Last year at Bulldog Stadium, it wasn’t close — nowhere near.
It was the most Fresno State has scored in a game under head coach Tim DeRuyter. Big plays were made. Records fell. And for Colorado — the Pac-12 team to take a 69-14 thrashing at the hands of the Football Bowl Subdivision Bulldogs — it was the painful start of a long 1-11 season.
The tables haven’t turned, but the circumstances indicate the likelihood of another mega rout is slimmer. The Buffaloes (2-0) host Fresno State Saturday at Folsom Field with new coach Mike MacIntyre in the midst of mounting a turnaround from last season.
“Coach MacIntyre and his staff have done a fantastic job,” DeRuyter said. “We’re looking at a totally different football team than we faced a year ago. This is a team that plays extremely hard.”
But they remember last year — when Fresno State (2-0) finished with 665 total yards on offense and had a 55-7 lead at halftime.
“I think with any competitor it does. For them to say it doesn’t, I think they’d be lying,” said MacIntyre in a Pac-12 weekly teleconference when asked if his team had extra motivation from last year’s outing against the Bulldogs.
“It has to be sticking in the back of their minds and hopefully motivating them to prepare for the game.”
Colorado features surprises so far in the young season. Connor Wood, who completed 5 of 15 passes for two interceptions against Fresno State last season, is eighth in the nation in passing yardage, averaging 370 yards per game — seemingly meshing under MacIntyre’s new offense, which utilizes similar concepts from Fresno State’s up-tempo spread offense.
“He seems much more comfortable in this system now,” DeRuyter said of Wood.
“He’s got great arm strength and really good weapons that he didn’t have last year in [Richardson]. He’s a guy that just feels more comfortable. As you watch him play, he’s got the arm strength and is so much more poised.”
It helps that Wood has junior wide receiver Paul Richardson — who missed the entire 2012 season due to injury — to sling it to. Richardson (21 receptions for 417 yards and four touchdowns) accounts for more than half of Colorado’s passing yards.
“[Richardson’s] clearly a target that they’re looking to exploit, and they do a good job of getting him the ball vertically.”
DeRuyter described the Buffaloes as “resurgent.”
They might be.
“[They’re] believing they’re going to win every game their in,” MacIntyre said.
Running back duties will continue to be split
Sophomore Marteze Waller got the first start for the Bulldogs against Rutgers. And Junior Josh Quezada grabbed the first carry Saturday against Cal Poly.
Running the ball by committee is the route Fresno State has taken — and will be against Colorado.
“I think they’ve both done some good things, but neither of them have gone ahead an run away from the other,” DeRuyter said. “We still have competition. We like where we’re at in that position.”
Waller and Quezada have split the majority of the running back duties so far this season. Waller has 78 yards on 19 carries. Quezada has 94 yards on 25 rushes.
The duo has had almost identical success on the field. Neither have given up a sack.
Still, making one of them the featured back does not seem to be a decision the Fresno State coaching staff intends to make hurriedly.
“If you’ve got one like Robbie Rouse, then yeah, you’d like to have one featured back,” Bulldogs offensive coordinator Dave Schramm said. “But when you have some good, hard-nosed tough guys like we have, then you do it by committee.”