Fresno State Bulldogs: Is There Really a QB Battle Between Derek Carr and Kelly O'Brien?

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When the 2011 Fresno State football season opens there will be no drama or question who the man under center will be for the Bulldogs.

Young quarterback Derek Carr, the young brother of another Fresno State star, David Carr, has already been hyped up as one of the best young quarterbacks to come through Fresno State since, well, his brother. But that doesn't mean there aren't a few other guys behind him who will try to challenge him just a little bit when the team begins practices again.


Photo Courtesy: The Fresno Bee

Standing 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, Carr is probably one of the most highly touted quarterbacks coming out of high school. He was ranked as the 12th best quarterback in the nation out of Bakersfield Christian High School and was named the Private School National Player of the Year in 2008.

During his senior year Carr broke 20 school records, threw for 4,067 yards and 46 touchdowns and chose Fresno State over LSU, Alabama, USC and Notre Dame just to name a few.

Kelly O'Brien, a 6-foot-7 205 pound junior college transfer from Foothill Junior College played backup to 2010 starter, Ryan Colburn, and should play the role of the backup again in 2011. His size allows him to see his receivers over the line of scrimmage and he has enough speed to get outside of the pocket and throw on the run. He's not your prototypical Division-I quarterback but Fresno State head coach Pat Hill still liked what he saw in O'Brien to bring him on board.

"Kelly has the tools to be an excellent quarterback," said Hill back in February of 2010. "I like his size and arm strength and especially his accuracy. He hasn't played a lot of football in his life, but he has a lot of intangibles that could make him a big part of our team. He is a raw talent with a huge upside. His development will be a key for the growth of our team."

Another young quarterback who could see time with the Bulldogs in 2011 is sophomore Greg Watson. Though undersized at 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds, Hill says he could be used more out of the wildcat formation. "Greg will be used as a quarterback and I see him more like an Ebahn Feathers, however he has played in a pro-style system which I like."

Watson did get some playing time in the team's final scrimmage back in April, completing six of his 13 pass attempts for 54 yards and a touchdown.

While O'Brien and Watson look to possibly getting some playing time in 2011, it may only come with the game is well in hand, or maybe even out of hand.

Derek Carr is the shoe-in to be the starter for Fresno State when they open the season on September 3rd in San Francisco, California against the University of California.

Is It Time For Fresno State and Pat Hill to Part Ways?

With one last season in the Western Athletic Conference, the Fresno State Bulldogs will have their best chance to win an outright conference championship since the Boise State Broncos jumped on to the scene.

But it will not be just a walk in the park for head coach Pat Hill and his team. They will still need to deal with the likes of the Nevada Wolfpack and the Hawaii Warriors, neither of whom will allow Fresno State to walk out of the WAC holding the trophy high over their heads.

 

Before the Bulldogs go after their first, and only, outright conference championship since Hill took over, they will need to deal with one of their toughest non-conference schedules in recent memory.

They will take on the likes of Nebraska, Boise State, Cal, and Ole Miss as well as rekindling an old rivalry against an upstart San Diego State team in the final game of the 2011 season.

Though this team has a lot to look forward to and an uphill battle to climb, the biggest question will surround their head coach and how long he will and should remain with the program.

Since Pat Hill took over as the head coach at Fresno State prior to the 1997 season, the Bulldogs have a single WAC title which was shared with both TCU and Hawaii.

They had a legitimate chance at their first outright title under Hill in 2001. It was the same season the Bulldogs were ranked in the top 10 in the nation and featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. That was until a small school came out of nowhere to upset the Bulldogs at Bulldog Stadium in Fresno. That small school was in fact, Boise State.

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Since then it has been season after season where the Bulldogs have under-achieved or really never got off to a good start, finishing just the same way.

Disappointing bowl losses to a 6-6 Wyoming team or getting blown out by the Broncos year in and year out just led to even more questions from fans in California's central valley.

So, as the 2011 season draws closer with each passing day, so do the questions as to how this team needs to finish in order for it's head coach to keep his job.

Well, it depends on who you ask.

Hill has had more than enough chances to prove himself and to turn this program in to a conference powerhouse. If you read Fresno State's official athletic website, it says "when Hill was hired, he promised to win games and championships. He has done that."

