Fresno State-USC Round 1 was win that put Bulldogs on the map. Players relive ’92 Freedom Bowl

The final score was 24-7, though the game really wasn’t that close.

Fresno State smacked USC in the 1992 Freedom Bowl, which was its first crack at one of the in-state stalwarts in the Pac-10, now Pac-12. It also was a game that was very personal not only to the Bulldogs, many of whom had been passed up by USC and other big-name schools, but also to coach Jim Sweeney. As the Washington State coach, Sweeney was 0-7 against USC and some of those games were not close – 70-33, 44-3, 54-7.

“I never dreamt I’d get a chance to play USC again,” Sweeney joked after the Bulldogs’ victory. “They owned my house, my home, my children … ”

That score also is a metaphor, of sorts, because that is the way Sweeney and the Bulldogs went after it, 24-7, starting even before the bowl matchup was announced. He dropped it on them before a regular season-ending game at UTEP, which the Bulldogs needed to win to clinch a share of the conference title and the spot opposite USC in the Freedom Bowl.

“We always said Fresno State was the best team on the West Coast,” running back Ron Rivers said. “We said that all the time. … ‘We’re the best-kept secret out here. No one wants to play us.’ Coach Sweeney was just one of those guys that was like, ‘Hey, prove it.’ ”

Rivers said Sweeney told the team before the UTEP game that a win would likely put the Bulldogs in a matchup with USC.

“All you guys from Southern California talking all that trash, here’s your chance,” Rivers said Sweeney told them. “Win this one and we’ll get a chance to play them and we’ll get a chance to see where you’re really at.’ That was a big thing for us.”

Fresno State went to El Paso and ripped the Miners 43-18, its largest road margin of victory all year.

Sweeney continued to work his message. He worked his team. There, Sweeney and his staff were at their best. By kickoff at the Freedom Bowl, he had the Bulldogs convinced that they were going to win the game.

“Seriously. It’s easy for me to say it now, after the fact, that we knew we were going to beat them, but we did. It was all-out confidence, and it’s because (Sweeney) put that in our mind,” said fullback Jamie Christian, now the Bulldogs running backs coach.

“He envisioned the whole thing. I remember before we even went down there, he said that we would have more fans in the stadium, that the Valley was going to be there to support us, that (USC) didn’t want to be there, they didn’t want to play us. The whole mindset is that we were going to beat them. We were tougher then them. … That’s what we went down there and proved.”

That 1992 game remains Fresno State’s only win over USC. There have been three meetings in the interim: the epic November 2005 showdown at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum when the No. 1 Trojans fended off the Bulldogs 50-42; and back-to-back games to end the 2013 season and open 2014. USC won the Las Vegas Bowl 45-20 in Derek Carr’s last game, then spanked Fresno State 52-13.

On the eve of a fifth Trojans-Bulldogs matchup, players from that 1992 team reminisce about a game that quarterback Trent Dilfer said put Fresno State on the map.

Jim Sweeney’s Freedom Bowl plan

The Bulldogs spent 10 days in Los Angeles preparing for the Freedom Bowl, bringing a group that had stayed together through a rough start even closer – they were 3-4 before rattling off five wins in a row to end the regular season.

Right guard Rus Hartmann: “I think it was a brilliant move by Coach Sweeney to do that. You’re basically together 24 hours a day. You’re staying in the hotel together. You’re eating every meal together. There’s not a whole lot of distractions. We were down there through Christmas, too, and so most of the team was away from their families. We spent Christmas together as a team. I think there’s a lot to be said for that.”

Sweeney also worked them in practice. Hard. They went live. They hit. Every single day they went at it.

Center Jason James: “It was a spring ball atmosphere, where you can beat the crap out of each other for three weeks and it’s no big deal because we don’t do anything else for another three months.

“It was that kind of mentality, and Coach Sweeney made it that way. ... At the time we were like, ‘Are you kidding me? We’re going full gear again?’ But, obviously, he knew something that we did not.”

