With title at stake, Fresno State emphasizes taking care of the football

Fresno State did more than just the requisite work in practice this week protecting the football, the backs and receivers going through drills where they are pushed and prodded.

Coaches and managers get to try to strip the football from their grasp.

With a date Saturday at Wyoming even the offensive line got some extra work there, trying to do its part to improve ball security in what could be a close game decided by an untimely mistake.

Linemen worked techniques to stay engaged with a pass rusher and keep them grounded to prevent deflected passes from caroming into the wrong hands.

That happened at Hawaii – on a second-down play in the fourth quarter, Rainbow Warriors defensive end David Manoa was stymied on his pass rush by tackle Christian Cronk, but spun to his right to try to get off the block and got a hand up, deflecting a pass that was picked off by Solomon Matautia and returned for a touchdown.

But the added emphasis was not so much about that play as it was about the Cowboys, who are leading the nation in turnover margin at plus-17 and tied with Washington State for second in turnovers gained with 27 – 15 interceptions and 12 fumble recoveries.

“They force a lot of turnovers and they do it a lot of different ways,” offensive coordinator Kalen DeBoer said. “There are a lot of balls tipped at the line of scrimmage, guys that you have to throw over the top of and they snatch it.

“They do a great job of making plays off the tips. There are so many tipped balls when you turn on the film it’s, ‘There’s another one, there’s another one, there’s another one.’ ”

Fresno State, which with a victory Saturday will clinch the West Division of the Mountain West and a spot in the conference championship game, has taken good care of the football. It is second in the conference with nine turnovers lost and Marcus McMaryion has been picked off only three times, going 149 consecutive passes without an interception between a victory over Nevada on Sept. 30 and the win at Hawaii last week.

But turnovers are a concern because Wyoming gets them, and scores off them. The Cowboys have scored 244 points this season, 99 off turnovers (40.6 percent) including two pick-6’s and one fumble return touchdown.

In a 28-14 victory last week at Air Force, three of the Cowboys’ four touchdowns came off turnovers, including drives of only 24 and 34 yards. In a 42-3 victory at New Mexico at the end of October, they scored five touchdowns off turnovers and those drives covered just 3, 29, 16, 30 and 38 yards.

Those short fields help – Wyoming is ranked last in the conference in total offense, averaging 277.8 yards per game, and the Cowboys could be without starting quarterback Josh Allen, who suffered a shoulder injury against Air Force.

The Bulldogs, by comparison, have scored 292 points but only 47 (16.1 percent) off turnovers, and they are tied for fourth in the conference in turnovers gained.

“This week in particular, we’re working on every way possible to make sure the ball is taken care of,” DeBoer said. “I did more with the quarterbacks, just to have them more conscious in the pocket, because they do get a pretty good pass rush, they get a lot of sacks. On the fumble end of things, we have to work on getting guys’ hand down at the line of scrimmage. Every position group kind of does their part to make us, more than anything, conscious of what they do well.

“We have to be conscious of the ball, and I think we’ve done a great job this year playing a team game, turnover-wise. That was really the first game in a long time it kind of got away from us. A couple of them were bad breaks, but that’s the way the game goes.”

This story was originally published November 16, 2017 at 3:37 PM with the headline "With title at stake, Fresno State emphasizes taking care of the football."