Fresno State will be good this season, but 12-0 good? Here are The Bee’s predictions
Fresno State has been in a similar position before, coming off a big season with returning players and extra-large expectations, and each time the Bulldogs have come close to hitting the mark.
It happened in 2013 when winning a Mountain West championship with Derek Carr and Davante Adams, after winning a share of the title the previous year. But the Bulldogs fell short of a New Year’s Six bowl game with a loss at San Jose State to end the regular season. It happened in 2018 with Marcus McMaryion and a defense led by Jeffrey Allison when winning the conference championship after reaching the title game a year earlier. But 7-point losses at Minnesota and at Boise State impacted their upside.
Can the Bulldogs, coming off a 10-3 season that included a victory over Texas-El Paso in the New Mexico Bowl, take that next step this season under coach Jeff Tedford?
The Bulldogs will know, fairly early in the season. They play Oregon State in the second game and have a trip to No. 14 USC the following week. Then, after a cross-country trip to UConn, Fresno State will be back on the road for a challenging game at Boise State to open conference play.
Here’s how it could play out ...
Cal Poly
Coach: Beau Baldwin
- 2-12 in third season, 97-47 overall
2021 record: 2-9, 1-7 in Big Sky
Record over past five seasons: 11-36
Returning quarterback? Spencer Brasch. The junior completed only 54% of his passes last season, starting the first two games and the final five.
The matchup: The Mustangs allowed 39.2 points a game last season while scoring just 15.4, so a 63-10 loss to the Bulldogs wasn’t the only time they were on the wrong side of a blowout. Fresno State has not lost to a lower-division opponent since 1984 and under Tedford has rolled its three FCS opponents by an average of 48.7 points.
The prediction: Fresno State 52-6.
Oregon State
Coach: Jonathan Smith
- 16-28 in fifth season and overall
2021 record: 7-6, 5-4 in Pac-12
Record over past five seasons: 17-39
Returning quarterback? Chance Nolan. The Beavers leaned on the run last season, but still led the Pac-12 with 43 pass plays of 20 or more yards.
The matchup: The Beavers are trending in the right direction under Smith, but they still are just 1-5 in their past six games against the Mountain West including a loss to Utah State last season in the L.A. Bowl. This game, though at home, is a more difficult challenge for the Bulldogs than beating UCLA last season at the Rose Bowl. It’ll be close.
The prediction: Fresno State 28-23.
USC
Coach: Lincoln Riley
- 0-0 in first season, 55-10 overall
2021 record: 4-8, 3-6 in Pac-12
Record over past five seasons: 33-24
Returning quarterback? No, but Oklahoma transfer Caleb Williams steps in with a solid set of wideouts including Pitt transfer Jordan Addison.
The matchup: It wouldn’t be a surprise if Fresno State won this game, a great matchup between coaches and coordinators. But this game could be won outside the Xs and Os and the Trojans might have an edge with Williams, who last season threw eight TD passes with two interceptions when under pressure and rushed for six scores.
The prediction: USC 31-28
UConn
Coach: Jim Mora
- 0-1 in first season, 46-31 overall
2021 record: 1-11
Record over past five seasons: 10-50
Returning quarterback? No. The Huskies already lost their starter to a knee injury and are starting a freshman who hit 38.7% of his passes last week.
The matchup: The Huskies flew across the country to open 2021 at Fresno State and suffered a 45-0 loss. The Bulldogs had their foot off the accelerator by halftime, a good indicator how much ground UConn has to make up. Here’s another: they lost by 14 to UMass, which snapped a 16-game losing streak with the win and finished 1-11.
The prediction: Fresno State 34-10
Boise State
Coach: Andy Avalos
- 7-5 in second season and overall
2021 record: 7-5, 5-3 in Mountain West
Record over past five seasons: 45-15
Returning quarterback? Hank Bachmeier. The senior is 4-4 against teams that finished conference play with a winning record, 9-0 against teams with a losing record.
The matchup: Too often in this series the Bulldogs have come out and appeared unprepared to play and a 40-14 loss last season was reminiscent of a run of blowout losses. They haven’t matched the Broncos’ level of execution or physicality. But it’s worth noting that Tedford is 2-2 against Boise State, the losses by seven and three points.
