{"id":230380,"date":"2026-03-21T18:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/230380\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T18:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:41:10","slug":"fresno-state-opens-spring-ball-with-remarkable-retention-qb-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/230380\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresno State opens Spring Ball with remarkable retention, QB battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 The Fresno State football team reported to the practice field Friday morning to kick off spring camp, a period that head coach Matt Entz describes as &#8220;all about development.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Bulldogs aren&#8217;t going to win any games in the spring,&#8221; said Entz. &#8220;We&#8217;re setting ourselves up for success in the summer, the summer leads into the fall, and we&#8217;re just trying to embrace our process right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Entz established the foundation in his first season at the helm, leading the Bulldogs to a 9-4 record that included a road win at eventual Mountain West champion Boise State.<\/p>\n<p>But, a foundation only holds up if it&#8217;s stable.<\/p>\n<p>Consider this &#8211; Fresno State retained 14 starters from last year, as well as the entire coaching staff besides OL coach Zach Crabtree (Purdue). <\/p>\n<p>They only lost three major contributors to the transfer portal &#8211; Jayden Davis, Carson Conklin, and Richie Anderson &#8211; which makes the Bulldogs one of 12 FBS programs in the country to lose that few.<\/p>\n<p>If there&#8217;s anything Fresno State has, it&#8217;s stability.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We pride ourselves on being about our people, our process, and hopefully that&#8217;s part of the reason we&#8217;ve been able to retain,&#8221; Entz said.<\/p>\n<p>What Fresno State does not have yet is a starting quarterback.<\/p>\n<p>With Conklin and E.J. Warner moving on, the QB battle is &#8220;very competitive&#8221; between Maryland transfer Khristian Martin, returner Jayden Mandal, and freshmen Jonathan Craft, Jacob Chambers and Deagan Rose.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of servant leadership in that room as well,&#8221; Entz said. &#8220;No Bulldogs down, they are all helping each other.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Bulldogs were 98 players deep Friday, which Coach Entz pointed out as the most he&#8217;s ever had for a spring practice.<\/p>\n<p>Running back Bryson Donelson and safety Ryan Wilson are two starters who will miss spring football while recovering from offseason surgery, according to Entz.<\/p>\n<p>Fresno State returns to practice Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 The Fresno State football team reported to the practice field Friday morning to kick&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-230380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230380","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=230380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}