Left tackle Ron Collins: “The bowl game, it’s all about having fun and going to appearances and really having a good time, No, no, no, that wasn’t the case this time. We hit, and boy did we hit.”

The Bulldogs still took in all of the bowl events, but Sweeney kept up the messaging … and found time for a little levity.

Driving back to the team hotel from practice one day, the bus stopped at a light. Sweeney told the driver to open the doors, and in walked a panhandler.

Nose guard Zack Rix: “He had a sign and one side of it said, ‘I’ll work for food’ or something like that and the other side said, ‘I’ll let you kiss my wife for five bucks.’ He thought that was the funniest thing in the world.”

Sweeney also received a lot of help from USC and the Red Wave, which was much more of a force then than it is now.

The Trojans showed Fresno State little respect – and it wasn’t just the football team.

Right tackle Jesse Hardwick: “We were going to a dinner probably two or three days before the game and the USC band is outside. They basically were calling us a (high school) football team.”

Wideout Charlie Jones: “We were watching the news one time and they showed them practicing and they had guys out there sleeping on the ground and saying that they didn’t need to practice and how easy this game was going to be. They didn’t think too highly of us.”

Rix: “We had a good football team and we didn’t get a heck of a lot of credit from USC, from their staff, their players. I can’t remember who said it, but they were pretty disappointed that they had to play us in the Freedom Bowl. I think they even went so far as to call it a consolation game.”

Bulletin board material for Fresno State

Defensive end Brad Bell: “I’ve never seen so many articles clipped and put on our bulletin board. They literally insulted us in the paper just about daily and Coach just cut it up and put it on the board.”

USC quarterback Rob Johnson was front and center, saying in USA Today: “I want to put them in their place. I really want to beat them bad. I mean, we wouldn’t even be playing them if it weren’t a bowl game. We would never schedule them.”

The Bulldogs took it all in, rallied to it.

Rivers: “It made everyone buy in quickly. They were talking so much trash and it was terrible because the quarterback was the lead guy. He’s talking about, ‘They should not even be playing us. They shouldn’t even be on the same field. How are they playing us? They’re not any good.’ I think that is what brought us all together. We had been together the whole year, but I had never seen us together like that.”

Tight end Marty Thompson: “I remember seeing a sign up in the stadium that said, ‘My maid went to Fresno State.’ ”

Defensive end Nick Serfas: “ It was pretty humorous, but from the interviews they didn’t take us as seriously as we thought they should and they got pushed around that night.”

Sweeney, of course, mentioned it a time or two hundred.

Rivers: “He would always make those bullet points – ‘The quarterback is talking again. What are you going to do, defense? The linebacker is talking again. What are you going to do, O-line?’ It just became one of those deals where, you’re in the huddle and you’re looking at the linemen and you’re like, ‘Let’s just smash them. Let’s run the ball, shove it down their throat and call it a day.’ “

The Bulldogs did. Fresno State dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and the game. It gained 405 yards to the Trojans’ 183. It rushed for 262 yards at 4.7 yards per play, while USC could muster only 183 at 3.5 yards per play.

Playing on a rain-soaked field, Fresno State held a time of possession edge of more than 15 minutes.

Hardwick: “Obviously being an offensive lineman, playing in the rain and the mud, that’s our forte. We love doing that type of stuff. We got underneath them a little bit and had some success and I think right when we scored our first touchdown we were like, ‘Let’s go.’ “

Quarterback Jeff Bailey: “It was first down after first down. It was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ “

Bell: “Every play meant everything to us.”

Rivers: “I think the thing that helped us more than anything is that no on one on the team, especially the O-line, the running backs, quarterback, receivers, no one was afraid of USC. Not one was buying the USC hype.”

The Red Wave, shining in the rain

And, as Sweeney had predicted, the Red Wave was out in force to bear witness to the beatdown, undeterred by the rain that began to fall just as the game started.

