‘Dogs rally past San Jose State, but can they take that second half to MW title game?

Fresno State secured its 10th win and in Saturday’s 31-13 Senior Day victory over San Jose State wideout KeeSean Johnson became the program’s all-time leader in receiving yards with a career day, 173 yards on seven receptions.

Johnson pushed his career total to 3,390 yards, moving past Rodney Wright and then Charlie Jones on the Fresno State list, and with two games left he is just six receptions away from surpassing Davante Adams’ school career-record 233.

For a program that went from 1-11 to back-to-back 10-win seasons, there is a lot to take away from the game and the season to this point.

Fresno State hadn’t had double digits in the win column in consecutive seasons since 1988 and ‘89.

A first half that did not go well didn’t do much to change the optics of a matchup in the Mountain West Conference championship game at Boise State, the Broncos winning their way there with a 33-24 victory over Utah State a few hours after the Bulldogs’ win.

But the Bulldogs might have done that looking at the game not as a whole, but a half.

The second, obviously.

Marcus McMaryion hit 11 of 12 passes in the second half for 242 yards and two touchdowns after completing only 9 of 17 for 75 yards in the first half.

Johnson caught six of his seven passes and had 165 of his 173 receiving yards in the second half, including a 31-yard touchdown on which he set the record.

The Bulldogs had 326 of their yards in the second half and 189 in the first half, going from 5.3 yards per play to 11.2 yards per play.

“We needed to shore up some protection issues,” coach Jeff Tedford said. “They were bringing some heat and Marcus didn’t have a lot of time to throw the ball in the first half. Once we gave him some time, it allowed us the ability to break some guys open. Marcus made some big plays, Jamire (Jordan) made a big play with a catch and we had the running game going a little bit.”

The issues, mostly self-inflicted.

“We put ourselves in bad positions,” McMaryion said. “I don’t care who you’re playing, when you’re in third-and-long situations it’s hard to convert. We also weren’t productive in second-and-long situations, so we shot ourselves in the foot there.”

But the second-half adjustments continue to be extra large for the Bulldogs – after outscoring San Jose State 14-0 they now have a scoring differential of plus-126 in the third quarter, scoring 147 points while allowing just 21.

The trick is to make adjustments work in the Mountain West championship game against the Broncos, who have been vulnerable defensively in the third and fourth quarters.

This might come as a surprise, but Boise State in the second half this season …

Rushing offense

• Yards: 1,079, fifth in MW
  
  
• Yards per play: 4.1, ninth
  
  

Passing offense

• Completion percentage: 67.1, third
  
  
• Efficiency rating: 156.32, second
  
  

Rushing defense

• Yards: 901, sixth
  
  
• Yards per play: 4.6, eighth
  
  

Passing defense

• Completion percentage: 61.9, 11th
  
  
• Efficiency rating: 152.20, 10th
  
  

Rematch

There’s no question, this is the matchup the Bulldogs wanted.

McMaryion: “There is obviously going to be extra motivation if we get to play Boise State. At the end of the day, we don’t have control over who we play. It doesn’t matter if we play Boise State or Utah State, we aren’t going to prepare any different. There would be more fire behind getting to play Boise State because it’s a rematch.”

Linebacker George Helmuth: “Obviously there is an extra factor there with Boise State. There’s no disrespect to Utah State, they are a really good football team, but we would love to play Boise State.”

But Fresno State had little to no success against the Broncos in the second half of the Mountain West championship game last season – the Bulldogs ran six series, 28 plays, and gained just 79 yards without a single point.

It had a little more going in a 24-17 loss on Nov. 9 at Albertsons Stadium – the Bulldogs ran five series, 33 plays, and gained 204 yards and scoring one touchdown.

And it will need to take a leap on Saturday going back to Boise where they have not won since 1984.

It also will need to rush the football, stay on schedule and finish some drives, which it has not done often in this series. The weather will not be very good – the forecast has a high of 39 degrees on Saturday with a low of 27 and a 40 percent chance of rain/snow, which could increase the degree of difficulty in the passing game.

Fresno State rushed for 198 yards in its win over San Jose State at a healthy 5.5 yards per play.

But that rushing number is dubious and not just because the Spartans field one of the worst defenses in the nation – 118th of 130 in scoring defense, 111th in rushing defense, 124th in passing defense and 125th in total defense going in.

The Bulldogs built it on six plays totaling 113 yards, including a 33-yard burst in the first quarter by sophomore Ronnie Rivers.

The 30 other rushing plays produced 85 yards, 2.8 per play.

The Bulldogs running backs accounted for 31 of those rushing plays and more than half, 17, went for 3 yards or less.

By the numbers

91.7 – Completion percentage in the second half for McMaryion. He hit 11 of 12 passes after going 9 of 17 in the first half and ended up completing better than 66.7 percent of his passes for a 13th game in a row dating to the Bulldogs’ Hawaii Bowl victory over Houston last season. McMaryion was 20 of 29, 69.0 percent.

11.2 – Average yards per play for the Bulldogs in the second half.

7 – Explosive pass plays of 20 or more yards by Fresno State, a season high. The Bulldogs’ high for the season had been six in victories against Wyoming and at New Mexico in back-to-back weeks. Includinig rushing plays, the Bulldogs’ season high for explosive plays had been seven, accomplished four times. They had nine against San Jose State.

95 – Yard interception return for a touchdown by linebacker Arron Mosby, the fourth-longest pick six in school history. Lawrence Deck had a 100-yard return against San Jose State in 2000 and Richard Marshall had a 100-yard return against Rice in 2004. Jim Sanderson had a 96-yard return in 1960.

87 – Points allowed during Mountain West play by the Fresno State defense. The Bulldogs are the sixth team in conference history to allow less than 100 points and third behind TCU with 68 points allowed in 2008 and with 75 points allowed in 2010.

13 – Points by San Jose State in the fourth quarter, the second most points allowed by the Bulldogs in any quarter in Mountain West play. Fresno State allowed 14 points in the fourth quarter in its Nov. 9 loss at Boise State.

302 – Passing yards for the Spartans, the most allowed by the Bulldogs since Washington had 328 last season, a span of 24 games.

2 – Passes defended by Bulldogs cornerback Tank Kelly, who went into the game tied for fifth in the nation with 1.6 per game.

Coming up

Mountain West championship game: Fresno State (10-2, 7-1 MW) at Boise State (10-2, 7-1), Saturday, Dec. 1 at Albertsons Stadium, 4:45 p.m., ESPN

This story was originally published November 24, 2018 at 9:55 PM.