Fresno State football must fight fair

Simple Text by Joshua D. Scroggin

It’s too late for you, WAC.

Fresno State is on the fast track out of your conference. At least that’s what the BCS teams want the Bulldogs to think.

This summer, Fresno State Athletic Director Scott Johnson announced the sports department would no longer accept academic nonqualifiers, and you know what that means.

Goodbye WAC; hello Pac-10?

Probably not, but you know how those Bulldogs diehards like to dream.

Fresno State would be happy being accepted into the Mountain West Conference, but it’s more likely that Johnson and Fresno State football coach Pat Hill just got rid of the only recruiting advantage they had over bigger programs.

The Fresno State decision-makers are anticipating a conference shakeup, which would happen when the NCAA’s deal with the BCS ends after the 2005 season.

Hill said the number of Division I football teams could be nearly halved by that time, and when they are, then what?

“ You just better be in position to be one of them,” Hill said.

But by putting itself in that position, Fresno State had to take away one of its only competitive edges—one on a list shorter than Kobe Bryant’s fingernails.

Neither the Pac-10 nor the MWC accepts nonqualifiers—students who do not meet NCAA minimum academic requirements. And Fresno State has been publicly criticized in the past for its practice of accepting players other teams wouldn’t even recruit.

Former Fresno State nonqualifiers include former all-WAC defensive tackles Alan Harper and Jason Stewart, first-round NBA draft pick Melvin Ely and NFL all-pro Lorenzo Neal.

The 1992 USC Trojans would have been glad to have had Neal on their squad when the Bulldogs beat them in the Freedom Bowl, but the Trojans coaches couldn’t have accepted him.

At least that was the excuse big programs used to be able to use when Fresno State defied expectations and beat one of them.

They called the Bulldogs cheaters. And they made them feel so guilty about it, Fresno State caved.

But the Bulldogs think they’re doing it so they can be allowed in the BCS’s He-Man Woman-Hater club.

It seems like BCS teams just want Fresno State to fight with both hands tied behind its back, instead of just one. They already have bigger and better facilities and pockets deeper than James Earl Jones’ voice.

“ I don’t think people realize there’s a big difference between $4-million and $13-million budgets,” Hill said.

In case you’re one of those people, Fresno State is the one with the smaller budget, and now they can’t even pick up the recruiting scraps.

But believe me WAC, Fresno State is leaving. Anyday now.