{"id":469839,"date":"2026-09-20T08:20:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T08:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469839\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T08:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T08:20:20","slug":"manaki-watanabe-kicks-4-field-goals-as-fresno-state-pulls-away-for-26-10-victory-over-san-jose-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469839\/","title":{"rendered":"Manaki Watanabe kicks 4 field goals as Fresno State pulls away for 26-10 victory over San Jose State"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Manaki Watanabe<\/a> kicked four field goals and Jordan Malau’ulu’s 68-yard punt return set up Fresno State’s<\/a> first touchdown in the Bulldogs’ 26-10 victory over San Jose State<\/a> on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Trajan Sinatra’s<\/a> 45-yard field goal staked San Jose State (2-2) to 3-0 lead after one quarter.<\/p>\n

Watanabe kicked 52- and 51-yard field goals in the second quarter and Fresno State (2-1) took a 6-3 lead into halftime.<\/p>\n

Ethan Tierney<\/a> picked off a Luke Weaver<\/a> pass in the end zone with 16 seconds left to keep the Bulldogs in front. Tierney added another in the second half as Weaver was intercepted four times.<\/p>\n

Malau’ulu’s 68-yard punt return set up Jayden Mandal’s<\/a> 18-yard touchdown pass to Josiah Freeman<\/a> two plays later, and the Bulldogs took a 13-3 lead three minutes into the third quarter.<\/p>\n

Weaver finished off a 15-play, 92-yard drive with a 1-yard scoring toss to Carson Clark<\/a> to cut the Spartans’ deficit to three with 12:36 remaining.<\/p>\n

Watanabe kicked 44- and 40-yard field goals \u2014 the second one with 1:54 left for a two-score lead.<\/p>\n

Bryson Donelson<\/a> added a 36-yard touchdown run with 1:09 to go after the Spartans turned the ball over on downs.<\/p>\n

Mandal completed 15 of 29 passes for 186 yards. Freeman had six receptions for 95 yards. <\/p>\n

Weaver totaled 244 yards on 21-for-38 passing for San Jose State. Anthony Ivey<\/a> had seven catches for 150 yards, and Jabari Bates<\/a> led all rushers with 94 yards on 19 carries.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Fresno State: Hosts Rice on Saturday.<\/p>\n

San Jose State: At Hawaii on Oct. 3.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here. Visit the Top 25 here and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Manaki Watanabe kicked four field goals and Jordan Malau’ulu’s 68-yard punt return set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[70559,182238,182202,1321,184886,81064,112,114,113,3257,179515,170214,13731,112475,182239,997,179514],"class_list":["post-469839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-anthony-ivey","tag-bryson-donelson","tag-carson-clark","tag-college-football","tag-ethan-tierney","tag-event_recap","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-fresno-state-bulldogs","tag-jabari-bates","tag-jayden-mandal","tag-josiah-freeman","tag-luke-weaver","tag-manaki-watanabe","tag-san-jose-state-spartans","tag-trajan-sinatra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469839","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=469839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}