Most Fresno State football games will be on national TV. Also, two dates changed
The Fresno State Bulldogs now have dates, kick times and TV for most of their eight-game football season, which opens Oct. 24 against Hawaii.
That opening game was not picked up for a national broadcast by the CBS Sports Network or FOX, the Mountain West Conference television partners, but will be broadcast locally at a time and station to be announced.
The Bulldogs will then have a quick turnaround with their game against Colorado State moved to Thursday, Oct. 29 – it will be on CBS Sports Network with a 7 p.m. kickoff at Bulldog Stadium – but will get some extra time before playing their third game Nov. 7 at UNLV in Allegiant Stadium.
“It’s a quick turnaround for sure – I guess the MAC-tion season that I was a part of, that experience is going to come into play when you play any day and every day,” said coach Kalen DeBoer, who spent three seasons at Eastern Michigan in the Mid-American Conference before he was hired in 2017 to be the offensive coordinator under former coach Jeff Tedford.
“You have short weeks and long weeks, because that’s going to be the situation. Five days and then nine. Sometimes being simple and having that quick turnaround is a good thing because you don’t overthink things with your schemes and you just let guys go play. Just knowing how (offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb) and I have worked on offense, hearing that schedule that’s what I’m thinking already, and I like that there’s a couple of days in there to ease up because our guys will have been going for five weeks strong.”
UNLV will go into that game on a normal schedule, but off its rivalry game against Nevada. The Rebels the past four seasons have played Nevada in their final regular-season game, but they have lost the past 10 times they have had a game after playing the Wolf Pack.
Fresno State’s game against Colorado State and a Friday, Nov. 27 game against San Diego State are the Bulldogs’ only games that were moved for television broadcasts.
Fresno State 2020 schedule
Oct. 24 – Hawaii, TBD
Oct. 29 – Colorado State, 7 p.m., CBS Sports Network
Nov. 7 – at UNLV, 12:30 p.m., CBS Sports Network
Nov. 14 – at Utah State, TBD, FS1 or FS2
Nov. 21 – San Jose State, 4 p.m., CBS Sports Network
Nov. 27 – San Diego State, TBD, FS1
Dec. 5 – at Nevada, TBD, FS1 or FS2
Dec. 12 – at New Mexico, TBD, FS1 or FS2
Kickoff times for the games on FOX Sports will be determined during the course of the season, generally 12 days before the game.
The Mountain West Conference championship game will be played on Saturday, Dec. 19, on the home field of the program with the highest winning percentage in conference games. It will be broadcast by FOX or FS1 at a time to be determined.
No call on starting QB
DeBoer said Jake Haener and Ben Wooldridge still were competing to be the starting quarterback, but that call will be made by the end of the week.
The Bulldogs will go into a game prep mode for Hawaii on Saturday, with perhaps some install going in during practice on Friday.
“I can tell you we’re in good hands with either guy, I know that for sure,” DeBoer said. “But obviously we have to decide on one. We know we want to make that and need to make that decision here real soon, here middle to end of the week.
“We’ll be getting going on Hawaii for sure by Saturday, if not some on Friday. So we want a chance to make a decision and talk with those guys and give them a day or so to go through that process because it’s going to be tough because you’ve got two guys that want this position really bad and they’ve been doing a great job.”
This story was originally published October 13, 2020 at 12:53 PM.