Next in line: Fresno State Bulldogs to retire No. 22 to honor Lorenzo Neal

There are seven names on the facade of the press box at Bulldog Stadium, each with a jersey number attached, each representing a time and a place and big moments in Fresno State football history.

There’s running back Dale Messer, wide receiver Henry Ellard, kicker Vince Petrucci and the quarterbacks, Kevin Sweeney, Trent Dilfer and the Carr brothers, David and Derek. That’s a lot of yards, a lot of points, a lot of records and a lot of memories through the years in black and white to full HD; bowl games and beat downs handed out at home and on the road, singular performances in games and collectively over charmed careers.

They will be joined on Saturday by Lorenzo Neal, who will have his No. 22 unveiled during a halftime ceremony during the Bulldogs’ game against Nevada on Homecoming weekend, up there next to Ellard’s 83 and with the others, Derek Carr and 4, David Carr and 8, Sweeney and 9, Dilfer and 12, Petrucci and 14 and Messer and 21.

“I’m grateful. I’m thankful. And, you know what, there’s a lot of people who are deserving of it,” Neal said Wednesday, on a virtual press conference.

“You’re humbled. They could have chosen other people, could have chosen someone else, and I get that. But, to me, I’m grateful, I’m grateful that this great institution is allowing my jersey, my name, to go up in the stadium. I was just taken aback. Surreal. I’m humbled by it.”

Many of the seven Bulldogs to have had numbers retired know Neal, but in different ways: Dilfer as a former teammate and a team leader; Ellard from his time as an assistant coach in the NFL, after games exchanging a quick, hello. “I would always go out of my way to make sure I talked to guys, especially any former Bulldogs,” Ellard said. “That Bulldog Born, Bulldog Bred … that’s something we take pride in.”

Sweeney, who at one time held the NCAA career passing record, is the son of the legendary coach Jim Sweeney, who coached Neal from 1990 to ‘92; Petrucci was a fan from afar when living outside Philadelphia after graduating from Fresno State and later a good friend and a neighbor once back home and living in the Valley.

But they all know one thing …

“Lorenzo,” Dilfer said, “is one of the greatest ‘Dogs of all time.”

One of the greatest ‘Dogs of all time

“If you asked me about the next number to be retired, in my opinion it would have to be No. 22, not only for what he did at Fresno State, but what he went on to do in the NFL and for the person that he is,” Sweeney said.

On the football field Neal was the lead back in an offense that led with the run, teaming up with Aaron Craver in 1990 and Ron Rivers and Anthony Daigle in 1991 and ‘92 when the Bulldogs beat USC in the Freedom Bowl in what Jim Sweeney called “the biggest game in Fresno State history.”

When their Fresno State careers ended, Rivers was the program’s all-time leading rusher and Daigle held the career touchdowns record. But Neal, who rushed for 2,405 yards and scored 28 touchdowns for the Bulldogs over three seasons, was the unquestioned leader of that team.

“The Freedom Bowl was largely due to Lorenzo, not just his playing but his leadership, his moral authority in the locker room,” Dilfer said.

“So much of what we did revolved around him. He was the tailback – people forget that. They know him as a fullback in the NFL, but he was our tailback. He was a big-bodied, very agile running back. We went to that split back set because we had Ron Rivers and Anthony Daigle, too, so we were really a three-headed monster. But if you go back and look at that season, he was the centerpiece of our offense.”

Neal was selected as the most valuable player in that game, the Bulldogs’ first shot at USC or any of the big Pac-10 programs at the time. But it resonated then, and still does all these years later.

“I was back East, but I watched every second,” Petrucci said. “My dad, who was a die-hard Bulldog fan and a professor at Fresno State for 47 years, we were on the phone constantly during that game.

“He was in Fresno and I was back outside Philadelphia. At that time, no question, that was the biggest win in Bulldog history and we didn’t just beat them, we smashed them.”