Jones: “My fondest memory. It was soaking wet, and yet looking up in the stands you saw all that red and white. The fans, I mean, it was unbelievable. I was like, ‘We’re in L.A. It’s not like we’re not in Bulldog Stadium.’ ... Looking up in the stands, it was like, ‘They feel the same thing we feel’ and it was just a moment I’ll never forget.“

Fullback Lorenzo Neal: “My dad, Glen Neal, the pastor of the Lily of the Valley church, may he rest in peace, he had a Greyhound bus. He filled that thing up and was driving down to the Freedom Bowl.

“It was such an awesome feeling to know there were so many people from Lemoore there, from my community They had a tailgate going. … It was awesome.”

Bell: “We came out for pregame warmups and all I saw was red. It was just red. Everywhere, red. I’m sitting in my office 100 years later and I’ve got chills thinking about it. It was just this surreal moment of ‘Oh, my gosh — we’re going to win this thing.’ We were going to hand it to these guys who have done nothing but insult us for a month and all of these recruiters that passed us up. We’re going to show them that heart oftentimes trumps talent.“

There were 25,000 to 30,000 Fresno State fans that night at Angel Stadium.

There also was one surrounded by USC fans at Grumpy’s Bar and Grill in Mammoth Lakes.

That would be a 15-year-old Scott Thompson, now the Bulldogs tight ends coach and younger brother of then-Bulldogs tight end Marty Thompson.

Scott was stuck at home, playing that week in a post-Christmas high school basketball tournament. Marty was playing in the Freedom Bowl against USC. The whole family had a choice which game to take in …

Scott Thompson: “Everyone was down there except me.”

Fortunately, Grumpy was a family friend. He set up Thompson at a table right in front of the big-screen TV, fed him dinner.

Scott Thompson: “It was me and 500 USC fans. … It was a good night, especially the second half when Lorenzo got going. I’m yelling, cheering. Everyone in there was like, ‘What’s this 15-year-old kid wearing a Fresno State hat and shirt doing in a bar?’ “

That 15-year-old was loving every second of the game, particularly the second half. The Bulldogs were up only 10-7 after three quarters, but they were pounding the football on the ground, chewing up yards at 4, 6, 5, 7 yards a pop.

Bailey: “The guys up front and the defensive line, they did a great job. We pretty much manhandled them. We were running the ball against them and protected well.”

Hartmann: “It was kind of funny. You could see a ton of dejection. They were frustrated. They can’t put it together. They’re starting to yell at each other. As soon as you start to see a team do that, you know, the blood is in the water, and that just got worse and worse as the game went on. It really gave us the advantage once they started to get frustrated and knew that they couldn’t stop what we were throwing at them.”

Rix: “I went back when they still made VHS players and I watched that film. … The difference between playing in that game and watching it: When we were playing it, it felt like we were ahead by a long ways the entire game, but in reality it was a close game. It was 10-7 after three quarters.”

The score was close. The game itself, not so close.

Tedford and Robinson and all the right moves

Fresno State coach Jeff Tedford, who was the Bulldogs offensive coordinator in 1992, and defensive coordinator Willie Robinson were sick during the week leading up to the bowl, but each put together perfect game plans to exploit the Trojans.

Hardwick: “We used their strengths against them. We were using a lot of draw packages, a lot of sprint draws, draw traps.

“They wanted to come off the edge and get Trent (Dilfer), and once we had success running the ball at them with our draw package and various run plays, that kept them back a little bit and we passed the ball because they weren’t coming at us as hard.”

Bell: “Our coaches did a brilliant job of scouting so, literally, they’d come out in a formation and we would be yelling, ‘Watch the draw. Watch the draw,’ and the tailback would put his head down like, ‘How do they know?’ We were all over them. We knew their tendencies. We knew what they were going to do.”

Safety Johnny Johnson: “Every time they went from the I (formation) to split backs, I’d go and double team; I’d get on the hash on top of (wideout Curtis Conway). Back then, when they went split backs, the majority of the time it was going to be a pass.

