SAN JOSE STATE @ FRESNO STATE: They'll say "It's a coin flip! You're losin' it Scal!" I say

2016 Record: 31-14

...Keep your mouth shut if you know what's good for you.

The pick:

San Jose State -3 over Fresno State

There are many layers to an apparently meaningless game. But after intense observation, the meaningless becomes meaningful.

I make my money off of teams on losing streaks. Fresno State is one of those teams. They are on a 9 game losing streak. They are about to finish the worst season in their history. Now would be a good time to win.

If they have anything to play for, they should respond on the last game of the season. That's IF they haven't given up. We saw one such team give up last year. That team was UCF which finished 0-12. 

These games/teams are interconnected. You only know what you know by learning through other caps, caps which didn't involve these current teams but situationally were similar. That is how we develop angles.

What were the ingredients to that UCF 'give up' season?

1. A change at QB, be it injury or replacement which stagnates the offense, and a significant downgrade therein.

2. A change in head coach.

We have both here. But the head coaching change is the most impactful.

Ingredient #1: Fresno fired it's head coach, replaced him with an interim head coach, but then named a new head coach who is not coaching, thereby undermining the interim HC.

Fresno fired Tim DeRuyter after a 1-7 start. Mistake. Fresno had a very tough first 8 games with many games away. But 1-7 is 1-7.

They decided to hire Eric Kiesau as their Interim HC, and kept him as Offensive Coordinator and QB coach. The guy simply has too many responsibilities and the team is not responding. This is team on a thin budget folks.

Since he took over, they are 0-3 and the offensive stats have fallen off: 349 yards 1st game, 232 2nd game, 214 3rd game. They also have been careless with the call and in three games under him have a -4 turnover ratio.

The team simply isn't responding to him.

One of the reasons that is is because Fresno took the unusual step of hiring a HC before the end of the season but kept the interim.

This is a problem. Why? Because you undermine the interim. Why heed the interim's orders as a player when you know he is a goner?

The ONLY way it works out is if you hire a coach of prestige who will then "watch over" the final few games to round out his roster NY. FIU just did this with Butch Davis and won their next game against Marshall after he was hired. Butch Davis is a very respected name in coaching circles.

Who did Fresno hire? Jeff Tedford. Never heard of him? Here's a bit about him:

Fresno State has bottomed out in 2016 and gambled with the most expensive hire in the conference: Jeff Tedford, a familiar name and former Bulldogs quarterback. He was the Cal head coach and hasn’t led a team a college team since 2012 and the last time he was a head coach was for one year in the CFL with the BC Lions in 2015.

This isn't Butch Davis folks. This isn't even Sammy Davis. This isn't Terrell Davis. This isn't Al Davis. This is on the level of Big Baby Glen Davis in terms of coaching. This is not a respected hire.

So we don't get the 'Butch Davis effect', we don't have a Fresno team responding to it's interim coach, and the interim coach is in over his head anyway!

The axis of evil of coaching changes. Happening right here at Fresno.

We fade for this reason. Next reason.

Ingredient #2 Changing QB at the wrong time and replacing the regular starter with a bad one.

Fresno had a halfway decent QB in Chason Virgil. 2000+ yards. 13 TD's 10 INT's. He can even run a bit. I can work with that if I'm looking at a Fresno side in this game.

Kiesau benched him because he had a turnover laden game against Air Force (4 Ints). The problem with benching him was that he threw for 300+ yards and 3 TD's.

They replaced him with Zach Kline. He, like the team, has regressed as the season has gone on:

147 yards in the first game with an INT

108 yards in the second game. Worse, almost HALF his yards came with a minute to play against Hawaii (on a drive where they missed a game-winning FG).

So here's your retort: "Well Scal, teams like Navy and New Mexico don't pass at all and they win a ton. You can win without the pass". 

That's right. If your running game is stellar. UNM is #1 in the nation in that area. Navy runs a feared triple option.

Fresno? #117th in rushing offense.

I think that's enough said on this point folks. 

Miscellaneous Point #1:

Someone can say, "Listen Scal, you say the team hasn't responded. They almost beat Hawaii last game under Kiesau. Hawaii is playing for bowl eligibility tomorrow against UMass. That's a decent team!"

This is true. They almost beat Hawaii. Fresno put up a stellar defensive effort to counter it's own offensive ineptitude. 276 yards TOTAL for Hawaii.

There's one HUGE problem with attributing this to the Fresno D.

Hawaii has had the single worst travel schedule in NCAA football history in terms of miles.

Not only did they have a trip to Australia to start the season (is that not as far a venue as humanly possible!!), Hawaii has had EVERY SINGLE game AWAY/HOME/AWAY/HOME....

Now the NCAA has ALWAYS schedule Hawaii with double games (2 home/2 in the continental US) to make it easier on them given the travel involved. NOT THIS YEAR. They fu**ing nailed them travel-wise.

That is in part why Hawaii had lost 4 of it's last 5 (almost losing that 5th in double OT) and barely, by the skin of it's teeth beating a historically bad Fresno team.

And that is why I am still capping this Hawaii Umass game tomorrow. It is so IFFY! This team is fu***ING TIRED. And Umass scheduled a vacation of sorts with this trip to Hawaii. Is it a bowl for them or a vacation against a tired Hawaii team? No one knows. Maybe Vegas knows....

Anyhow, even with the worst travel schedule in history running Hawaii ragged, Fresno STILL could only muster 13 points, a paltry amount of yards and they STILL lost the game.

And now they have San Jose State coming in, who is a team reborn.

Miscellaneous Point #2:

San Jose State was a team that couldn't score, couldn't gain yards, and couldn't win in the first 7 games. They had to fight tooth and nail with awful Nevada 14-10 at home, the worst defensive team in the nation.

Well after a 42-3 loss to SDSU, they've scored 30,31, and 38 with one win over UNLV and two losses to Boise and Air Force.

And they absolutely GIFTED the win to a GOOD Air Force team last week with Air Force literally winning in the last second on a spectacular catch, 41-38.

424, 495, 457 yards in total the last three game.

While Fresno is on the downswing, San Jose is on the upswing offensively. Both have terrible D's which is not unexpected. 

Miscellaneous point #3:

San Jose State's coach Ron Caragher is on the hot seat. Zero seasons above .500 in 4 years. Keeping the Valley trophy in San Jose and avoiding a close-out loss to the worst Fresno team in history can help him. Coach's on hot seats ARE A GOOD thing.

Fresno's coach? He's already been hired!

Let's close this pick out a quote from new Fresno head coach Jeff Tedford. Words of encouragement before Fresno's final game and then he takes over:

"When I look at the numbers, I'm like, 'What happened here?'  It kinda looks like a team that has been on probation for four or five years."

Miscellaneous point #4:

-3 on the road is NOT -8 or -10, BIG difference. We can lay 3 here.

They will say it's a coin flip. They will say it's a meaningless game. They will say you're reaching.

I say...we will win. And that is all that matters.

Good luck, I'm also on this one.