All do respect to gobulldogs.com, Hill has not done "that." While Hill's teams over the years have won their fair share of games, they have not won "championships."

The 2011 season shapes up to be one of the more difficult in recent memory. They were blown out by Ole Miss last season and face a Nebraska team who could be one of the best in the nation. Next to those games there is the continued rivalry with Boise State and a game against San Diego State who is fast becoming a team to be reckoned with.

While 8-4 or 8-5 has become the norm for the Bulldogs, they may be hard pressed to even reach that mark this season. If they do not, the hot seat Hill is sitting on will be turned up that much higher.

The football program at Fresno State is stuck in a rut. When was the last time this team could boast about a "huge win?" Maybe their 53-52 win on the road against Illinois back in 2009 or their 24-7 win on the road against Rutgers in their 2008 season opener?

We can argue about Hill's ability to show that his players can succeed both on the field and in the classroom. But when push comes to shove, will this university continue to be okay with average or mediocre seasons?

It is time for Fresno State to move on from a head coach who, though he has done a tremendous job with the program, has failed to bring the second part of his promise when he was hired.

If this team fails to win a conference championship in 2011, the university needs to look in to bringing in new leadership, especially with the move into a stronger Mountain West Conference in 2012.


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Is this Fresno State's Best Chance to Finally Win a Conference Championship?

Fresno State is itching for an outright conference championship and with Boise State out of the mix, maybe the 2011 season is finally going to be their year. Or is it?

When head coach Pat Hill was hired, his goal at Fresno State was going to be turning them into a conference powerhouse. A team who could win conference championships and be a team the city could be proud of.

More than a decade and one shared conference title later, Bulldog fans are wondering what happened to that promise. They are wondering what happened to the teams they were promised and what happened to the team they could be proud of?

Seems the last time they were able to watch, and be excited about, a Fresno State team was 10 years ago when the team was ranked in the top 10 thanks to now NFL quarterback, David Carr. He was arguably the nation's best quarterback and he was breaking school records with every pass and every touchdown he threw.

Since then, Bulldog Stadium has grown quiet and the fans more restless with every year gone by. Some want Hill out as the head coach and for a new era to begin, others will defend him tooth and nail because of the academic success of his players.

While Hill and his coaching staff continue to scratch their heads and wonder how things could have gone so wrong since he took over the program, they may have their best chance at an outright conference championship coming in to the 2011 season.

Boise State, the team who no one can seem to beat, is now a member of the Mountain West Conference and the Bulldogs no longer have to worry about looking up at the boys in blue, hoping for a loss here or there to give them a chance. They can finally make their own destiny.

Make no mistake about it, this isn't going to be a walk in the park. This isn't going to be a year where the team can glide to the end of the season and expect to hold up the Western Athletic Conference trophy. There are still two other schools who will do everything they can to make sure they are the ones celebrating a conference championship at year's end.

The Nevada Wolfpack and Hawaii Warriors have been two teams who have always challenged Fresno State and they have made for some of the best rivalry games the conference has ever seen.

The Wolfpack, however, will be without Colin Kaepernick, their star quarterback who will always be remembered as the one who finally broke through Boise State's iron grip.

As for the Warriors they have one of the best young quarterbacks in college football, Bryant Moniz, who threw for over 5000 yards in 2010 (5,040) to go along with 39 touchdown passes to just 15 interceptions. It didn't hurt that the Warriors had two wide receivers, Greg Salas and Kealoha Pilares, who both finished with more than a thousand yards receiving last season.

The Bulldogs have never had an easy time with either Nevada or Hawaii. While they had their success against them over the years, it's never been enough to get to the top. With one last season remaining for these three schools join the Broncos in the Mountain West, you can bet on all three battling it out for the top spot all year long.

For the Bulldogs, they will usher in a new era under young quarterback Derek Carr. He comes with a ton of hype not only from the media but also from the school itself. He was a highly touted prospect coming out of high school and a player everyone in California's central valley has been looking forward to for quite some time.

Their offense has never been the biggest problem for Fresno State. It's been their defense or lack thereof.

