Utah State has a really tough stretch to end the season, facing UNLV in game 10 and taking on Boise State in the finale. Right alongside those two games in difficulty will be the 11th opponent of the season for the Aggies in Fresno State. It’ll be the second straight road game and a late kickoff (the latest kickoff of the season outside of Hawaii).
The Bulldogs have been a tough, but beatable, opponent for the Aggies in the past. Both teams have first-year head coaches and are looking to re-establish dominance the two teams once held in the conference.
This is the in-depth preseason preview of Utah State’s eighth opponent of the season, the Fresno State Bulldogs.
Other Opponent Previews
Game Info
- Game Day: Nov. 22
- Location: Valley Children’s Stadium (Fresno, CA)
- Kickoff Time: 8:30 p.m.
- TV Broadcast: CBS Sports Network
- Radio Broadcast: KVNU 102.1 FM / 610 AM
Quick-Hit Info on Fresno State
- Head Coach: Matt Entz (1st season at Fresno State)
- 2024 Record: 6-7
- 2024 Offense Rank: 81st (26.1 points per game)
- 2024 Defense Rank: 65th (24.8 points allowed per game)
- Returning Starters — (3 offense, 3 defense)
- 2025 Preseason Average Ranking — 87.0
Returning Production Rank — 112th
History of Utah State vs this opponent
- All-Time Series: Fresno State leads 13-19-1
- Series During MW Era: Tied 3-3
- First-Ever Meeting: Oct. 18, 1952 (Fresno State won 27-21)
- Most Recent Meeting: Oct. 13, 2023 (Fresno State won 37-32)
The winner of this game will get bragging rights over having a winning record against the other since Utah State joined the Mountain West. Though with both teams set to remain conference opponents in the new Pac-12, that’s a pretty random distinction. Overall, Utah State should be content with how the last dozen or so years of games against Fresno State have fared since instead of being six games below .500 vs the Bulldogs, the Aggies are instead exactly .500 (for now). Getting this series fully turned around would be a pretty big hurdle cleared as the Pac-12 era beckons.
Opposing Players to Watch
- E.J. Warner (QB)
- Bryson Donelson (RB)
- Josiah Freeman (WR)
- Jahzon Jacks (DE)
- Jadon Pearson (LB) – former Utah State athlete
- Simeon Harris (DB) – former Utah State athlete
- Al/zillion Hamilton (DB)
The Bulldogs in 2024
Fresno State had what would bluntly be described as a disappointing season by its usual high standard, but had a decent excuse for it. On July 15, 2024, head coach Jeff Tedford, who’d led Fresno State to a 44-22 record across two stints as head coach, suddenly stepped down due to health concerns. That left Tim Skipper to be interim head coach and try to keep the team rolling after the team went 19-8 over its previous two season.
The momentum did not keep up as Fresno State proved to be a middle-of-the-road team.
The Bulldogs beat most of the teams they were supposed to, but lost every potential big game and even dropped some games they really shouldn’t have. A 30-10 loss at No. 9 Michigan was mostly acceptable, but after three straight wins were getting Fresno State back on track, the team laid a complete egg against UNLV. The Bulldogs lost 59-14 and then followed that up with a home loss to Washington State that put them at 3-3 on the season.
With the next four games against the likes of Nevada, San Jose State, Hawaii and Air Force, the Bulldogs had every chance and expectation of being able to get to a 7-3 record by the time key November matchups against Colorado State and UCLA came around. But Fresno State split those four games, beating Nevada/SJSU and losing to Hawaii/Air Force. That ruined any hope of a conference title game appearance, though the Bulldogs licked their wounds with a win over Colorado State that spoiled the Rams’ chances at being in the title game.
Fresno State got to bowl eligibility with that win over CSU, but lost the regular season finale to UCLA (20-13) and its bowl matchup against Northern Illinois (28-20) to complete the disappointing, but excusable, 6-7 season.
2025 Season Prospects
With a new full-time head coach in Matt Entz, the Bulldogs are poised for a rebound year, but will have to complete a mini-rebuild with how much the team lost in the offseason. It’s not as bad as the likes of USU, UNLV or New Mexico, but the Bulldogs still rank in the bottom 30 of teams in returning production.
The Bulldogs took a big loss in the transfer portal with Mikey Keene leaving for Michigan. Keene had been a two-year starter, throwing for nearly 6,000 yards and more than 40 touchdowns across two seasons. All three of his top receiving targets, including First Team All-MW selection Mac Dalena, are likewise gone plus the entire starting O-line.
