Fresno State is still figuring it out, and racking up yards and wins with rout of Kent State

Fresno State ripped through Kent State on Saturday at Valley Children’s Stadium, rolling up 513 yards and scoring a touchdown on its first seven series in a 53-10 victory and, yes, it was about as easy as that makes it sound.

That should be a cautionary tale for opponents matching up against an offense that, by its own account, is still young and in development. Leave the Bulldogs alone, and they can roll up the yards and points.

The Golden Flashes are not a blitz-heavy defense and teams are going to do what they do with a few tweaks or wrinkles added every week, which are two reasons why they came in ranked in a tie for 11th, or last, in the Mid-American Conference in sacks. But Kent State just did not add much of a degree of difficulty for the Bulldogs and quarterback Mikey Keene, who hit 24 of 31 passes (77.4%) for 325 yards and four touchdowns.

Kent State threw a blitz at Keene a couple of times early and didn’t get home or all that close to it, and spent most of the game rushing the four down linemen while playing a lot of man coverage outside.

Kent State brought four rushers on a 40-yard touchdown pass to Erik Brooks in the first quarter, a 12-yard touchdown pass to Jalen Moss in the second quarter and a 23-yard touchdown that went to Moss and after a fumble at the goal line was recovered by Jaelen Gill in the end zone in the third quarter.

Keene from a clean pocket hit 81.5% of his passes for 318 yards and three touchdowns, according to Pro Football Focus. His fourth, to tight end Tre Watson from 2 yards out in the third quarter, came off a play-action fake.

It was quite different from a victory at Arizona State last week — the Sun Devils blitzed Keene 20 times and had six quarterback hurries and six sacks, and Kent State had blitzed a total of 15 times in its first three games.

Fresno State (4-0), which was ranked 11 of 12 in the Mountain West Conference in allowing 3.7 sacks per game, did not allow any against Kent State (1-3) and Keene emerged without a scratch or dent.

“No aches or pains in the body. I was clean all night,” he said.

“I thought (the offensive line) did a great job. They did their job at a high level. It all starts with them. The 53 points are dedicated to them. That’s their 53 points.”

The Bulldogs took full advantage, averaging 9.2 yards per play through three quarters when Keene was in the game. He led touchdown drives of 55, 47, 71, 72, 66, 74 and 76 yards and hit eight different receivers with at least one pass including Moss, who caught seven for 120 yards including a spectacular one-handed grab on his touchdown.

Seven series, seven TDs for the Bulldogs

Fresno State was 7 of 10 converting on third down, scored four touchdowns on four trips into the red zone and had a season-high eight explosive plays of 20 or more yards.

The Bulldogs also pulled off a perfectly executed trick play, with Gill taking the snap, feigning a run to the right and then pulling up to throw a perfect pass to running back Elijah Gilliam for a 32-yard touchdown in the first quarter.

Gilliam also scored twice on short runs, from 2 yards in the first quarter and 1-yard in the second.

Gill, in his sixth season of college football, had not attempted a pass in his career but the Bulldogs have been practicing that play for weeks and every time it has worked.

“He has thrown a dime every single time,” Keene said. “I was expecting it. I saw Gilliam pop open. It was a Gill to Gilliam connection, so it was pretty cool.”

“I thought the offense played extremely well, (was) very efficient,” said coach Jeff Tedford, who is now 40-18 (.690) in his fifth season at his alma mater. “Scored a lot of points, obviously, so, I take my hat off to the coaches, really having them prepared. I thought Mikey was really sharp, and got a lot of people involved.”

The offense as a whole still is in development. Osmar Velez made a second career start at left guard, and Fresno State is four games into replacing a quarterback in Jake Haener who passed for more than 9,000 yards in his career, a running back in Jordan Mims who last season became the first Bulldogs back to rush for more than 1,000 yards in nine seasons and three wideouts in Jalen Moreno-Cropper, Nikko Remigio and Zane Pope who a year ago accounted for 77.2% of the receiving yards in the wideouts room.

Yet, the Bulldogs are now averaging 38.8 points per game, which leads the Mountain West Conference, and have extended a winning streak to 13 games. That run is the second longest active streak in the nation behind only two-time defending national champion Georgia, and the longest for Fresno State since it won its final game in 1960, all 10 it played in 1961 and the first two it played in 1962.

“Chemistry still needs to be built, we’re still a young team especially from the receiver position,” said Moss, who set single-game career highs in receptions, receiving yards and touchdown receptions. “We’re trying to just get everything to click as one and it’s going to take time and it’s going to take a couple games maybe but we’re all just going to come out here and click and ball is going to find energy.

“Our offense is getting there week by week and you can tell from this game from Arizona State. We’re starting to click, we’re starting to find ourselves. We’re starting to see what kind of team we are.”

By the numbers

19: The Bulldogs defense allowed just 19 yards in the second half, six rushing and 13 passing. Kent State went three-and-out on three of its four second-half series.

21: Fresno State has scored in its past 21 quarters, dating back to the third quarter of the Mountain West championship game victory at Boise State.

0: Punts by the Bulldogs. It was the first time they did not have to punt the football away since a 37-30 victory at UNLV last season.

7: Fresno State converted seven of its 10 third down plays into a first down, and the average distance to gain was 6.6 yards. On the season, it is moving the sticks at a 49.2% clip. The Bulldogs were 6 of 7 when Keene was in the game.

79: Receiving yards for the Bulldogs’ Erik Brooks, who now has 448 in four games. In 2013, when Davante Adams set a school single-season record with 1,718 receiving yards, he had 311 after four games.

19: Kent State ran the football 37 times and on 19 of those plays (51.4%) the Bulldogs limited them to two yards or less. Fresno State also had 6.0 tackles for loss in the game.

38,728: Attendance at Valley Children’s Stadium. The lowest attended home game last season when the Bulldogs ranked third among Group of Five conference programs in home attendance was 36,011 against FCS Cal Poly.

19: After the 53-10 victory, Fresno State is allowing just 19.0 points per game, 15.0 against FBS opponents.

This story was originally published September 24, 2023 at 8:07 AM.