They have struggled mightily against the run over the years, something opposing teams know exactly how to take advantage of. Though they have had their own share of talent in the backfield with former running back, Ryan Mathews, and current running back, Robbie Rouse, the amount of points they can put up just seems to make little difference sometimes.

Pat Hill will have one last chance to prove he can really be the top dog in this conference because once the Bulldogs make the jump to the Mountain West, they will no longer be one of the top dogs. They might be, at best, just another middle of the road team in a mid-major conference.

This is Hill's last chance to deliver on his promise. Though, in the eyes of some especially in Boise, it may come with an asterisk because his program did it without Boise State being in the conference. It would like like a prize fighter retiring and the boxer who could never beat the champ, finally wins the big prize. Yet it doesn't mean quite the same.

The Bulldogs are a talented team and while they may finally put it all together in 2011, they will need to deal with another tough non-conference schedule. In five of their first six weeks of the season, Fresno State will have Cal, Nebraska, Ole Miss, and Boise State. Only one of those, Nebraska, coming on the road.

The big question might be, will the team be too banged up to face their conference schedule or will the be so fired up for the big games they'll forget how to get ready for the small ones?

Though we may not get answers to those questions for several months, Hill continues to show year in and year out that he never backs down from a fight.


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College Basketball: Steve Cleveland Steps Down at Fresno State Among Mis-Guided Expectations

On Thursday night, Steve Cleveland stepped down as the head coach of the men's basketball team at Fresno State University.

For the past week, or maybe more, rumors were flying about the university wanting to go in another direction. Wanting a new face and hopefully change in a program that has had it's struggles since Jerry Tarkanian left the program.

But this wasn't all Cleveland's fault. Sure the team wasn't winning like most wanted them to but this was a coach who came in after his predecessor was cited for recruiting violations which kept the new head coach from bringing in the kind of players who could turn this program around.

In 2006, just his second season at Fresno State, it looked like the Bulldogs were finally getting back to where they needed to be. The team finished with an astounding 22-10 record after a 15-13 record in Cleveland's first season, but they were bounced in the first round of the National Invitational Tournament.

But, over the next three seasons, the program couldn't seem to pick itself up off the floor, struggling to a 41-58 record from 2007-2010.

The university wanted more and they made that clear to Cleveland after the Bulldogs lost in the first round of the Western Athletic Conference tournament a little over a week ago.

Cleveland stayed behind in Las Vegas and had conversations with athletic director Thomas Boeh. Conversations that led to the head coach deciding to step down and taking a new position within the athletic department at least until his contract runs out next year.

Boeh told the media last night the former Bulldogs' head coach would assist in the search for his replacement and a short list had already been compiled.

The more I listened to the press conference the more my mind began to wonder why Fresno State handled their basketball program differently than they've handled their football program?

Why would they run off a basketball coach who really had the deck stacked against him from the very start? Boeh said this move was about wins and attendance, but how many wins did Boeh expect out of his head coach? What were his expectations for a program which, after two different head coaches blamed for NCAA violations against the university, couldn't have been that attractive to young players?

It was this exact thought which led me to wonder why Pat Hill, the head football coach at Fresno State, was being treated differently? What was I missing?

Under Pat Hill, the football program is 4-7 in 11 bowl appearances and has yet to win an outright conference championship. You'd think it would be enough for the university to go in a different direction.

Instead, it got Hill a three-year contract extension.

When I asked a local beat writer about it his only response was, "fans will come out to see Derek Carr fling the bean around the field." Really? I thought this was about wins not about seeing a young quarterback throw the football around?

There are apparently a lot of things I don't understand about how Fresno State is handling these two programs. They want more wins in one of them but seem happy with 8-5 and 8-4 seasons, year in and year out, from another.

The next head coach for the men's basketball team will need to be a name they can flaunt and a name that will bring in the kind of recruits that will allow them to rebuild this program into a contender once again.

Maybe moving into the Mountain West Conference in 2011 will enable them to start the process. Until then, apparently all I can do is sit back and watch it unfold.

Fresno State Football: On the Edge of Greatness or on the Edge of a Cliff?

Photo courtesy of The Fresno Bee

That's been a question that's been asked by Fresno State fans since Pat Hill came to town just over 12 years ago.