Kevin Sweeney: ‘We could be retiring No. 62 …’

Neal went on to a 16-year career in the NFL and was a four-time Pro Bowl selection, the lead blocker in San Diego for the Chargers’ LaDainian Tomlinson, in Tennessee for the Titans’ Eddie George.

“You’re talking about a true fullback, who could lower the boom on you,” Ellard said. “He was that guy. He was a load, that’s for sure.”

For 11 seasons in a row, Neal paved the way for a 1,000-yard back, a list that includes the New York Jets’ Adrian Murrell, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Warrick Dunn and the Cincinnati Bengals’ Corey Dillon.

“He was really a guard in the backfield – we could be retiring No. 62,” Sweeney joked, before highlighting the heart of Lorenzo Neal.

“All those years in the NFL, all that wear and tear that he put on his body, and he did it all for others,” Sweeney said. “I don’t even know how many carries he had in the NFL in 16 years. But you talk about somebody giving something every day for others, it’s Lorenzo.”

It was 226, an average of just 14 carries per season. But there were 20 or 30 times as many crushing blocks, creating holes for Tomlinson and George and an avenue for his team to win football games.

That selflessness stood out, at Fresno State and in the NFL.

“One of my all-time favorite players,” Dilfer said. “I played with 11 Hall of Famers. I played 14 years in the league. He’s in the Top 5 of my favorite teammates of all time, college and pro.

“You were a better team because he was on it. Energy is such an underrated thing when it comes to a football team, but you have to have your juice man. You have to have that guy that brings it every day and sets the tone and gets people out of funks when they’re in their funks and he just knew how to do that. He has a great sense of humor and he knew when to use that sense of humor and he knew when to be serious. He’s just cut from a different cloth. He’s a different animal, on and off the field.”

That Freedom Bowl was also a bridge for the Bulldogs, built largely on the shoulders of Neal and his teammates. Fresno State in 1992 was in its first season in the Western Athletic Conference, taking a step up from a crumbling Big West with Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State and Pacific all dropping football after the 1991 season.

Neal helped build bridge to future for Fresno State football

“It’s BYU and Wyoming and Colorado State, a really good conference, and we won it our first two years, tied for winning it or winning it outright,” Dilfer said. “I think a lot of that was due to Lorenzo and that group of guys, his class, the mentality they set, the expectations they had.

“The ‘92, ‘93 teams probably put the program in another stratosphere. The change in conferences really catapulted it. Now, you can compete, recruiting much more on a regional basis. You can go into L.A. You can go into Texas at times. You can go into the Northwest. You can compete with other schools because of what we were able to do in ‘92 and ‘93 and the presence we had in the league.”

It wasn’t that long before that the Bulldogs had to drive to Ratcliffe Stadium already in full uniform to play a game, with the locker rooms under repair.

“To go from that and just a few years later to beating USC and everything that has happened since then, it’s guys like Lorenzo and Kevin and Trent who did that and it’s from the tutelage of Jim Sweeney,” Petrucci said.

No accounting for timing, but now Neal will follow them onto that press box.

“This is definitely a special moment,” Ellard said. “You’re up there forever. You can bring your grand kids. You can say, ‘Oh, let’s go visit Fresno,’ and you take them and show them that wall and say, ‘See that name up there?’ It’s something to be proud of, for sure.”

“One of my big regrets at Fresno State is I didn’t get to play with him,” Sweeney said. “I would love to have had the opportunity to play with him, to be in the huddle with him and look him in the eye and know that he’s going to get it done. That’s the cool thing people don’t understand about football.

“It’s hard work. It’s effort. It’s mano a mano. You look people in the eye and it’s, ‘Let’s go.’ It’s competition, and he was involved in some of the greatest games in Fresno State history and NFL history. He blocked for some of the greatest running backs in the history of the NFL. It’s unbelievable.

“And he’s an amazing person, an amazing dad, an amazing husband and an amazing representative of Fresno State football. It’s a special time for him and his family and I’m glad to be a part of it.”