“We were sound, mistake-free. We made the right checks. The combination of the game plan and us executing it flawlessly, it led to their mistakes or a coverage sack or the D-line getting a rush with Nick Serfas or Zack Rix and all them greats up front. We had Chris Peters, Wendell Valentine. We had some players, dude, and we were locked in.”

The longer the game went the more it was evident, for both teams.

Jones: “We were like, ‘We’ve got this. We’re about to break their will.’ That was the feeling we had on the sidelines.”

And then the USC band went silent

Somewhere in there, late in that third quarter, something changed. Something was missing. Neal, who rushed for 75 yards and made some crushing blocks to free Rivers and Anthony Daigle, was the first to pick up on it.

Hartmann: “That band over there, they quit in the third quarter. They’re not playing any more. The horse, it disappeared. It was toward the end of the third quarter and I remember Lorenzo Neal saying something about it. … ‘We shut that damn band up.’ “

Johnson: “Once we got that lead and they couldn’t do anything it got quiet. It got real quiet.”

Neal: “That song, when they get that going, the place starts rocking. When it got quiet and you knew that it was kind of over, we took their best punch and then we started running the ball and they had no answer, you’re like, ‘OK, they quit.’ “

Serfas had grown up in the San Gabriel Valley as a USC fan. He knew what the quiet meant.

Serfas: “Their first-down song, that just kind of stopped altogether. It was … interesting. You hear that, and you’ve heard it for years and years and years. As a player, you hear it stop and you know you’re doing something good.

“It was good to be on that side and show them that, ‘Hey, you’re playing the Bulldogs and you know what, guess what, we were able to punch you in the mouth tonight.’ “

Bulldogs’ big plays amid the pounding

Fresno State was ranked 98th in the nation in total defense, but on this night there were some big defensive plays in the back end – the Bulldogs intercepted three passes, by Sam Watson, James Burton and Brian Porter.

There were big plays on special teams, too – Christian early in the third quarter forced a fumble on a punt return; the Trojans’ Estrus Crayton had slipped one tackle and was 12 yards up the field when Christian was able to knock the ball free.

Christian: “It was a great feeling. I remember trying to get noticed, waving my hands up and stuff like that. It was awesome.”

But the Bulldogs controlled the game up front, on both sides of the ball.

On the second series of the game, Rix split a double team to take down Crayton for a loss, and after the play gave him a little extra.

Rix: “I kind of stand up and I still have his ankles tied up and I dragged him back, like, ‘No, no you don’t. … You’re not running anywhere.’ It wasn’t anything flagrant or really intentional, but watching it on film was like, ‘Oh, man.’

“I wasn’t that kind of a player. I was a knock-‘em-down, help-‘em-back-up kind of guy. But I think with the disrespect that was demonstrated and even vocalized during that week, it just got everybody up a little bit more, and they did that to themselves. … It was just kind of indicative of the attitude that we brought into the game.”

Rix had a little extra motivation, too. Craig Gibson, the USC center, is a distant cousin. So did Bell, who in his first career start at Fresno State was lining up across the line of scrimmage from Kris Pollack, a former teammate at Clovis West High.

The Bulldogs just punched them all in the gut for 60 minutes.

On Lorenzo Neal, Ron Rivers and Anthony Daigle

James: “With what we had, you want to establish the run. With the guys we had in the backfield and the front that we had, we knew we’d be able to run the ball. It was just waiting to see how effective and how often, those types of things.”

The running backs, they went after USC.

Rivers: “If you notice, we didn’t really try to run around anybody that game. It was more us trying to be physical. There were times we had a chance to make a guy miss in the open field and if you watch the other games, we’ll make the guy miss.

“But in that game it was, ‘I want to out-physical you. I want to be just as strong and just as bad as everybody says you are.’ “

Marty Thompson: “I remember Lorenzo Neal, he was just hurting people. Right then I knew we had a chance because they didn’t want to tackle him anymore. They didn’t want any part of him.”