Back in 1998, Hill was hired as the new head coach of the Fresno State football program replacing the man that single-handedly put the program on the map, Jim Sweeney. Sure that can be argued but the field at Bulldog Stadium is named after who? I rest my case.

But over the last 12 years this football program has been on the edge of greatness. They've been just one or two big wins away from doing some serious damage on the national stage. A few of them did come back in 2001 with David Carr at the helm but since then, those wins have become few and far between. Most of them have ended in losses instead of wins.

With each football season that comes around, fans begin to believe that this year is going to be different. This is the year they finally break through and end the mediocre streak. But at the end of each season the expectations decrease and the fan base begins to wonder when things will change.

Those decreasing expectations have led to the fan base calling for Hill's firing. The university, however, has yet to make sort of action close to firing their head coach. In fact, they gave him a three-year extension in December of 2009.

Hill isn't the most popular guy around campus anymore. His "Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime" mantra has worn itself thin and his team's 4-7 record in 11 bowl appearances has some wondering if this team is meant for anything but mediocrity.

Even the head coach himself wondered aloud during a press conference whether or not this team can or will do any better than their 8-4 or 8-5 record during any given season. When that quote made it's way around the valley as well as around college football, it either left fans with their jaws on the floor or shaking their heads in disgust. Maybe they took it out of context or maybe their coach really didn't believe any more than they did.

With the 2011 season a little over seven months away, there's a new found feeling of anticipation in the air and it has nothing to do with years gone by or anything said by Hill. It has everything to do with the most hyped quarterback since David Carr wore the Bulldog read a decade ago.

It just so happens that this quarterback just happens to be related to David. It's his younger brother, Derek Carr.

He was looked at as one of the best high school prospects when he committed to Fresno State in the spring of 2009. He redshirted last season to extend his eligibility and he's apparently already gained the respect of teammates as well as coaches.

He has tremendous arm strength and knowledge of the game, something that's mostly unheard of from a quarterback that hasn't started a single Division One football game.

The Carr's are no strangers to pressure. Older brother David made his Fresno State debut on the road in Columbus, Ohio against the Ohio State Buckeyes in front of almost 97,000 fans. Younger brother, Derek, will make his Fresno State debut at Candlestick Park in San Francisco against the Cal Golden Bears.

Though you can't compare The Horsehoe to Candlestick Park, but making a debut on the road comes with the same amount of pressure no matter where you are.

What Derek will need to know is the kind of pressure Fresno State fans will put on him before he throws his first pass of his collegiate career. His other brother threw four interceptions against Ohio State and Bulldog fans quickly called for his benching in favor of current Fresno State offensive coordinator, Jeff Grady.

That move, of course, was not made and David Carr became one of the best quarterbacks in Fresno State history.

While Derek shouldn't be held to the same kind of expectations as his older brother, that won't stop the Bulldog fans from expecting the world from this young man.

For the program itself, maybe the difference in success and just another typical season rests in the hands of a soon-to-be 21-year old quarterback. Fresno State has asked for patience from their fans before but they may ask for even more of it going into this season.

They've been so close before but haven't been able to do what they needed to do to become great. Since Pat Hill has become the head coach they've been passed by teams like Boise State, Nevada, and Hawaii. Teams that weren't even close to being a blip on the national radar.

You might remember Boise State's first claim to fame was knocking off then eighth ranked Fresno State in Fresno back in 2001.

Since then, the Broncos have seen incredible success and have done things this Bulldog football program could only hope to accomplish.

For the better part of the last five to six years, Fresno State has been that cute little program out west who isn't afraid to travel anywhere to get beat. Then again, maybe they're no better than San Jose State who took a big time payday just to get a beating handed to them by Alabama in Tuscaloosa this past season.

The Bulldogs don't want to be known for that but until they start winning some of these games they've scheduled out of conference, they'll never be known as more than just another cupcake for some big name team.

Greatness is what Pat Hill strived for when he arrived in Fresno. Mediocrity may be what he's known for when his time in Fresno is over.

