The Fresno State football team is headed to Michigan to face the reigning national champions the Michigan Wolverines in the Big House stadium.
Both Michigan and Fresno State are under new head coaches this season. Michigan’s Head Coach Sherrone Moore replaced Jim Harbaugh, who left to coach in the National Football League (NFL) for the Los Angeles Chargers. Moore coached under Harbaugh and acted as interim coach for four games in the championship run last season.
Fresno State’s Head Coach, Tim Skipper, replaced Jeff Tedford, who stepped down for health reasons. Skipper coached under Tedford last season.
“College football is hard. Every game is going to be hard no matter who we are playing and we just stick to our plan, play hard, play Bulldog football and let the chips fall as they may,” Skipper said.
Senior quarterback Mikey Keene leads the Bulldog offense. Keene threw 2,976 yards, completed 283 passes out of 422 with 24 touchdowns and 10 interceptions last season.
Keene has help on the offense from running back Malik Sherrod who averaged 5.6 yards a carry. Last season, Sherrod carried 172 times for 966 yards and nine touchdowns.
Wide receiver Jalen Moss averaged 12.8 yards a catch. He caught 55 passes for 755 yards and six touchdowns.
Offensive Coordinator Pat McCann talked about how valuable transfer receivers, Chedon James and Raylen Sharpe are.
“They are football guys,” McCann said. “They are here for a purpose as far as the football side of things. They picked up the system really well and they kind of have that ‘it’ factor when it comes to getting it.”
James caught 102 balls last season for 1,045 yards and eight touchdowns for Idaho State. Sharpe is also coming off a solid season after grabbing seven touchdowns on 73 catches for 991 yards with Missouri State.
The Wolverine offense is expected to be led by redshirt junior quarterback Davis Warren, who will have a variety of targets to choose from like running back Donavon Edwards and wide receivers Tyler Morris and Semaj Morgan.
Edwards carried the ball 119 times for 497 yards and five touchdowns last season. Running back Kalel Mullings had 36 carries for 222 yards and one touchdown. Tight end Colston Loveland caught 45 balls for 649 yards and four touchdowns.
But they will have to get through the Bulldog defense.
Starting with defensive linemen Korey Foreman, Gavriel Lightfoot and Kavika Baumgartner.
The linebackers have Captain Tuasivi Nomura who had seven solo tackles with one sack and Malachi Langley who had 38 solo tackles with one sack. The secondary strong safety, Dean Clark, had 43 solo tackles, three interceptions and three pass deflections.
While defensive back Cam Lockridge has nine career interceptions to help the Bulldogs in the secondary.
The Wolverines are favored to win this match-up, but if Mikey Keene and the Bulldogs offense shows up ready to play, they could beat the Wolverines on their home turf.