LSU junior quarterback JaMarcus Russell can remember only one situation in his football lifetime when he experienced what Fresno State is going through this season. The Bulldogs (1-5) have lost five games in a row and are fresh off a 68-37 home loss Saturday to the University of Hawaii. Prior to the loss to Hawaii, Fresno State’s previous four losses came by an average of 6 points. “Going into my sophomore year [in high school], we had a lot of freshmen guys come in,” Russell said. “And the last couple of games we struggled, but after that we got a hold to it and got it going.” Despite the tough times this season, Fresno State coach Pat Hill said playing top-25 opponents like LSU is just part of his approach to scheduling top-notch competition for his mid-major program. Each year, the Bulldogs are commonly known as a college football team that seeks to play Bowl Championship Series conference teams to help build its resume. “Every year we try to put a schedule together that gives us an opportunity, if we can make a nice run, [to] challenge for the same kind of games everyone else is challenging for in the BCS,” Hill said. The current BCS system allows six conferences – Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pacific-10, Southeastern and Atlantic Coast conferences – to send their conference champions to BCS bowl games. This system virtually requires teams like Fresno State to go undefeated in a season to receive a bid to a BCS bowl game since the Western Athletic Conference is not a BCS conference. And to Hill, this present configuration is not fair. “This BCS thing is a joke,” Hill said in a story published on espn.com. “Until the playoff stage comes to football, it’s very unfair to see the playoffs start on Labor Day weekend. Everything is based on being perfect.” Hill is in his 10th season as Fresno State coach, compiling a 72-43 record coming into this season and leading his past seven teams to bowl appearances. In the same seven-season span, Hill’s teams are averaging nine wins per season. The most wins a team has compiled during his time was in 2001 when the Bulldogs recorded an 11-3 season, including a 44-35 loss to Michigan State University in the Silicon Valley Football Classic bowl game. The highest ranking Fresno State has maintained in the program’s history is the No. 8 slot in the Associated Press poll on Oct. 8 and Oct. 15, 2001. Hill said he works to compete with BCS trends by scheduling as many non-conference BCS opponents as he can to increase his team’s exposure. “The more I look at it, I think if you’re a mid-major [team], and you want to talk about playing at that level you’ve got to play those teams,” Hill said. But scheduling BCS teams is easier said than done. The Bulldogs’ games against BCS opponents are usually on the road because the Bulldogs have trouble offering visiting schools large sums of money to play a road game at Fresno State. “We have had a nice little series with Oregon and Oregon State,” Hill said. “We had two games with Washington. They have been very, very competitive games.” When compiling its non-conference schedule, Hill said he first tries to attract teams located in the West, near California. But that attempt is usually tough because most schools near Fresno State such as Southern California and UCLA fill their open dates with Division I-AA teams to whom the large schools offer a large monetary payout. “We don’t pay [I-AA schools] as much as the competition pays them,” Hill said. “We cannot get games with our local PAC-10 schools.” Hill said his next step is to look at teams in conferences such as the Big Ten and the SEC to find teams to play. “What we have to do is keep waiting,” Hill said. The opportunity to play a team like LSU is very enticing, Hill said, but also offers a kind-of catch-22 situation. “Those are great chances for exposure,” Hill said. “And also every time you play one of those games, it’s a great chance to be exposed.” Taking a chance at being defeated handily is something Hill is willing to accept, but he said the idea of being on the winning end of an upset is exciting. “I’m very involved with our scheduling, and we have no problems scheduling the way we do,” Hill said. “Sometimes when you ask for it, you get it.” For Hill, there is no quick-fix or magic button he can push to change the present situation. And Hill said until college football decides to change, then Fresno State cannot do anything different. “We’re going to have to continue to play the schedules we do,” Hill said. “And that’s fine by me.”
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