Fresno State Football Has Become Mediocrity at its Finest

Photo courtesy of the Associated Press

From the moment I heard Pat Hill tell the media that 8-4 could be the best this program could ever hope for, I knew there was a problem. Apparently I'm the only one who thinks so because the university is yet to make a change when one is long overdue.
Saturday's bowl game, the Humanitarian Bowl, came around against Northern Illinois and I thought this was Fresno State's best chance to get out of the 0-2 bowl game hole they'd been in. I thought this would be a great opportunity to flex their muscles a little bit and show that they were a stronger team than they've shown all season.

I was wrong.

Four embarrassing quarters later, the Bulldogs walked out of Boise with their heads down after getting blown out by the Huskies, 40-17.

That night, I received a text message from a good friend of mine who had picked Fresno State to win and told me "I'll never pick them to win ever again." He picked them last year against Wyoming and ended up on the wrong side of that one, too.

As long as I've been a fan and as long as I've grown up with Bulldog blood running through my veins, it's become increasingly hard to believe this team can achieve anything at all let alone a win in a decent bowl game.

No offense to Boise, but the Humanitarian Bowl isn't exactly looked upon highly by the rest of the college football world. I'm sure you guys do a good job hosting it, but there's nothing to gain with a win. It's just another bowl game in a long list of bowl games no one cares about.

Though most will tell you Fresno State had little to gain with a win, they had a whole lot more to lose with a loss. They saw just how much they lost after getting pounded by a team that shouldn't even have been in the same league with the Bulldogs.

So what happens now?

Well, there's a fan base to speak to and explain why this program hasn't won a bowl game in three years. But here's an even better question. Why, after 12 season as the head coach at Fresno State, has Pat Hill won just one conference championship (1999 - shared with TCU and Hawaii) and four bowl games in 11 appearances?

There are a lot of questions this fan base wants. Above all, they want to know why Hill is still their head coach. It's a fair question and the university knows it. The problem is, they say they don't have the money to buy out the contract extension they gave him this time last year.

I was back home in Fresno for the Thanksgiving holiday and I remember a family friend of mine commenting on a local writer for the Fresno Bee. The guy he was referring to was Matt James and this family friend felt James was far too critical of the football program.

As you might imagine, I disagreed with him.

While James can be a tad critical, I asked this family friend if there's really anything to be optimistic about? Is there anything in their past, or their future for that matter, that would make you feel the least bit optimistic about what they can accomplish. I received no answer.

After the sound beating they took at the hands of a team that finished in second place in the MAC Fresno State quarterback Ryan Colburn, playing in his final game as a Bulldog, told the media after the game "they wanted it more than us for whatever reason."

It's that kind of attitude that makes it seem like the Bulldogs could care less about the beating they took. It's that kind of attitude that has made mediocrity the norm around the central valley.

On Sunday, Pat Hill held an exit media session to talk about the year that was. One of the comments he made proves my point about just doing well enough to get by.

In an article from Bryant-Jon Anteola of the Fresno Bee, Hill told the media, "I know eight-win seasons might seem like the norm here, but wins are wins and wins are tough to get. Sure, we all want more. But what this team did, playing a lot of young guys, not really having consistency on offense, beating Cincinnati and Illinois in the same year to get to an eight-win regular season, that's a good year."

Wins are tough to get? What conference does Fresno State play in again?

Hill can continue to give the rest of their opponents all the credit he wants to give them. He can continue to say, with each loss, that they ran into the best team in school history but that excuse is going to run out when the 2011 season comes around.

Next season, there will be no Boise State to stand in their way. There won't be the big bad boys in blue to keep you from getting to the top of the conference for the first time in Hill's 12 seasons as the head coach.

No, I'm not going to count the shared title so don't even ask me.

The one person, the only person, I feel sorry for at this point is redshirt freshman quarterback Derek Carr. Yes, that Derek Carr, the younger brother to current NFL quarterback, David Carr.

Next year, he's going to have the pressure of an entire fan base squarely on his shoulders. While it might be unfair to put much pressure on a first year starter, he's already expected to be the savior of a program that is on a tail spin with no correction in sight.

I'm done with mediocrity and I'm done listening to the man at the head of this team make excuses for every loss they take. He expects this fan base to be ok with an 8-4 or 8-5 finish to every season and he expects that we'll just live with mediocrity.

