Instant Analysis: Fresno State-Rutgers

There are many ways to prevail or perish in a football fistfight, but it’s hard to imagine a more dramatic—yet slight—difference between victory and defeat than the one seen on Monday afternoon, as Fresno State got out of Dodge with a win over Rutgers.

Such a claim is hard to quantify, but all appearances suggested that over the first three quarters of play in Piscataway, the home team from the state university of New Jersey outpaced its WAC counterpart. Rutgers seemed to win a majority of snaps, evinced by the fact that the Scarlet Knights made the game’s first few forays into scoring territory. Throughout the first half, it was Greg Schiano’s club that played with greater physicality and precision, taking the fight to Fresno before an enthusiastic home crowd. The swagger that has belonged to past Fresno State teams did not emerge in the game’s first 30 minutes. By all accounts, Rutgers should have accumulated a two-possession lead going into the locker room at the break.

This is where the ebb and flow of Monday’s game proved to be so delightful for the triumphant Bulldogs, and so bitterly frustrating for the vanquished Scarlet Knights.

For all of Rutgers’ first-half dominance, the boys in red couldn’t dent the scoreboard at all. A drive inside the FSU 5 was stopped on downs. Another drive into scoring range produced a missed field goal on a day when Rutgers sorely missed Jeremy Ito, a late-game hero of past seasons. A third scoring attempt was denied when a flea-flicker inside the Fresno 40 led to an end-zone interception. A fourth drive—this one into the red zone—ended in disaster when a bobbled snap produced a botched field goal. Instead of having what should have been a 13-0 lead or even a modest 6-0 lead, Rutgers stood even with the Bulldogs in a flat-footed scoreless tie. Though not trailing, the Scarlet Knights had to feel that their inability to establish a firm advantage—and turn their physical superiority into scoreboard supremacy—could very well come back to haunt them.

How accurate that feeling would turn out to be, in a narrative that’s quite familiar to anyone who’s watched sports for an appreciable amount of time. If you outplay the opposition, you better have something to show for it. Otherwise, games can be lost when early-stage excellence doesn’t translate to the scoreboard. That’s the very fate that Rutgers suffered on a deflating afternoon for a program looking to maintain, if not increase, its standing in the college football world.

In the first 18 minutes of the second half, Rutgers—if this game were compared to a boxing match—probably landed more overall punches, good enough for a slight scorecard lead. The problem was that Fresno State landed a major blow, a 77-yard touchdown pass from Tom Brandstater to Seyi Ajirotutu. Rutgers roared back with a smart, sustained scoring march, but the pattern of this contest had been perpetuated: Rutgers still won most snaps, but Fresno won the key snaps, enough—at any rate—to carve out a 10-7 lead with 11:20 remaining. Rutgers would have to keep pushing in an uphill battle to finally earn the lead it had mysteriously been unable to secure.

But then, just when Rutgers was ready to assert itself—armed with fresh momentum and energy after its touchdown early in the fourth and final stanza—the Bulldogs finally entered the fray for good, showing the nation why Boise State’s WAC title drought might extend to two straight seasons.

The most impressive moment of Pat Hill’s tenure as FSU’s head coach came three years ago, when the Bulldogs fought No. 1 USC to the limit in the Los Angeles Coliseum before suffering a heartbreakingly narrow defeat. On that night, the Bulldogs blew holes in USC’s vaunted defensive line, smacking the Trojans into submission in a bold and confident display of attacking football. When Fresno State football is firing on all cylinders, the offensive front is punishing people, and the Bulldogs find a great run-pass mix.

Hill had to watch with admiration, then, as his offense—lethargic for most of the afternoon and lacking any sustained rhythm—finally found a finishing kick precisely when Rutgers seemed ready to steal momentum, and the ballgame itself, from the Bulldogs. Immediately after that Rutgers touchdown early in the fourth quarter, Ryan Mathews busted off a 27-yard run. And just when the Scarlet Knights were ready to consolidate momentum—after two untimely FSU penalties created a 3rd and 23 for the Bulldogs at the Rutgers 32—Brandstater hooked up with Ajirotutu, his favorite target, for a backbreaking 31-yard play to the 1. Two snaps later, Mathews darted into the end zone with 6:46 left.

The air went out of the building. The lead grew back to two possessions. Rutgers’ will to fight was extinguished.

After 45 minutes of dominance, Rutgers couldn’t even manage a lead. In 15 solid minutes down the stretch, Fresno State maximized its own opportunities after surviving the first three quarters. This game provided the kind of storyline that puts a silly, giddy smile on the winner—especially on the road—while stomach-punching the loser into an emptiness that is unique to college football, particularly in a much-hyped season opener that’s been circled on the calendar for the past eight months.