Over 41,000 football fans rolled into Valley Children’s Stadium on Saturday night and witnessed the Fresno State Bulldogs deliver their rivals, the San Jose State Spartans, a 33-10 shellacking.
Quarterback Mikey Keene had his best game of the season. The defense was nearly perfect after the first drive of the game, forcing four turnovers and allowing just three points in the final 59 minutes.
The team fed off another sellout crowd, their third this season. Interim head coach Tim Skipper said the ‘Black Wave’ got his team energized.
“It got our sideline going. The guys that aren’t in the game, they got going. It was a ton of energy; it was very electric. Once we got the lead we didn’t look back, we felt the Red Wave,” Skipper said.
Thanks to back-to-back wins, the Bulldogs are now 5-3 on the season and 3-1 in the Mountain West Conference (MWC).
The Bulldogs certainly improved their season outlook on Saturday, but there’s still work to do if they want to play meaningful football games in December. Here’s five takeaways from the game and what to look forward to.
The Bulldogs still got a shot at the conference
Skipper’s squad heads into November with four games left: at home against Hawaii next Saturday, Nov. 2, followed by heading to Air Force on Nov. 9.
After a bye, the Bulldogs will wrap up MWC play at home against Colorado State on Nov. 23. The regular season will finish up with an in-state matchup at UCLA on Nov. 30.
If Fresno State can win its next three games, they will be in the mix for a place in the conference title game, likely against No. 15 Boise State, for a rematch in Boise for the MWC title. Fresno State took home the trophy over the Broncos in 2022.
Getting there is easier said than done. The Bulldogs loss to the University of Las Vegas, Nevada (UNLV) last month means the Rebels will have the tiebreaker if both teams finish with one loss in conference. However, if UNLV (four MWC games left) and San Diego State (five MWC games left) both lose even once, Fresno State could swoop in.
The Bulldogs would likely need to win out for any of that to matter and Skipper expressed postgame on Saturday that his team won’t overlook any opponent.
“We’re just focused on being 1-0 each week; that’s all we’re focused on right now. We’re in this season and we have to finish it out. We wanted to be 1-0 this week, we accomplished that, next week we need to be 1-0 again,” Skipper said. “It is conference playoffs in our minds, but we know we need to be 1-0 in order to stay in that conversation so that’s the focus.”
Give Keene his flowers
The Bulldogs struggles this season can definitely be traced in many directions, but more often than not, the blame has been pointed at the quarterback.
Keene was poised and looked comfortable in the pocket on Saturday, avoiding any big mistakes. He completed 30-of-41 attempts for 275 yards and three touchdowns. Despite a lack of consistent results this season and dealing with the outside noise, he remains confident in his ability to lead his team to where they need to go.
“Nothing is going to be perfect in this life and I feel like I am battle tested. I have a lot of mental toughness to be able to handle adversity and things like that. Obviously disappointing with stuff like the turnovers, but that’s something I have been working on and trying to get better at consistently. Stuff happens. There’s nothing I can do about it now except continue to move forward,” Keene said.
Taking a game like this and building off of it with consistent success is paramount to the Bulldogs being able to win. It might be cliche to say, but it is very difficult to win games without good quarterback play.
Homecoming games matter more
It’s more than just a witty name. Homecoming games are special, regardless of what happens on the field, though it certainly helps when Fresno State wins.
Last night’s game reminded me of how much fun being a college student can be. Between the weeklong festivities building up to the game, the band and cheerleaders welcoming back alumni to join them for the game, a sold-out Dog Pound barking on third downs, to Victor E. embracing us with his adorableness; the atmosphere is impeccable. It was felt in the locker room too.
“We knew going into this one we were going to have a lot of energy; that was a given—you could feel it around campus this entire week. We did an excellent job promoting our homecoming, the blackout was phenomenal,” Keene said. “These uniforms were sick; something like this gets everyone going automatically. We knew at that point we just had to come out and execute.”
The black uniforms were indeed a success. Roughly 80 percent of the stands got the memo as well and wore all black in sync with the team.
The Red Wave, could be better
Fresno State has one of the best fan bases in the entire west coast, maybe even the best in California. In fact, the team leads all Group of 5 schools in attendance with 40,621 fans per game.
So, my complaining about this might sound greedy, but fans showing up late and leaving early every single game is pathetic.
It is somewhat understandable for September games that are 100 degrees and finish late, but for a 5 p.m. start with close to perfect weather, there is no excuse.
Despite the blowout yesterday, the school has enough entertainment throughout the game that fans should want to be in their seats for the entire evening.
Maybe discounted concessions pregame could help with having fans in attendance at kickoff, but having the team run out to a stadium two-thirds full is ridiculous. It is not hard to get there on time.
As for staying the entire time, perhaps a non-malfunctioning drone show will keep the Red Wave in their seats throughout the game, but that’s a story for another day.
Having high expectations is a good thing
For some schools, having a half-full stadium and winning six games is okay and fans will go along with it. Fresno State will hopefully never get to that point.
Outside of a single-A baseball team, the Central Valley doesn’t have a pro sports team to root for. Fans will typically root for teams in the Bay Area and in Los Angeles but there’s none locally.
For many, Fresno State is that team. For six Saturdays a year, people come from all throughout the San Joaquin Valley to pack Valley Children’s Stadium to root on their beloved Bulldogs. There’s pride and tradition that comes with that, along with high expectations.
Having 40,000 fans a game and 10-win seasons on the way to winning a bowl game should be the minimum bar for success for Fresno State football.
Al Things Considered
The Bulldogs season is still alive and well; each game from here on out will matter more than the last and that should excite the Red Wave.
The team is good enough to compete with anyone in the conference. They will need some help, both from the fans and some of their MWC foes, but it could be a special December for Bulldog football.