Though I'm not ok with it, the university apparently is. While the rest of college football programs would fire their head coach after three straight bowl losses and only four wins in 11 bowl appearances, this program gives their head coach a contract extension. Apparently they were hoping for something the rest of us knew wasn't coming.

So, we'll look to 2011 and hope for better things. When or if they don't come, we'll just be handed the same old lines about how hard wins are to come by.

The fans expect better but apparently Coach Hill does not.

2010 Humanitarian Bowl Preview: Fresno State Preview with Fresno Bee Writer Daniel Lyght

Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

The Fresno State Bulldogs are less than 48 hours away from taking on the Northern Illinois Huskies in the 2010 Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, ID.

With a win, it would be Fresno State's first bowl game win in three years having lost the previous two bowl games to Colorado State and Wyoming, both of the Mountain West Conference.

This time around, though the other two times weren't much different, the Bulldogs are the bigger and better team. But don't tell that to the Huskies who are coming in angry after having their head coach and a few of the assistants leave for greener pastures just a few weeks ago.

I got a chance to talk to Daniel Lyght who covers Fresno State for the Fresno Bee and got his perspective on the game and what the Bulldogs need to do to come out with a win.


Todd Kaufmann: Northern Illinois comes in after losing their head coach and a few of the assistants. How dangerous is a team like this that's coming in with a bit of a chip on their shoulder?

Daniel Lyght: NIU has a chip on its shoulder and the players wants to compete for each other and their interim coach. But teams have a history of not playing well in bowl games after losing coaches. They'll be fired up to get the win but also perhaps a little off because of the coaching change.


Todd Kaufmann: After the Bulldogs' disastrous performance in their bowl game last year against Wyoming, what are your keys to this game and who's the one guy that needs to step up the most?

Daniel Lyght: Stopping the run is going to be the biggest key for the Bulldogs. NIU RB Chad Spann has rushed for almost 1300 yards and 20 touchdowns. The Huskies have some quarterbacks who are pretty good at running the ball as well, but none as good as the Bulldogs have already seen this season (Kaepernick, Scheelhaas, Borel). The one guy that needs to step up most? ... Bulldogs QB Ryan Colburn perhaps. NIU will be trying to stop the run as well, so Colburn needs to have a good game throwing to take advantage of that.


Todd Kaufmann: You wrote an article talking about how many assistants Fresno State has lost in the past. Do you expect this year to play out the same way and, if so, who do you expect to be getting offers from other schools?

Daniel Lyght: I actually don't think any coaches will leave this offseason.


Todd Kaufmann: As you know, there's been a lot of talk about Pat Hill and the lack of conference titles during his tenure. If he fails to win the WAC title next year do you think there's any chance the university makes a change especially with the team heading to the Mountain West in 2012?

Daniel Lyght: I don't think there's a great chance of Hill being fired in that situation. Next year will be the first year of a new three-year contract for Hill. Not winning the WAC would be considered an embarassment by some, but financially speaking, the Bulldogs do not seem to have the money to buy out Hill and hire a new coach.


Todd Kaufmann: Derek Carr has been getting a lot of hype from fans even going into this season. Do you think Pat Hill will be ready to give Carr a shot at being the starter and do you think he has too much pressure on his shoulders too soon?

Daniel Lyght: Carr is expected to be the starter next season. He says he doesn't feel any pressure but is excited about what's in store. But tons will be asked of him. He'll have a lot to live up to.


Big thanks to Fresno Bee writer Daniel Lyght for taking the time for the interview. Give him a follow on Twitter (@DLyghtatTheBee) or you can find him in the sports section of the aforementioned Fresno Bee.

Fresno State Football: Ryan Colburn's Career Full Of Missed Opportunities

 

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Fresno State quarterback Ryan Colburn has just two games left in his career as a Bulldog before he either goes on to to the NFL or wherever his path takes him.

On Friday night, he'll play his final game in front of the home fans at Bulldog Stadium. The final time he'll get to see the Red Wave, and the last time he'll get to walk down the ramp into the stadium.

It's been an up and down career for Colburn since he became the quarterback at Fresno State. He's been beloved by some and questioned by others. He's had his great moments and he's had moments that make you shake your head and wonder what he's thinking.

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