FORT COLLINS, CO. (FOX26) \u2014 Fresno State started slow and never recovered from costly turnovers and penalties in the 1st half, losing to Colorado State in Fort Collins, 49-21, on Friday night.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs (5-2, 2-1 MW) carried a 5-game win streak into the game. The Rams (2-4, 1-1 MW) had not beaten an FBS team all season.<\/p>\n
None of that mattered when Colorado State running back Justin Marshall broke an arm tackle and scampered 73 yards for the Rams’ opening touchdown.<\/p>\n
The explosive play sparked a run of four consecutive touchdown drives for CSU, which were aided by Bulldog miscues.<\/p>\n
Fresno State quarterback E.J. Warner threw an interception on the following drive; the Rams scored on the short field to take a 14-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs attempted a fake punt that failed, resulting in another short field and touchdown for Colorado State.<\/p>\n
In the second quarter, an offside penalty against Fresno State gave CSU a free five yards on 4th & 4. The Rams cashed in on the next play to extend their lead, 28-7.<\/p>\n
Then, Warner had the football stripped away from him on a scramble, and the Rams returned the fumble 36 yards for a touchdown.<\/p>\n
Every time Fresno State made a misstep, Colorado State capitalized on it, and there were little to no mistakes on the Rams’ side.<\/p>\n
Their offense ran efficiently, picking up a season-best 6.3 yards per play. They did not turn the ball over. They went 4-for-4 on TD opportunities in the red zone, compared to Fresno State’s 0-for-2, which has been a common theme in 2025.<\/p>\n
Fresno State has scored touchdowns on barely half of its red zone trips this season. The Bulldogs’ red zone offense ranks 105th out of 134 FBS teams.<\/p>\n
The Rams played a clean game for the most part; the Bulldogs were far from that.<\/p>\n
Fresno State coughed up 117 penalty yards, its most in a game since the Oct. 2, 2021 loss at Hawaii.<\/p>\n
Warner committed four turnovers – three interceptions and a fumble – the most by a Bulldog in one game since Haener’s five turnovers in that same defeat to Hawaii.<\/p>\n
Here’s a telling stat: Fresno State ranks 10th in the country in turnovers forced (11), despite not getting any Friday night, but also ranks dead-last in the country in turnovers lost (14).<\/p>\n
With how the Bulldogs lost Friday’s game, by falling behind early, it steered them away from their strength – running the football. They attempted a season-low 21 run plays, not including Warner scrambles, for 111 yards (5.2 yards\/carry).<\/p>\n
On the flip side, Warner attempted 49 passes, which was 20 more than his previous season-high, and completed 57% of them. <\/p>\n
Those numbers helped Warner finish with a season-best 350 passing yards and three touchdown passes. Josiah Freeman was a bright spot with two TD catches for the second straight week. It just wasn’t enough to get a win.<\/p>\n
“I did a poor job of preparing our football team,” said head coach Matt Entz afterward. “I didn’t do a good enough job having them ready to go on defense, either.”<\/p>\n
Per Pro Football Focus, Fresno State missed 15 tackles against Colorado State, its most in a game this year. This was coming off a win over Nevada in which they only missed six.<\/p>\n
“it’s unfortunate we weren’t ready to play, and our fans deserve better,” Entz said. “That’s not the product [we want]. That’s not us, and we’re going to wish we had this game back at some point during the season.”<\/p>\n
Entz also wishes there was no bye week for the Bulldogs next – “It’s probably the worst thing, because now we get to be angry and upset… for two weeks.”<\/p>\n
But there is, and Fresno State will return to the football field for its Homecoming and Black-Out game after the bye week, on Saturday, Oct. 25 against San Diego State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT COLLINS, CO. (FOX26) \u2014 Fresno State started slow and never recovered from costly turnovers and penalties in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[743,746,112,114,113,742,749,745,748,747,744],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-colorado-state","tag-e-j-warner","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-fresno-state","tag-matt-entz","tag-penalties","tag-red-zone","tag-touchdowns","tag-turnovers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","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=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}