David White: Time for Fresno State coach Tim DeRuyter to stop dressing up ugly losses

Welcome to the Land of Lowered Expectations, where the greatest crime at Bulldog Stadium is the home team sets the bar below sea level, then pats itself on the back for clearing it.

We don’t know what else to make of Fresno State defending itself after Saturday’s 45-24 drubbing at the gloves of No. 21 Utah, not to be confused with the prior 73-21 pistol-whipping at Ole Miss, or all the Power Five Conference TKOs before it.

Check out this smattering of postgame sound bites, dropped well after your bedtime by a grim-faced head coach.

“We’ve got to play a lot better ... We’ve got a lot to clean up ... We made a few plays tonight, but not enough ... We’re going to have to play better than we have these past three weeks.”

Can you name that news source?

Kyle Whittingham. The undefeated coach from Utah. Winning by three touchdowns wasn’t good enough for him Saturday, so why is losing by three touchdowns sold as anything less than cause for self-flagellation in these parts?

“We played two Top 25 teams and I thought our guys went toe-to-toe the last two weeks,” Bulldogs coach Tim DeRuyter said. “We gave up some big plays, our guys didn’t quit, and I think they feel like we can compete with anybody in the Mountain West.

“Our guys fought and clawed back into and competed real hard.”

Don’t worry about bumping your head into that limbo bar. I’d be more worried about tripping over it with your shoelaces.

This column was going to be about Fresno State’s defense being better than recent scores would indicate, because they are. If Ole Miss can slap 43 on Alabama, then hindsight says the Bulldogs did well to keep the Rebels under a hundred.

But when we got a load of DeRuyter’s postgame transcript ... well, that idea went the way of control-alt-delete.

Toe-to-toe? You got blasted out the doors by 73 points the last two tries. A 310-pound man beat your entire offense on a 37-yard dash Saturday. Their return men stopped scoring touchdowns only after you went full blast on the onside kicks the rest of the way.

You played hard, absolutely. We can appreciate hard work, we really can, but isn’t that the baseline expectation? Isn’t every team out there playing hard? I had four misspelled words and two factual errors in my game story, but boy, I worked hard at my birdcage filler.

Your guys didn’t quit. Again, we value the noble gesture. But isn’t not quitting the bare minimum requirement of drawing a scholarship check on the first of the month? I don’t remember ever getting a trophy for finishing my work shift.

Pat Hill used to do the same thing. We hated it then, too. And if you didn’t, then you still must think Fresno State won the second half at Oklahoma.

We’re not asking DeRuyter to roast his team at the postgame news conference, or even name names. They don’t get paid enough to put up with that kind of bother. But can we stop acting like this is OK?

Because it’s not. We know better. We’ve seen better. We expect better than this. And not long ago, DeRuyter delivered better, so we know he knows what better looks like.

Know what we’d like to see quoted in the postgame release after three-touchdown losses?

▪ This isn’t going to cut it.

▪ This defense has to find a way to get off the field.

▪ The offensive line has to make way for our running back, who has to stop running the wrong direction.

▪ The starting quarterbacks have to keep our defense off the field for more than five hurry-up snaps.

▪ The coverage teams need to make a tackle in the kicking game.

This coaching staff has to come up with a plan that lets its players succeed, or do a better job finding players on the recruiting trail.

DeRuyter has said coaching against big schools isn’t easy, and he’s right. That’s why I didn’t apply for the job. But he did, and he cashes the state checks every month, so it’s his job to turn around this post-Derek Carr ship.

You think the Mountain West Conference matters most, and that’s fine, but since when did the nonconference games not matter? Every time you put on the Fresno State jersey, it matters to those of us with transcripts in your school’s computer system.

So when the local team gets napalmed out of the stadium by our former WAC bunkmates, let’s not sell a 21-point loss as evidence you can compete in the Mountain West.

Let’s stop saying things are getting better, and save it for when you start beating better teams.

This story was originally published September 20, 2015 at 10:11 PM with the headline "David White: Time for Fresno State coach Tim DeRuyter to stop dressing up ugly losses."