Jerry Huerta
It all started almost 10 years ago. Fresno State was playing Western Athletic Conference newcomer Boise State at Bulldog Stadium and the ‘Dogs were looking to prove to everybody they could be the first team outside the Bowl Championship Series automatic-qualifying conferences to break the mold and potentially compete for a national championship.
Prior to this game, Fresno State dismantled Oregon State, 44-24 who was picked by Sports Illustrated as the top-ranked team going into the season, at Bulldog Stadium.
The following week, the ‘Dogs traveled to Wisconsin to face the Badgers who won the Sun Bowl the year before. The Bulldogs pulled out the victory with the national audience’s attention on then-undefeated Fresno State.
Coming into the Boise State game in week seven, Fresno State was the eighth-ranked team in the country, sitting pretty at 6-0. During the game, a then-record-tying 42,881 fans filled Bulldog Stadium to watch the ‘Dogs continue their march to what certainly looked like the promise land.
All the ‘Dogs had to do was beat the little guys from Boise, Idaho who were in just their fifth season in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Despite the circumstances, Fresno State left the Bulldog faithful shocked at what they witnessed as Boise State pulled the road upset, 35-30.
In one night Fresno State’s chances at playing in the national championship game sank quicker than the Titanic, along with the opportunity to put Pat Hill’s program even higher on the national radar. That loss may have been more costly for Fresno State than anybody thought at the time.
Since then, Boise State has propelled to one of the top programs in the country. It beat Oklahoma in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl and continually bullied Western Athletic Conference competition before jumping ship to the Mountain West Conference this season.
Although Boise State competed in a BCS Bowl game, it wasn’t the first team from a non-BCS conference to do so. In 2005, with head coach Urban Meyer and quarterback Alex Smith, Utah played in the Fiesta Bowl and defeated Pittsburgh in dominating fashion, 35-7. Since then, Boise State, TCU and Hawaii, all current or post-WAC teams, have also moved into the national scene with appearances in BCS bowls.
Fresno State couldn’t help but be the outsider looking in on all the fun — and money.
The Bulldogs haven’t made a big splash on the national scene since that year Utah owned the Fiesta Bowl. During that season, Fresno State started off 8-1 with wins against Hawaii and Boise State, who had beaten Fresno State the three previous years.
Fresno State was the 16th-ranked team in the country going into its matchup with USC. The ‘Dogs battled the men of Troy and almost shocked them – and the nation – but again fell short, losing 50-42.
It has been almost been six years since that game in Los Angeles and Fresno State hasn’t so much as sniffed the idea of a BCS bowl game.
There are a couple of things head coach Pat Hill can do to get the program back to where it was a decade ago. One is scheduling. Fresno State has been known for the mantra “anybody, anytime, anywhere,” meaning it won’t back down from the nation’s premier competition. A looming factor is when Fresno State plays so many tough opponents in the same season, it becomes harder for it to be successful later in the season.
A simple solution is to avoid scheduling perennial top-notch competition — or do so in reasonable proportions. Fresno State has already started to schedule teams from the Football Championship Subdivision, but the problem is sometimes it backfires. An example of this is from this past weekend when North Dakota played the ‘Dogs harder than they expected, almost pulling off the upset before losing 27-22.
Another solution is changing the coaching philosophy a little. In years past, Fresno State has been a run-first program, but since David Carr’s younger brother Derek has taken over as the starting quarterback, the ‘Dogs seem to carry a more prolific aerial assault. Carr has thrown over 90 passes in three games this season. An example of what could be to come was in the North Dakota game where Carr found sophomore wide receiver Jalen Saunders twice for deep touchdown catches.
This is what Fresno State has needed to do for a while now, and it finally has a quarterback that can deliver the big throws.
The final solution to Fresno State’s problem is to play with a killer instinct. If you watch how Boise State plays, it always has the killer instinct in clutch situations. This past Friday Boise State played Toledo. Toledo nearly upset Ohio State in the previous week and had a chance at home to upset Boise State. The game was close until halftime. Then Boise State did what it does and won the game, 40-15.
Fresno State shouldn’t allow opponents to stick around because it gives them the confidence they need. Blame it on lack of talent or defunct recruiting classes, but since that day nearly a decade ago, Fresno State hasn’t broken the barriers. If the ‘Dogs try to reinforce some of these solutions, we could be seeing them in the national spotlight sooner rather than later.