The prediction: Fresno State 27-20
San Jose State
Coach: Brent Brennan
- 20-37 in sixth season and overall
2021 record: 5-7, 3-5 in Mountain West
Record over past five seasons: 20-37
Returning quarterback? No, but after a dreadful season on offense the Spartans went out and landed Hawaii transfer Chevan Cordeiro.
The matchup: The Bulldogs have a habit of throwing in a clunker, and this is the danger spot. Fresno State will have played Oregon State, USC and Boise State with a cross-country trip to UConn over the previous five weeks and get home for the first time in a month. Do the Spartans have enough to take advantage? Yes, they do.
The prediction: Fresno State 28-21
New Mexico
Coach: Danny Gonzales
- 5-14 in third season and overall
2021 record: 3-9, 1-7 in the Mountain West
Record over past five seasons: 13-42
Returning quarterback? Yes, but the Lobos are going with Kansas transfer Miles Kendrick at the start of the season.
The matchup: The Lobos don’t likely have enough experience to make much of a run, but in Kendrick they do have an oddity. For them, anyway. The Super Senior quarterback has completed 61.1% of 157 career passes, and New Mexico has not had a quarterback who has both attempted 100 passes and hit 60% or better since 2005.
The prediction: Fresno State 41-14
San Diego State
Coach: Brady Hoke
- 16-6 in third season, 94-78 overall
2021 record: 12-2, 7-2 in Mountain West
Record over past five seasons: 43-18
Returning quarterback? No. Virginia Tech transfer Braxton Burmeister is expected to start. He hit just 55.7% of his passes last season.
The matchup: The Aztecs defense will keep them in most games, but their offense has really struggled to score in this series and that doesn’t figure to change. San Diego State has scored more than 20 points just once in the past six meetings — it had 21 in 2015. The Bulldogs are much better equipped to find points in a grinding defensive game.
The prediction: Fresno State 26-17
Hawaii
Coach: Timmy Chang
- 0-1 in first season and overall
2021 record: 6-7, 3-5 in Mountain West
Record over past five seasons: 32-31
Returning quarterback? Yes. Bulldogs fans should remember Brayden Schager, who led the Rainbow Warriors to a comeback win last season.
The matchup: Hawaii was wrecked by former coach Todd Graham, who resigned last season amid a storm of transfers. Timmy Chang, the former Rainbow Warriors quarterback, could get that program going in the right direction again, but it won’t be this season. Hawaii has only 33% of its production from 2021 returning.
The prediction: Fresno State 38-13
UNLV
Coach: Marcus Arroyo
- 3-16 in third season and overall
2021 record: 2-10, 2-6 in Mountain West
Record over past five seasons: 15-39
Returning quarterback? It has several, but Doug Brumfield got the start and threw for four TDs in an easy opening win over FCS Idaho State.
The matchup: If any coach in the Mountain West is on the hot seat, it is Arroyo. Are the Rebels capable of making a move in his third season? They might be closing a substantial gap — UNLV had a scoring differential of minus-20.7 points a game in 2020, then minus-12.0 in 2021.
The prediction: Fresno State 45-20
Nevada
Coach: Ken Wilson
- 1-0 in first season and overall
2021 record: 8-5, 5-3 in Mountain West
Record over past five seasons: 33-27
Returning quarterback? No, and the two who played in an opening victory at New Mexico State averaged just 3.4 yards per attempt.
The matchup: Nevada had made progress under former coach Jay Norvell, now at Colorado State. But it was decimated by graduation and the transfer portal and the Pack has the lowest percentage of returning production in the nation, and by a sizable margin. Wilson signed a ton of transfers, but the Wolf Pack is starting over.
The prediction: Fresno State 31-13
Wyoming
Coach: Craig Bohl
45-51 in ninth season and overall
2021 record: 7-6, 2-6 in Mountain West
Record over past five seasons: 31-26
Returning quarterback? No. The Cowboys played two quarterbacks last season including Sean Chambers (Kerman) and both transferred out.
The matchup: Wyoming is another team ranked toward the bottom of the nation in returning production, and what it has had has not been all that competitive with the Bulldogs. In the past three meetings, the Cowboys have scored a total of 10 points. Expect them to improve, but it’s difficult to build a credible case for an upset.
The prediction: Fresno State 28-3
This story was originally published August 31, 2022 at 12:02 PM.