With 9:01 remaining and up 10-7, the Bulldogs started a 12-play scoring drive that knocked 5:36 off the clock and knocked the Trojans out.

Fresno State rushed the ball on seven of the first nine plays – Rivers, Daigle, Neal, Neal again, Rivers again. On the 11th play, from the USC 27, Dilfer dropped back, no play-action. Willie McGinest, for one of the few times all game, got free off the edge and hit the Bulldogs quarterback just as he was letting a pass fly.

It floated a bit, but wideout Tydus Winans made a play, separated from a USC cornerback and pulled in the football at the Trojans 2.

On the next play Daigle, lined up to the right in a set with Neal and Rivers, took a handoff from Dilfer and raced to the left corner of the end zone to put the Bulldogs up 17-7.

That formation was a nightmare for opposing defenses, not just for USC.

James: “T-Heavy. We called it T-Heavy Left or T-Heavy Right, and it was an unbalanced line. If it was T-Heavy Left, the right tackle would come over so we were unbalanced.

“That was our goal line set with a T setup with three running backs in the backfield and we could go any way we wanted to. We could go dive left, dive right, sweep right, sweep left, throw the ball, whatever we wanted. We had so many options off that formation.”

Collins: “Every time we ran T-Heavy, I knew we were going to score. It felt good, just that scheme. We would joke around and say, ‘Why don’t we just run T-Heavy up and down the field?’ “

USC didn’t have many options remaining at that point.

Johnson: “Our coaching staff did a hell of a job preparing us for that game. It was a great game plan defensively and playing the Trojans, we were emotionally charged..”

USC turned it over again with another interception; Burton, playing man coverage, had perfect position and undercut an out route that Johnson left woefully short.

For Ron Rivers, a landmark score

The Bulldogs added another touchdown on a run by Rivers, who was recruited by and almost went to USC out of high school. He did a little dance in the end zone celebrating with Collins and came off the field waving his arms to the crowd.

Collins: “That last drive, we all agreed that this is the dagger. The momentum was in our favor, but this was it. If we wanted to get the fat lady to sing, this was the moment to do it. We all had that resolve that we were going to march down the field and punch it in the end zone.”

It was big for the Bulldogs, and for Rivers.

He wanted to beat the Trojans, wanted to score in that game. Neal had scored the Bulldogs’ first touchdown on a 1-yard run in the second quarter, and Daigle had scored.

Rivers: “Everyone knew this was a big game for me because I was supposed to go there. I was trying to do everything I could do make sure I scored.

“But I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I wanted to dance. I didn’t know if I wanted to just stand there. All I know is it was pretty exciting.”

The touchdown run also put Rivers over the 100-yard mark in the game – he finished with 104 yards on 19 carries. There was some payback in that, too.

Collins: “Early in the game, when we lined up against the defense, they were pretty chatty. One of the things they did say, ‘Your little running back is not going to get 100 yards.’ We took it personal. They thought their running back was better than ours. At that time, they had no idea who Ron Rivers was, what Ron Rivers could do and what our line was able to do for him.

“We made it a point to open those holes and whatever we gave Ronnie, believe me, he took advantage of it. Then there were times there was no hole and Ronnie took it upon himself to get those extra yards.“

At that point, they all knew that the Trojans were done.

Hardwick: “You just saw across the field, they were slumped. They were done. We knew we had them. You just saw the doubt in their eyes. It was over.”

Hartmann: “Oh, man. One of the greatest times of my life.”

Porter picked Johnson with 49 seconds remaining and all that was left of the game were two snaps, Dilfer taking a knee both times.

Sweeney gets a ride on players’ shoulders

Marty Thompson: “Right at the end, I remember looking over at our bench and Chris Peters, our middle linebacker, was doing the moonwalk down the sideline.”

