Fresno State rolls Cal Poly 63-10, but do ‘Dogs quick strikes ease concern over slow starts?

Put better athletes on the football field, which Fresno State clearly did in a 63-10 victory over FCS Cal Poly on Saturday at Bulldog Stadium and against a pretty poor UConn team a couple of weeks back, and the potential for big plays is always going to be there.

Against the Mustangs, quarterback Jake Haener hit 17 of 22 passes for 380 yards with seven explosive pass plays of 20 or more yards to five different receivers, and four touchdowns including shots of 62 yards to Zane Pope and 53 yards to Keric Wheatfall in the third quarter.

The Bulldogs scored five of their nine TDs on drives that lasted less than two minutes, and also scored those 63 points in basically two quarters plus a little more than one minute, the run starting with 37 seconds remaining in the first quarter with a 2-yard run by Haener and ending 59 seconds into the fourth on a 10-yard run by backup running back Jordan Wilmore.

This season they have scored a touchdown on five drives that lasted less than one minute, and on eight drives that lasted less than two.

All of them came against the Mustangs and the Huskies, which is notable. But those plays also are translatable to bigger and better opponents on their schedule and into the Mountain West Conference.

The common denominator in those drives and the ones that don’t go, and the slow starts that have plagued the Bulldogs in their three games, is their execution.

Execute, and big plays happen. Execute, and slow starts are less likely. If they can do one, they do can the other.

“We’re very skilled and when we execute and get those guys into space that our plays create, they’re going to make big plays,” coach Kalen DeBoer said. “It’s obviously a little tougher when you’re facing a defense like Oregon and next week we play UCLA.

Common denominator in Bulldogs’ drives is execution

“But it doesn’t matter who you’re going against. You still have to execute. You could see that on our first drive when you don’t quite execute and things aren’t quite the same, it doesn’t go the way you want.”

The Bulldogs’ first two drives: punt, punt.

The first two at Oregon: punt, fumble.

The first two against UConn: punt, punt.

That is something to dissect, obviously. DeBoer, and Haener, said they will be looking at it this week in practice.

“You want to start fast no matter who the opponent is and the last three weeks we’ve kind of failed to start fast,” Haener said.

“We’ve put ourselves not in the best positions I think going into the middle of the first, end of the first quarter. So going into next week I want to challenge the guys and I’m going to talk to every guy on offense: ‘We have to start faster. We have to put the ball in the end zone on the first or second possession, because when you start giving the other team the ball a little more, it’s giving them more chances. I’d like to see us start faster and go from there.”

That starts with the quarterback, who in three games has hit 73.6% of his passes (67 of 91) for 1,009 yards with eight touchdowns and no interceptions and has a passing efficiency rating of 195.78.

Bulldogs have scored 14 points in first quarter, 65 in second

“I have to be better in the beginning of the game, just get the ball out of my hand, get it to the guys that are good with the ball in their hands and just get the offense rolling,” Haener said.

“I have to do a better job and take ownership of that and do a better job at the beginning of the game.”

But the explosiveness of an offense that is so deep with Jalen Cropper, Josh Kelly, Ty Jones, Pope and Wheatfall along with Ronnie Rivers and Jordan MIms in the backfield does take some pressure off there.

The Bulldogs, scary deep, also got wideout Emoryie Edwards back after missing the first two games due to an injury. He caught one ball for 19 yards and a first down from freshman quarterback Jaylen Henderson, who impressed over the final quarter and a half after Haener exited the game.

DeBoer believes the Bulldogs’ skill has the athleticism to play with anyone – it did at Oregon, which was ranked No. 11 when they played last week and on Saturday went on the road and won at No. 3 Ohio State – but going forward it does come down to the other pieces and putting them together.

Does the quarterback have a clean pocket where he can make the read and get the football out on time? Are the down and distances favorable to where they can get the coverages that they planned on and prepared for when they were installing a game plan at the start of the week?

There are a lot of moving pieces, before the ball ends up in the hands of Cropper or Kelly or anyone else.

“It’s going to happen,” DeBoer said, of the Bulldogs’ starts. “I see it too many times in practice where we come out and we’re rolling and executing very well right off the bat. We just have to keep doing what we’re doing.

“You don’t just sweep it under the rug and not acknowledge it. We’ll take a look and figure out what happened and figure out how we can be better.”

By the numbers

282.36 – Passing efficiency rating for quarterback Jake Haener, a career high. He has had a rating higher than 200 twice this season, with a 221.94 against UConn. Derek Carr in 2013 had a rating higher than 200 only once, a 253.91 in a 69-28 victory over New Mexico.

11 – Tackles for loss by the Bulldogs.

3.8 – Yards per play allowed by the Bulldogs defense, the second time in three games they have allowed less than 4.0. They have allowed 4.0 or less in a game three times in a season just three times since 2000.

7 – Explosive pass plays of 20 or more yards for Haener.

17.3 – Yards per pass attempt for Haener. The Bulldogs were at 16.4, the highest in a game going back through 2000.

204 – Sack-adjusted rushing yards for Fresno State, 5.5 yards per play.

2.4 – Yards per rush allowed by the Bulldogs this season, after Cal Poly mustered only 53 yards on 35 plays.

5 – Consecutive drives with a TD for the Fresno State offense in the first half.

10 – punts for Cal Poly, which went three-and-out five times. The Bulldogs defense has forced opponents to punt in 59.1% of their drives this season (26 of 44).

2.0 – Sacks for Kevin Atkins, 0.5 shy of a career high. He had 2.5 in the Bulldogs’ victory last season at Utah State.

Next for Fresno State

Saturday: at No. 13 UCLA (2-0), 7:45 p.m. at Rose Bowl

TV: Pac-12 Network

This story was originally published September 12, 2021 at 7:07 AM.