FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Fresno State and San Diego State have been at it on the football field for more than a century – dating back to 1923.<\/p>\n
Ever since the 1935 discovery of an “Old Oil Can” during an SDSU building project, the Bulldogs and Aztecs have played for one of the oldest trophies in college football.<\/p>\n
For that reason alone, Saturday’s 63rd meeting between the longtime rivals is a special occasion.<\/p>\n
Add the fact that it’s Homecoming, a “Black-Out” with new black helmets worn by the Bulldogs, Jeff Tedford’s induction into the Ring of Honor at halftime, and this weekend’s game will be unlike any other this season.<\/p>\n
Kickoff is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. PT, the earliest kickoff at Valley Children’s Stadium since 2021. For the first time since that same year, the Aztecs (5-1, 3-0 MW) are receiving votes in the AP Top 25 poll.<\/p>\n
San Diego State is led by, according to Fresno State head coach Matt Entz, two future NFL draft picks on defense – defensive end Trey White and AP Midseason All-American cornerback Chris Johnson.<\/p>\n
In his weekly press conference, Entz further praised the Aztecs overall as the best team Fresno State (5-2, 2-1 MW) has played since Week 0 opponent Kansas.<\/p>\n
The first-year head coach pushed his team during the second bye week to tackle better and limit turnovers, both issues that plagued the ‘Dogs in their last game – a 49-21 loss at Colorado State.<\/p>\n
San Diego State also had a second bye week, but the Aztecs have been looking forward to meeting “The Team Up North” since July, when head coach Sean Lewis spoke glowingly of the rivalry.<\/p>\n
Their rivalry will survive conference realignment and continue into the PAC-12 next season. As of now, though, both teams control their own destiny in the Mountain West title race – just another layer of importance for Saturday’s game.<\/p>\n
Fresno State is one win away from becoming bowl eligible for the fifth year in a row. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Fresno State and San Diego State have been at it on the football field…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[13391,13388,112,114,113,742,762,7130,13389,13390,300],"class_list":["post-15541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-conference-realignment","tag-football-rivalry","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-fresno-state","tag-homecoming","tag-jeff-tedford","tag-mountain-west","tag-nfl-prospects","tag-san-diego-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}