Bell: “It was the best. After the game, I’m in the stands celebrating with the fans. People were fired up. The Fresno State fans, they sat wearing trash bags for a four-quarter game in the rain and it was awesome. What an experience.”

James and Hardwick hoisted Sweeney onto their shoulder pads and gave their coach a ride to midfield where he shook hands with USC coach Larry Smith; a few days later the Trojans coach was fired with three years remaining on his contract.

Jones: “(Sweeney) had a knack for telling you something and then having it happen. He’d tell you during the week, ‘This is going to happen’ or ‘We have to be ready for this’ and sure enough, come game time it happened exactly how he said it was going to.

“It was easy to buy into what Coach Sweeney was saying. He had that background of a lot of that stuff really happening. Once it happens once or twice, as a young kid you’re like, ‘I’m going to listen to everything he’s saying when it comes to game time.’ “

The game was over, but its legacy has lived on.

Hardwick: “I grew up right down the street from Anaheim Stadium, so I’m driving home after the game and I’ve got the radio on and they were calling us Raisin State. It was unbelievable. We just beat these guys and they’re still getting on us.”

But the following day the headline in the Los Angeles Times was ‘Fresno State Teaches USC Humility 101.’

James, another Orange County native, went to an Oingo Boingo concert with a cousin at the Universal Amphitheatre the week after the game and when exiting the parking lot after the show a car tried to cut in front of them.

It had a USC sticker in the back window.

James: “I lean out the window and go, ‘Come on, man, you can’t go in front of us, we kicked your butts this year in football’ and he goes ‘Oh, you go to UCLA?’ I tell him, ‘No, I play at Fresno State’ and he covered his eyes and just kind of waved us along saying, ‘Go, go, go.’ ... It was pretty funny. We were cracking up.”

Jones: “My third or fourth year with the Chargers we ended up having Curtis Conway on the team.

“We roomed together in camp and we talked about it. It was still bitter to him all those years later. It’s one of those games. They wish they could have done it better and do it over, but it was a lesson learned for them.”

Lorenzo Neal: Bulldog spirit, baby!

Rivers: “After that game I ran into a ton of USC fans and all that I got was, ‘Oh, man, you guys put it on them, you guys killed them.’ ... Not one person was, like, ‘Well, it was lucky.’

“It was pretty much a butt-whooping. I don’t know what else to call it. It wasn’t close. That’s the thing. If it was close, you could say you had a bad game. But you got beat up from quarter one to quarter four.”

Neal: “The feeling was unreal. Bulldog spirit, baby! Bulldog born, Bulldog bred, gonna be a Bulldog ‘til the day I’m dead.”

Marty Thompson: “I saw (McGinest) a few years ago when my brother was coaching at USC. I went to a game and he was just there. We talked for a little bit. It was pretty cool.”

Did the Freedom Bowl come up?

Marty Thompson: “Oh, yeah, that was the introduction …”

Hardwick: “It was a special night. It was definitely a good time to be a Bulldog.”

Taking the bus home the next day, the excitement ratcheted up again.

Hartmann: “Every other car going over the Grapevine had Fresno State stuff written on the windows or had Fresno State flags hanging out of the car. It was nothing like I had ever seen before.”

Bailey: “The whole 99 was just red. It was just crazy.”

But the way it all played out, the time spent in Los Angeles, the severity of the practices, the game plans, it mirrored the Bulldogs’ coach.

Rix: “I just quoted him to the kids I coach – I coach freshmen at Buchanan. The quote I recited was one of Sweeney’s favorites. ‘Sun Tzu: The Art of War’ quote: ‘If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles.’

“He really instilled that in all of us. He said it all the time. He ingrained that in our DNA. And it’s true. We went into that game knowing who we were and we knew who we were playing and we had no fear. We went in there to win.”

Serfas: “He would get you fired up in so many different ways. Thinking about it now, it’s giving me goose bumps . He knew this was his shot.

“And, I’ll tell you, he was one happy dude when we pulled it off.”