One Group of Six coach says 'going to the Big 12 isn't a big enough jump.' Think bigger

NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...

Georgia. Notre Dame. Oregon. Fresno State?

One of those is not like the others, until you realize it is.

Perhaps quietly, after an ahead-of-schedule nine-win debut season in 2025, Matt Entz has Fresno State as a potential Group of Six College Football Playoff contender and presumptive challenger in the reborn Pac-12.

The Bulldogs, after all, return “14 of 15 starters, depending on how you want to look at it,” Entz told USA TODAY Sports.

Notre Dame and Oregon tout 15 returning starters; Georgia and USC also are among Power conference teams fielding some of the sport’s most experienced rosters with at least 14 returners.

There’s the potential for more for Fresno.

“I think our players are seeing that ‘Hey, this experience is bigger than just me. I can get wherever I want from Fresno State,” Entz said. “Now, at the same time, we have another successful season, it's going to get harder and harder to retain some of these players because, again, there are lucrative opportunities out there. And I talk about that in recruiting.

“We're utilizing that to keep kids here. We're going to help you get the next contract, some way, somehow. I don't know if that's in the SEC, the Big Ten, or the NFL, but we'll figure it out as we kind of navigate this.”

Entz — the former Football Championship Subdivision national title-winning assistant and head coach at North Dakota State — also has a remarkable vision for building his Bulldogs roster for sustainability via new NCAA rules.

After bringing aboard a school-record 15 freshmen as January enrollees, Entz believes the timetable for college football players to contribute is dramatically shifting and instructs his Fresno staff to lean into what the NCAA terms the “age-based eligibility model” and what everyone calls “five-for-five.”

“With this five-year rule, what we've started to do with this five-year eligibility piece is say, 'Hey, three years at Fresno State can set you up for the next opportunity,'” Entz told USA TODAY Sports. “And then you still have two years to go to Alabama or Texas. But going to the Big 12 isn't a big enough jump. You have to go to the Big Ten, SEC or NFL.”

With more than 20 of his former players in the NFL and Power Four transfer-starters such as Miami running back Marty Brown, a former Entz signee at North Dakota State, Entz and his staff are reshaping the contributor timetable for newcomers.

“All we've done is we've tried to accelerate that a little bit in our recruiting,” said Entz, whose Bulldogs battered Boise State last year and won the Arizona Bowl. “One of the biggest things that we're looking for, of course, they have to be the fit. They got to check all the boxes. Athleticism, toughness, football IQ, character, all those matter.

“But the other piece that we ask now is, 'Are you going to be able to enroll early?' Those 15 players who enrolled early now are going to have an opportunity.”

Entz also is embracing the vision of his athletic director, Garrett Klassy, whose previous experience includes Alabama and Houston in upper-cabinet roles.

Klassy’s vision for Fresno’s “Valley Co-Op” has Entz touting a “quadrupled” monetary investment into the Bulldogs’ football roster and sees Klassy linking it to the region.

“I needed coaches, I needed more boots on the street, for lack of a better term, because it couldn't just be myself, it couldn't just be our Bulldog Foundation staff out there,” Klassy says of the program, which he relates to the San Joaquin Valley’s 3 million residents and agricultural roots. “And the coaches, it's really resonated with the coaches, and we do have a lot of supporters that give to multiple programs.

“There's two areas where we can make up ground on the rest of the league and that's philanthropic giving. And that's corporate sponsorship, and so we need to grow those immensely. And we're going to announce a record fundraising year, which is $5 million more annually than it was the previous year. Corporate sponsorships with the jersey patches are almost across the finish line; we should be up $2 to $3 million in that area. Now that doesn't make a big difference in the SEC or Big Ten, but that makes a huge difference for us.”

Klassy envisions the 4,300-member Valley Co-Op swelling to 7,000 across the next year.

Entz, meanwhile, wants Fresno football to live up to its billing as the region’s top draw.

“There has been an investment from an administrative standpoint, understanding that we need to have a football program that's good at Fresno State,” said Entz, specifically citing Klassy and Fresno President Dr. Saul Jimenez-Sandoval. “We have a ton of history and tradition.

“We're the biggest show in town in the Valley, and people want to see a good product on the field.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: One Group of Six coach says 'going to the Big 12 isn't a big enough jump.' Think bigger

More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos