Fresno State football success has always been about the quarterback. No pressure, Jake Haener

Well, that’s that.

No winning regular season. No divisional title. No conference championship game. And, no idea where this Fresno State football ship is headed, because we are as thrown as all get out by the Season That Wasn’t.

“We got beat by a better team tonight,” Bulldogs coach Jeff Tedford said after Friday’s 17-7 loss at San Diego State, and how many times has our beleaguered friend dropped that line?

Six out of 10 times, for those counting, and everyone these days is counting – ticket buyers, forum typists, budget accountants.

Now what? And, no, winning the next two games and going to the Blow The Travel Budget Bowl isn’t the answer, because the last thing Fresno State can afford at this point is to pay out another bonus to Tedford in his worst season since coming home in 2017.

Tedford has got to figure out what just happened, because he can’t let this happen twice. If Tim DeRuyter only got one mulligan after the Derek Carr exit, Tedford can’t expect to survive two bad seasons post-Marcus McMaryion.

Therein, of course, lies the answer. Tedford has to find a quarterback to carry his water.

Hit on a quarterback, and you’re the next-best thing to Boise State in these parts. Miss on a quarterback, and you fall down swinging.

Given two years to find McMaryion’s replacement, Tedford broke his own ankles whiffing. Obvious, we know, but it needs to be said, because all can’t remain well at this pace.

Jorge Reyna is not a bad quarterback, not even close. We’re not sure McMaryion could have survived behind an offensive line that started three centers and three left tackles.

We just think Tedford could have, and should have, done better. He’s the quarterback whisperer, not us. He’s the genius who makes great quarterbacks greater, and good quarterbacks gooder.

Reyna is a one-and-done senior with lousy timing. What was he thinking, syncing his arrival to the starting lineup just when the world-class defense was walking out the door?

It’s a joke, people. Laugh. But his timing wasn’t always Johnny on the spot, either. He threw interceptions when touchdowns would have beaten USC and Minnesota, and if that sounds unfair, then why bother keeping score?

Tedford needed the next McMaryion. He ended up with the next Chason Virgil, a likeable kid who’s not to be blamed for lack of a greater option.

Just don’t blame the defense for this 4-and-6 slime pit. We know that they stopped neither the run nor the pass, and that they provided no cover when single-score games were to be decided.

But this lost season isn’t on the defense. Fresno State football has won without defense for all the ages. Losing spaghetti Western shootouts is the only way Fresno State ever loses in the best of times.

Fresno State is Not Pass Rush Tech. This is Quarterback U. This is the home of Tedford and Kevin Sweeney, Trent Dilfer and Billy Volek, David Carr and Derek Carr, Paul Pinegar and McMaryion.

Everyone wins here with a quarterback. No one survives without one.

The answer, then, isn’t to get better at defense, though it wouldn’t hurt. It’s to start a quarterback who is going to outscore all the other quarterbacks next year.

In other words, here’s hoping that Washington transfer Jake Haener comes up as gold as the last Pac-12 Conference quarterback to lose his starting job and move to Fresno.

This story was originally published November 16, 2019 at 12:14 PM with the headline "Fresno State football success has always been about the quarterback. No pressure, Jake Haener."