Quick but critical fixes put Bulldogs in Mountain West championship game

Fresno State won a division title and clinched a spot in the Mountain West Conference championship game with a 23-14 victory over San Diego State on Saturday, carried by some quick but critical halftime adjustments on both sides of the football.

On defense, it was fairly simple. Play top down, don’t cheat up against the run.

The Bulldogs had been burned by 75- and 70-yard touchdown passes in the first half, both on first-down plays, which was to some degree understandable. The Aztecs are a run-heavy team and this season have rushed the ball 76.7 percent of the time on first downs including some games where that number was much higher – 24 first-down plays against Boise State with 20 runs, 25 first-down plays against San Jose State with 24 runs, 39 first-down plays against Arizona State with 33 runs.

The eye discipline is bound to suffer.

On offense, there were far too many moving parts for it to be simple, and that movement was on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

But after rushing the ball 17 times for just 24 yards in the first half and trailing 14-10 at the break, Fresno State (9-2, 6-1 in the MW) caught up to the movement in the Aztecs’ 3-3-5, stopped chasing and started slicing up a defense that had held Stanford to just 50 rushing yards, Arizona State to just 36, Boise State to just 51.

The successes came in the box, which the Aztecs quite often can turn into havoc.

So what did offensive line coach Ryan Grubb say at halftime?

“I can’t say it on the record,” he joked, walking up the ramp at Bulldog Stadium.

“We got a lot of stuff ironed out, but they did a nice job making the adjustments we needed to, got some protection checks fixed,” Grubb said. “They knew it was going to be bent knees and digging out a couple of yards and they did it.”

The final numbers are not all that pretty: Fresno State rushed for an average of 2.9 yards per play in the game, 3.8 in the second half.

But in the first three drives in the second half, it was a healthy 4.7 yards per rush and they won the game right there, with the Bulldogs defense scuttling the San Diego State offense and the Bulldogs offense producing two big touchdowns.

They made their money inside, mostly with sophomore Ronnie Rivers finding creases in the box created by the offensive line and through those halftime adjustments. Rivers carried the ball just five times in the first half, but the Bulldogs utilized his vision and ability to slither or strike his way through tight spaces.

He had 17 of the Bulldogs’ 26 rushing plays in the second half.

They did it the hard way, too. There were no explosive runs, no 20- or 30-yard bursts that would inflate that average per play. The Bulldogs on that third-quarter touchdown drive had runs of 4, 7, 6 and 5 yards. During the fourth-quarter drive, there were runs of 13, 6, 7, 4and 4 yards.

“They’re a good defense and they move around a lot,” left tackle Christian Cronk said. “It puts pressure on the quarterback and the center and the center makes all the calls, Markus Boyer. He did a wonderful job tonight. We just have to trust Markus and we have to make him right, and I just feel like he did a wonderful job.”

Quarterback Marcus McMaryion and wideout KeeSean Johnson hit the big plays between those runs, a 32-yard pass play on the third-quarter scoring drive, a 37-yard pass play on the fourth-quarter scoring drive after a holding penalty wiped out a 30-yard touchdown run by Rivers.

“I think Coach Grubb did a phenomenal job. All of those guys did a great job,” coach Jeff Tedford said. “(The San Diego State defense) is really complicated. But our guys knew if we could just stay on our guys and get a hat on a hat somewhere then hopefully we could make three, three and a half yards and hopefully put yourself in third-and-2, third-and-3, then throw it or run it or whatever.

“That’s a really good defense – they’ve held a lot of really good teams to not many yards rushing.”

Fresno State had 123 rushing yards in the game, 390 total yards.

“I think we knew coming, they’re one of the top defenses along with our defense,” said McMaryion, who completed 17 of 24 passes for 267 yards and one touchdown, hitting better than 70 percent of his throws for the sixth time this season.

“Coach Tedford preached all week that three yards, four yards, is going to be a good play on first down and we can’t get frustrated with it, just keep on chugging and keep on pushing and eventually one is going to break, one is going to hit for 10, one is going to hit for 15. Just not getting frustrated knowing that three or four yards is good and we’re staying ahead of the chains.”

By the numbers

8 – First downs for San Diego State. The Bulldogs’ defense allowed eight first downs in a victory over Incarnate Word last season and seven in a win over Sacramento State in 2016, but they had not held an FBS opponent to fewer than 10 first downs in a game going back through the 2000 season.

64 – Rushing yards for the Aztecs, their fewest since they had 61 in a 34-31 victory over Boise State in the 2013 season.

10 – Receptions for KeeSean Johnson, a season high and the most the senior wideout has had in a game since he had 10 in a loss to Air Force in 2016. With 141-receiving yards, Johnson now has 1,094 and is the fourth receiver in Fresno State history to post back-to-back seasons with 1,000 receiving yards, joining Larry Willis, Davante Adams and Josh Harper.

San Diego State safety Parker Baldwin on Johnson: “He played well. We had it in the game plan to shut him down, but that’s not how it always works out. He’s a good player, and he made some big plays. We couldn’t stop him from making big plays, and that’s what cost us the game in the end.”

57 – Total yards for San Diego State in the second half. The Aztecs ran 22 plays, averaging 2.6 yards per play. In the first half, it was 225 yards on 26 plays, 8.7 yards per play.

35 – Penalty yards against the Aztecs in that second half – they had more penalty yards than rushing yards (29) and passing yards (28).

3 – Punts dropped inside the San Diego State 20-yard line by punter Blake Cusick including two in the second quarter that helped freeze the Aztecs’ offense. San Diego State had a 14-10 lead and had rolled up 216 of its 282 yards of offense, but started its last two drives in the first half at its own 3 and 5-yard lines following Cusick punts.

0 – Interceptions by the Bulldogs, ending a streak of eight consecutive games with at least one.

86 – Yards on a touchdown pass from McMaryion to Jamire Jordan, the Bulldogs longest play from scrimmage since 2012 when Derek Carr and Adams teamed up on an 89-yard touchdown pass in a victory over New Mexico.

94 – Receiving yards for Jamire Jordan, including an 86-yard touchdown on the Bulldogs’ third play from scrimmage. Over the past two seasons, the Bulldogs are 12-0 when Jordan has 30 or more receiving yards.

What’s next

Saturday: Regular-season finale, San Jose State (1-10, 1-6 Mountain West) at Fresno State (9-2, 6-1), 4 p.m. at Bulldog Stadium, ESPNU

This story was originally published November 18, 2018 at 8:07 AM.