Replacing Keene will be Rice transfer E.J. Warner. He started his career at Temple but transferred to Rice where he proceeded to have a sub-optimal year by his standards. In two years at Temple he averaged 290.7 passing yards per game and an NFL passer rating of _. Those numbers fell to 246.4 yards per game and a passer rating of _ in 2024. Warner has also always been an interception-happy QB, leading all active QBs in interceptions since 2022 (37). If he’s able to get back the nearly 300-yard-per-game production, the interceptions will probably mostly be worth the gains, but that’s easier said than done.
Warner’s new pass-catching unit will feature a crew consisting largely of returning Bulldogs looking for a breakout season. Josiah Freeman, a 6-foot-3 receiver, played in the first four games last season (had eight receptions for 95 yards and two TDs) before suffering a season-ending injury. Jordan Brown, who appeared in all 13 games but had only nine catches, will start alongside Freeman as the slot receiver. Maryland transfer receiver Ezekiel Avit will be the third starting receiver. One name to keep an eye on though is sophomore Rickie Anderson III. As a redshirt freshman last year he caught 18 passes for 147 yards and could elevate himself as a pass-catcher now that he’s got some experience under his belt.
The biggest area of improvement for the offense has to come from its run game. Last year the Bulldogs averaged 98.2 rushing yards per game, the lowest per-game average for the program since 1984. Both of Fresno State’s two leading rushers — Elijah Gilliam (121 attempts, 466 yards, eight TDs) and Bryson Donelson (77 attempts, 462 yards, three TDs) — return, though Gilliam is not listed in the two-deep depth chart. Donelson seems to have won the starting job after a really solid three-game stretch to end last season. He ran for 263 yards and two touchdowns (including a 140-yard game against Colorado State) while also catching 12 passes for 72 yards and another touchdown. Arizona transfer Rayshon Luke will be the primary reserve with Gilliam as the third back.
As much as having returning talent, and a solid transfer additions, should help, the biggest key for the run game (and for helping the passing game) will be on the offensive line. Entz brought in several Power Four transfers for the O-line, but the starting five only includes one newcomer to this year’s roster, true freshman Brayden Walton. The remaining four starters listed are all returners, though none were among the top five in snaps played on the O-line for the Bulldogs last year. That’s not to say there isn’t experience, though. Edward Fonua, Jacob Spomer and Campbell McHarg all played 240+ snaps last year with a few starts apiece for the trio (injuries limited much of their playing time last year). How effective this particular unit is will have a massive impact on whether the Bulldogs can have the better and more balanced offenses the program is used to.
The defense for Fresno State will include two familiar faces to Aggie fans — defensive back Simeon Harris and linebacker Jadon Pearson. Both played for Utah State, with Harris spending two years in Logan and Pearson playing one season for USU. Both were listed as starters by the Bulldogs in their latest depth chart. They’re two of the four listed starters that are newcomers to the team alongside defensive lineman Martin Owusu and linebacker K’vion Thunderbird. The rest are returners, most of whom had consistent starts and/or snaps last year. One of the most notable returners is Al’zillion Hamilton, a preseason All-MW selection at cornerback who had 52 tackles and 13 pass breakups last year.
A pretty clear theme with Fresno State is that, unlike other teams in the Mountain West that had similar or worse levels of attrition, the Bulldogs are filling the gaps in their lineup the old-fashioned way: with players they already had on the roster. The majority of starting spots vacated over the offseason have been replaced by guys on FSU’s roster in 2024, especially in key position groups like the offensive and defensive lines. It’ll be an interesting thing to watch, whether this classic roster building strategy holds up amidst a host of other teams in the conference leaning much further into the transfer portal to fill out the rotations.
Preseason Game Prediction — Decisive loss
Even though both Utah State and Fresno State have new coaches, the continuity the Bulldogs have is just far superior to make any other prediction. There are obviously things we don’t know, but what we do know points to Fresno State being much more likely to be a notably better team than the Aggies. The stability of the Bulldogs as a program also has to be accounted for as they’re clearly ahead of the Aggies right now. Just take last season where both programs lost head coaches late in the offseason but the Bulldogs still went to a bowl game while USU floundered.
This game will probably be the easiest of the final three weeks for Utah State, but that’s a pretty high bar considering the two others are UNLV and Boise State. Hopefully, by this point in the year, the Aggies will already be bowl eligible because it’ll be tough for a USU team at only 4-5 wins by November to be coming out the other side with six wins.
