{"id":470073,"date":"2026-09-20T15:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T15:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/470073\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T15:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T15:16:09","slug":"manaki-watanabe-kicks-4-field-goals-as-fresno-state-pulls-away-for-26-10-victory-over-san-jose-state-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/470073\/","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. — – Manaki Watanabe<\/a> kicked four field goals and Jordan Malau’ulu<\/a>‘s 68-yard punt return set up Fresno State’s first touchdown in the Bulldogs’ 26-10 victory over San Jose State on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Trajan Sinatra<\/a>‘s 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<\/a> punt return set up Jayden Mandal’s 18-yard<\/a> 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 – 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<\/a>. Visit the Top 25 here<\/a> and see AP’s full college football coverage here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE, Calif. — – Manaki Watanabe kicked four field goals and Jordan Malau’ulu‘s 68-yard punt return set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184971,1321,750,3257,88,90,89,997],"class_list":["post-470073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-184971","tag-college-football","tag-espn","tag-fresno-state-bulldogs","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-state-spartans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470073","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=470073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}