FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 About a half-hour before kickoff, signs of a significant change were there.<\/p>\n
Sacramento State transfer Carson Conklin was taking E.J. Warner’s reps in pregame warmups and ended up replacing Warner as Fresno State’s starting quarterback.<\/p>\n
That move came against the No. 1-ranked defense in the Mountain West that featured multiple future NFL Draft picks.<\/p>\n
It did not pay off, as San Diego State shut out Fresno State on Saturday, 23-0. The last home shutout loss for the Bulldogs happened exactly 45 years ago, on Oct. 25, 1980, back when the team still played at Ratcliffe Stadium.<\/p>\n
Fresno State (5-3, 2-2 MW) did not reach the red zone (inside the opponent’s 20-yard line) until there were 4 minutes left in the game.<\/p>\n
By then, the Aztecs (6-1, 3-0 MW) already intercepted Conklin twice and returned one of those for a touchdown with 8 minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs’ offense didn’t have a single pass completed for 15 yards or more, or a single run that gained 10 yards or more.<\/p>\n
But, head coach Matt Entz thought a change was necessary after Warner threw 9 interceptions in 7 games. Only one other FBS college QB in the country has thrown more.<\/p>\n
“I felt like I had the right to make that decision,” Entz said. “We talk about ‘The ball is the team’ [and] we weren’t living that. We had turned the ball over too many times, too often, and then at the same time [I’m] trying to push a button, maybe get a little more leadership out of some people on offense.”<\/p>\n
Entz said he never thought about bringing Warner back in the game Saturday: “I felt good with my decision. Slept better at the end of the week than I had the previous 10 days.”<\/p>\n
Fresno State continues to move away from running the football. After a season-low 22 carries for the running backs at Colorado State, they only toted 17 carries on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs were playing from behind most of the afternoon, but because of timely defensive stops, they were never out of it until the late pick-six.<\/p>\n
Fresno State’s defense registered six tackles for loss, two sacks, a fumble recovery, and an interception by Al’Zillion Hamilton. They did not allow an Aztecs touchdown after Lucky Sutton rushed for a 1-yard score with 4 minutes to go in the 1st quarter.<\/p>\n
The Aztecs settled for field goals from 42, 50 and 27 yards out.<\/p>\n
Fresno State will look to keep its strong defense and find an offensive spark on the road at Boise State (6-2, 4-0), the preseason Mountain West title favorite.<\/p>\n
Kickoff at Albertsons Stadium is slated for Saturday, Nov. 1 at 12:30 p.m. PT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 About a half-hour before kickoff, signs of a significant change were there. Sacramento State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[18897,18899,746,112,114,113,742,762,13389,18898,300],"class_list":["post-24455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-carson-conklin","tag-defensive-performance","tag-e-j-warner","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-fresno-state","tag-homecoming","tag-mountain-west","tag-quarterback-change","tag-san-diego-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24455","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=24455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}