’s second to last series in the first half, the offense finally gave the hoard of Bulldog faithful that made the trip north something to cheer for. Quarterback Ryan Colburn engineered a nine-play, 80-yard march, capped off by Rouse’s four-yard score from their “Hound” formation to give Fresno State a 10-0 lead heading into the locker room.
Then the second half kicked into gear, and so did the offenses, sometimes with a little trickery.
Fresno State reached deep into its bag of tricks on its second possession of the third quarter. Freshman wide receiver Isaiah Burse, a high school quarterback, took a double reverse and connected with Rashad Evans for a 43-yard touchdown pass for a 20-3 lead.
“I didn’t think we were going to run it in this game. We were kind of saving it for later on in the season,” Burse said. “Things weren’t really going right so I guess coach Grady thought we could get a little tricky, put one in the end zone real fast so we could gain some momentum.”
The Spartans scored on three of their eight second-half possessions, an impressive feat for a squad that came into the game ranked dead last in the country in scoring, averaging just 8.8 points per game. San Jose State’s 18 points were the most it has scored in any game this season.
But despite San Jose State’s offensive explosion in the fourth quarter, which included two long touchdown passes from quarterback Jordan La Secla, Fresno State’s second-half proved to be too much.
Following Burse’s touchdown pass, Rouse punched in his second touchdown of the night and Goessling followed suit with his third and fourth field goals of the afternoon. Although the ‘Dogs were able to escape with their fifth win of the season, many players recognize the number of missed opportunities on Saturday.
“[We had] a lot of missed opportunities,” defensive end Chris Lewis said. “We dropped a few interceptions. We left some points on the board. ‘Goose’ had four field goals and those are obviously because we couldn’t score touchdowns.”
Many of the missed opportunities were a result of third down inefficiency and pressure on Colburn. The Bulldogs were just two-of-13 on third down conversions and the Spartans forced four sacks.
Reminiscent of last week’s win over New Mexico State, Colburn threw just three passes in the fourth quarter with the lead well in hand, a maneuver Hill said is because his lack of a proven backup.
“I’ve got one quarterback right now and I’m not going to take any chances with him,” Hill said. “When it’s a game that’s right on the line anything goes, but tonight’s game was not on the line at the end.”
Colburn finished with ten completions for 125 yards, both season-low numbers.
In back-to-back weeks, the ‘Dogs faced the bottom two schools in the Western Athletic Conference in New Mexico State and San Jose State and head into a much-needed bye week on Halloween weekend. With the injury list being added to Saturday as Joe Bernardi did not play with an ankle injury and linebacker Kyle Knox sitting out after a pre-game warm-up injury, the ‘Dogs will spend the weekend getting healthy and prepared for the tough schedule that lay ahead.
“We’ve got some time now to really do a lot of work on our next opponent, plus get a lot of our files done for the opponent after that,” Hill said. “We got four good days where coaches can really do a lot of film work.”