Bulldogs breath a sigh of relief

The Fresno State football team's backdoor invitation to the Silicon Valley Football Classic saved the Bulldogs from sitting at home

By Joshua D. Scroggin

Football coach Pat Hill’s red Bulldogs cap got a few more sweaty salt rings on it this week.

Hill was sweating it out because, until Tuesday, there was a very real possibility the 8-5 Bulldogs might get shut out of a bowl bid this year. It would have ended a four-year streak of postseason play for the team.

Then Fresno State received a long-distance phone call from San Jose. Given the reported financial woes of the bowl, it might have been collect, but I’m not sure.

So the Bulldogs are headed back to the Silicon Valley Football Classic—as if there were ever any doubt. Everybody knows Fresno State has a perennial invitation to stomp around in San Jose State’s Spartan Slough—uh, I mean Stadium.

This year they’re scheduled to mudwrestle UCLA (6-6) in the main event.

The Bulldogs have ended their season there three years in a row, and this one will make four.

The game really should just be played in Bulldog Stadium, unless Fresno State recruits Swamp Thing. Then the annual trip to San Jose would ensure at least one game he’d play in his natural habitat.

But there actually was a doubt whether Fresno State would get into its own invitational this year.

Tulsa—at 8-4—owns a second-place tiebreaker over the Bulldogs in the Western Athletic Conference race. The Golden Hurricane deserves the bid.

A first-place Boise State team should have been as much a lock for the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise as the Bulldogs are for the Silicon. And as long as Hawaii is bowl eligible, the Hawaii Bowl won’t pass up the Warriors.

Hawaii won’t have to leave the Islands for the holidays, but the Broncos are heading to a warmer climate than Boise’s—the Fort Worth Bowl.

Since Boise State is going to Texas to play in a bowl, it frees up the Humanitarian bid for Tulsa. That’s a lucky break for the Bulldogs.

Fresno State fans went from whining like spoiled brats about playing in the same bowl every year to including the Silicon Valley Classic in their prayers while saying grace over Thanksgiving leftovers.

The Silicon Valley Classic will never be a better bid than, say, the Rose Bowl—unless they institute a Tournament of Silicone Parade—but bad bowl is better than no bowl, even if it is against a sub-par UCLA team.

The Bruins aren’t any more bowl-eligible this year than Troy State is. But at least everyone thinks they’re good.

And it’s worth it to breathe easy again. The hat is about as white as it can get.