Coaches can no longer carry Fresno State football. It’s up to Bulldogs fans | Opinion
Fresno State’s past success at the highest level of college football can be largely attributed to a tremendous run of head coaches since the 1980s.
From Jim Sweeney to Pat Hill to Tim DeRuyter (till the wheels fell off) to Jeff Tedford to Kalen DeBoer back to Tedford to one-year interim Tim Skipper. Those are the men who put, and kept, Bulldogs football on the national map.
Unfortunately for Fresno State, that era is over. No slight meant to first-year coach Matt Entz, who could end up with as many wins and championships as any of his predecessors.
Now that universities can directly compensate athletes based on a new revenue sharing model resulting from last week’s historic House v. NCAA settlement, the formula for success in college football has forever changed.
From now on, a superior head coach (i.e. one who outrecruits or better prepares his teams or is a smarter play-caller than his counterparts) will no longer provide sufficient competitive edge to spackle over deficiencies in other areas – as Sweeney, Hill and Tedford managed for decades.
Not if that coach can only offer a pittance of NIL money to the players he wishes to recruit and retain when pitted against fatter wallets of the competition. The competition being not just Power Four conference schools but also Fresno State’s future opponents in the reconfigured Pac-12 as well as some MW foes they’re leaving behind.
Forget about the $20.5 million that universities can directly pay their athletes starting in 2025-26. Fresno State’s short-term aim is a considerably more modest $6.5 million. But even that represents a hefty increase (nearly triple) from last year’s total NIL pool for football and men’s basketball.
‘We need to get resources up’
This is the biggest challenge facing Fresno State athletic director Garrett Klassy, who has 12 months to get revenues up after being on the job since last July.
“We’re entering this new league (in 2026) to win championships so we need to get these resources up to a championship level,” Klassy said in a recent interview. “That’s what we’re working on.”
Klassy isn’t alone, nor unique, in that regard. Not since the early 2000s, when the Bulldogs were selling out football and men’s basketball games (at Selland Arena) and ranked among the national attendance leaders in both baseball and softball, has a Bulldogs AD not fretted over resources.
Fresno State can expect to more than double its television and streaming revenues when the Pac-12 announces a new media rights deal. The athletic department will also benefit from a recent bump in student fees. But those increases merely allow the Bulldogs to keep pace, not gain ground.
The decision to move the Green V’s on the Valley Children’s Stadium field from the 25-yard lines to the end zones caused a minor stir. But if those advertising spaces are really worth $600,000 to $800,000 for a company logo (as Klassy estimated), then it must be done.
Same goes for concerts, field-level box seats and anything else Klassy and his team can conjure up.
Full-on business mentality
Now that universities can shed the guise of amateurism and are free to run their athletic departments as money-making enterprises, those that don’t operate with a full-on business mentality will soon wither.
Some schools (including Boise State) are openly discussing private equity investments as a means to boost revenues. Kentucky, meanwhile, is believed to be the first to convert its athletic department to a limited liability holding company. Tennessee’s solution to raise NIL dough? Add a 10% “talent fee” to the price of every ticket.
I’m not saying Fresno State should choose one of these paths. Merely that every option must be considered.
As Klassy has surely discovered, this is not a wealthy area. No billionaires live here, and no Fortune 500 companies are based here. And while there are legions of Fresno State fans, many are financially stretched to purchase tickets – let alone contribute to the NIL fund of some edge rusher from Riverside.
And while Entz has thus far managed to corral recruits and stave off mass defections, this is only the opening salvo in what ultimately will be a losing war unless donations increase and new revenue streams materialize.
The days of head coaches carrying Bulldogs football are over. Future championships and bowl victories will hinge on the willingness of the Red Wave to pay the ever-increasing tab of a semi-professional sport.
