Get to Know Your Foe: Fresno State
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Welcome to a new series on CougCenter. Each week leading up to kickoff of the 2026 football season, we will be previewing one of the new teams joining the Pac-12. Today, we begin with the Fresno State Bulldogs. The Washington State Cougars will see the Bulldogs for the first time as a conference opponent in Week 5 in Pullman.
But before we meet the Bulldogs on the field or court, who is Fresno State?
California State University, Fresno, or Fresno State, was founded in 1911 as part of the California State University system, located in, well, Fresno, California.
The Bulldogs began playing football in 1921, playing as an independent. They later joined the Pacific Coast Athletic Association, now known as the Big West Conference, in 1969. From there, they joined the WAC in 1992, where they remained until joining the Mountain West in 2012.
Fresno State found success early in their football years, boasting undefeated records in 1930 and 1961. The latter earned them a trip to the Mercy Bowl, held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. They defeated Bowling Green 36-6 to cap their undefeated season. The two teams ended up meeting in the next two bowl appearances by Fresno State in 1982 and 1985, this time in the California Bowl. The Bulldogs won both of those meetings, including a 51-7 thrashing in 1985, which again capped off an undefeated season. All of this under head coach Jim Sweeney, who coached Washington State prior to his time at Fresno State from 1968 to 1975.
Sweeney didn’t see much success in his time at Washington State, going a combined 26-59-1 with just one winning season in 1972. However, the story was much different at Fresno State. In Fresno, Sweeney went 143-75-3 over his 19 years as head coach. Sweeney led the Bulldogs to seven conference championships (five in the Big West, two in the WAC), seven bowl appearances, and five bowl wins. In 1992, the Bulldogs finished 24th in the AP poll.
After Sweeney came Pat Hill, another long-time staple in the Bulldog program. Hill led the Bulldogs from 1997 to 2011, going 112-80 in his 15 years and winning a WAC championship in 1999. However, it was his 2001 season that stands out. Led by future NFL quarterback David Carr, the Bulldogs knocked off a pair of ranked teams in the first two weeks of the season, #10 Oregon State and #23 Wisconsin, to launch themselves into the AP top 10 after beginning the season unranked. However, after starting the season 6-0, the Bulldogs suffered their first loss, an upset to Boise State 35-30. The Bulldogs fell out of the AP poll entirely the next week with a second straight loss, this time to the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. They were able to recover and finish the season with a 11-2 record, earning them a trip to the Silicon Valley Bowl against the Michigan State Spartans. The appearance was a second of four straight trips to the bowl game and the third of seven straight bowl appearances under Hill.
Fresno State again returned to the national stage as big game hunters in 2004 after starting the season with wins at Washington and at #13 Kansas State to launch themselves again from unranked to the AP poll. They again ran into a losing streak against conference foes that ended their time in the AP poll. They finished that season with a 37-34 win over Virginia in the MPC Computers Bowl.
Following Hill was Tim DeRuyter in 2012. DeRuyter took over right as the Bulldogs entered the Mountain West Conference and immediately put them on top with a split conference championship with their old WAC foes, Boise State. Deruyter rolled that success into a big 2013 season. The Bulldogs began the season 10-0, jumping all the way to #15 in the AP poll. In the regular season finale, however, they would fall short against rival San Jose State in a 62-52 shootout. The Bulldogs would still win the Mountain West championship game the following week over Utah State, earning a trip to the Las Vegas Bowl to play USC. That would be the last of DeRuyter’s successes; the following three seasons he would go a combined 10-24, being fired midway through the 2016 season. Jeff Tedford stepped in and immediately revived the Fresno State football program in 2017. The Bulldogs went 9-3 in Tedford’s debut season, winning the Hawaii Bowl over Houston and then winning the Mountain West in his second season behind a 10-2 regular season. After a disappointing 4-8 2019 season, Tedford stepped down due to health reasons.
A notable name then took charge of the Bulldogs for the 2020 season, Kalen DeBoer. After the shortened six-game 2020 season, in which they went 3-3, DeBoer led the Bulldogs to a 9-3 2021 season, anchored by some early-season heroics from Jake Haener. Most notably, a thrilling 40-37 upset of #13 UCLA. They nearly stunned #11 Oregon in Eugene two weeks prior, falling just short 31-24. After DeBoer left to coach Washington, Tedford returned to Fresno State and immediately led them to a Mountain West championship in 2022. After an 8-4 season in 2023, Tedford again stepped away from the program, citing health concerns, and would not return for the 2024 season. The Bulldogs are now led by Matt Entz. Entz, the former head coach at North Dakota State, led the Bulldogs to an 8-4 record in 2025 with an Arizona Bowl win over Miami-Ohio.
If you have watched Fresno State football, you have also probably noticed a green V on the back of their helmets. Obviously, Fresno State and Bulldogs do not start with a “V”; however, the “Green V” symbolizes the school’s connection to the San Joaquin Valley. According to Fresno State, the color green was chosen to represent the strong agriculture of the Central Valley.
Overall, the Bulldogs hold a 702-483-31 all-time record and 29 conference championships. Some of the great football players to come out of Fresno State include Davante Adams, David Carr, Derek Carr, Phillip Thomas, and Ryan Matthews.
Fresno State has a handful of rivals, mostly stemming from their times in the WAC and Mountain West, and actually plays for quite a few annual trophies. Their rivalry against Hawaii is unofficially called the Battle for the Golden Screwdriver. The two have played nearly annually going back to 1938. The rivalry name comes from a story in which a fan supposedly had thrown a screwdriver at Hawaii head coach June Jones.
Their big regional rivalry is with San Jose State, named the Battle for the Valley. Separated by about 150 miles, the two play for the Valley Trophy, which has been handed out to the winner starting in 2013. The two will meet in Week 3 at San Jose State.
Fresno State will also carry two rivalries into Pac-12 play. First being with Boise State, someone they are familiar with sharing a conference with. Remember earlier when Boise State knocked off undefeated top-10 Fresno State in 2001? Well, that was Boise State’s first year in the WAC. And when Fresno State joined the Mountain West in 2012 and split a conference title with Boise State? These two have been rooted in some conference rivalries for a while now. The two will meet to play for the Milk Can trophy in Week 6 in Fresno. The Bulldogs have held the Milk Can since 2023.
The other rivalry they will be bringing with them to the Pac-12 is with San Diego State. This trophy is called the Old Oil Can. Beginning to be distributed in 2011, the story of the old oil can goes back much further. The two schools started playing against each other in football back in 1923. In a quote from the executive director of the Fresno State Alumni Association, Jacquelyn K. Glasener, “The oil can likely came from a time when Aztec and Bulldog fans traveled to football games between the two schools via the old, twisting, precipitous Grapevine section of Highway 99 over Tejon Pass,” and thus the Old Oil Can was formed for these two California rivals separated by over 300 miles. The Old Oil Can is currently projected to be played for twice, once in Week 7 and in the final week of the regular season in the Pac-12, “flex” week.
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