Fresno State spring preview: Can this shift propel Bulldogs to greater heights?

Fresno State offensive coordinator Kirby Moore is in an enviable position, taking over an offense with a wealth of explosive and proven players returning from a team that last season led Mountain West Conference football in total yards and was second in points per game.

But he also will have a chance to tinker and tweak during 15 spring practices, which start on Monday, and squeeze even more production out of the Bulldogs offense.

Moore dropped a few hints of what that might look like in the New Mexico Bowl victory over Texas-El Paso, which might have triggered an odd sense of déjà vu for some Bulldogs fans, or even full-on nightmares.

Some of the pre-snap shifts and motions that Moore utilized in the bowl game were vintage Boise State and a staple of the Broncos offense when he started his playing career there and his brother, quarterback Kellen Moore, already was 13 games into a destruction of opposing defenses in averaging more than 40 points a game.

That included this stretch against Fresno State …

2008 – Boise State, 61-10

2009 – Boise State, 51-34

2010 – Boise State, 51-0

2011 – Boise State, 57-7

The Bulldogs, with Moore coordinating an offense with running backs coach James Montgomery, wideouts coach Pat McCann, tight ends coach John Baxter and line coach Saga Tuitele, this spring are likely to incorporate more shifts and motions to confound opposing defenses.

“The biggest thing is we know where we’re going, so we should be able to play faster and understand in terms of our splits and alignments what we’re trying to get accomplished,” Moore said, “and if they’re a step slow, that should put us in a position to be successful.”

But, he said, his offense also will use tempo as a change-up.

“We want to be very dynamic and flexible and adaptable in terms of our personnel and concepts that we’re running,” Moore said. “Obviously, some of my background has been with the shifts and motions world that we lived in when I played at Boise State and when I was a (graduate assistant) at Washington, so we did that a good amount there in the bowl game.

A shift in Bulldogs offense

“We still want to be able to dictate the tempo. We want to be able to play fast. We want to be able to play at a regular speed. And, then, we want to still have the ability to use the shifts and motions and make it hard for the defense and force them to communicate a lot.”

The combination of the two for Moore also has Boise State roots with coach Chris Petersen, who moved up to Washington in 2014 after going 92-12 in eight seasons with the Broncos.

The Huskies in their third season took off, putting up 41.8 points per game to rank eighth in the nation one year after averaging 30.6 and ranking in a tie for 55th.

Fresno State coach Jeff Tedford also was in Seattle in that 2016 season, working as an offensive consultant when the 12-2 Huskies lost to Alabama in the College Football Playoff semifinals.

“That was a great experience for me, just seeing the blend of the two,” Moore said. “You don’t have to live in just this world or that world. When I played at Boise State we built my last couple of years, but at first we were straight shifts and motions and we would only go tempo for the most part if we needed to do a two-minute drive.

“It transitioned when I went to Washington as a (graduate assistant). We had a good team and the personnel was really good. When you have John Ross on the left side and Dante Pettis on the right side and you have a pretty good quarterback (Jake Browning), that helps a lot of things go.”

Fresno State obviously has weapons including an experienced quarterback in Jake Haener.

“It definitely puts quite a bit on the plate of the quarterback in terms of the communication with the line, with the skill guys, with the move calls and sending guys in motion and making sure everyone is set,” Moore said. “You have to be conscious of some things pre-snap – whether the clock is running down, the penalties in terms of two guys moving at once. There’s definitely some work that goes into it.

“We’re obviously very confident in Jake, and the other quarterbacks, as well. We’ve built a good system of how we call those shifts and motions. We have that within our offense and our playbook. Maybe not all of it has been utilized. We’ve played with some different tempos in different games for different reasons, so they know it and I think it’s something we showed a little more in the bowl game.”

That was an area Kellen Moore excelled at Boise State while going 50-3 and completing 69.8% of his career passes for 14,667 yards with 142 touchdowns.

Fresno State is the only team in the Mountain West to average 30 or more points a game four years in a row, but it hasn’t hit 40 since 2013 when Derek Carr was a senior and the Bulldogs put up 43.4.

Haener in just 19 career games has passed for 6,117 yards, ranking 10th on the Bulldogs’ all-time list and at 321.9 yards is averaging more per game than any of the nine quarterbacks ahead of him.

It also has some areas to improve – the Bulldogs ranked fifth in the Mountain West in third-down conversions and their completion percentage on third-down pass plays last season was 56.3%, just sixth.

“In terms of our personnel, I just think we can’t be satisfied with what we did last year,” Moore said. “We’re on to 2022. We have a lot of work ahead of us. It’s a process and we have to enjoy every moment of it.

“At the end of the day, it still comes back to the players. We can draw up all the plays, all the shifts and motions, and it comes back to those guys executing and doing a good job. Our volume, we’re at a point there’s a lot of complexity, but at the same time our guys are able to play really fast and they’re not thinking before the snap, they’re just processing what’s going on and they’re reacting depending on what their defender is doing.”

Fresno State spring practice key dates

March 21 – First practice

March 24 – Pro Day

March 28 – First practice in full pads

April 10-16 – Spring break

April 30 – Spring preview

Fresno State 2022 schedule

Sept. 3 – Cal Poly

Sept. 10 – Oregon State

Sept. 17 – at USC

Sept. 24 – bye

Oct. 1 – at UConn

Oct. 8 – at Boise State

Oct. 15 – San Jose State

Oct. 22 – at New Mexico

Oct. 29 – San Diego State

Nov. 5 – Hawaii

Nov. 12 – at UNLV

Nov. 19 – at Nevada

Nov. 26 – Wyoming