Opponent Preview: Kansas opens with Fresno State
Kansas opens their 2025 season in week zero against Fresno State in the newly renovated David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.
Fresno State is rebuilding under new head coach Matt Entz. To get a closer look at the Bulldogs we caught up with Robert Kuwada. He covers the football program for the Fresno Bee.
What has the start to the Entz era been like?
Entz is off to a solid start. He hired a good staff. Spring ball went well. They were able to keep a couple of key players out of the portal, even though they had substantial offers to go play elsewhere. They’ve also recruited well, including out of state, which is not something Fresno State has had a great deal of success doing. It seems like the fanbase is on board – he was hired over Tim Skipper, a popular alumni. But it could be an interesting first season.
Entz clearly wants to run the football. In his last three seasons at North Dakota State, they rushed the ball on 66%, 75.9% and 72.5% of their plays from scrimmage. But how quickly can that be developed at a place that finished 10th of 12 in the Mountain West in rushing offense the past two seasons and hasn’t ranked in the top half of the conference since 2019.
What are your thoughts on the offense?
They’re taking a lot of questions into fall camp. The quarterback room took a hit when Joshua Wood went into the portal after spring practices. They went out and added Carson Conklin, who last season was at Sacramento State, but I’m not sure they have a quarterback at this point that can elevate the offense. We’ll see.
They have a good group of running backs led by Bryson Donelson and some tight ends that can be productive players with more opportunity in the passing game in Richie Anderson and Jake Tarwater, but the quarterback position is a question, the offensive line is a question and they lost their top three outside receivers from a year ago (one to graduation, two to the portal) so that group also is a question at this point.
What do you expect the defense to look like?
Fresno State lost a ton on defense, including coordinator Kevin Coyle. But I think they’ll be better than people might think. Nick Benedetto, the new coordinator, had a lot of success at Northern Illinois. In his three seasons they went from 32.8 points per game to 21.0 to 18.5. They beat Notre Dame 16-14 last season and held North Carolina State to 24 points in a loss. The Wolf Pack averaged 30.9 points against teams that weren’t ranked, and in that Northern Illinois game scored off a turnover (fumble return) and one of its touchdown drives covered just 1-yard following a sack and a fumble.
It took North Carolina State three plays to get into the end zone in a sudden-change situation from the 1-yard line. Benedetto also has some intriguing pieces to deploy including defensive end Korey Foreman and safety Camryn Bracha is back after missing most of 2024 due to an injury.
How did the transfer portal help or hurt the roster?
Fresno State lost a lot of talent after the season that landed in Power Four conferences – quarterback Mikey Keene (Michigan), wideout Raylen Sharpe (Arkansas), wideout Jalen Moss (Arizona State), linebacker Phoenix Jackson (Baylor), defensive tackle Gavriel Lightfoot (Colorado), defensive tackle Jacob Holmes (Virginia), cornerback Julian Neal (Arkansas). Fresno State needed a quarterback with some experience and got E. J. Warner, who had mixed results at Temple and at Rice.
They landed help at wideout and on the offensive and defensive lines, but a lot of those guys are in a prove-it mode. The wideouts, as an example: Jayon Farrar (Ventura JC), Luke Jones (4 GP, 0 catches in two seasons at Purdue), Ezekiel Avit (1 career catch in two seasons at Maryland), Jahlil McClain (0 catches last season at Louisville). Even if the talent level is comparable, Fresno State lost a lot of FBS-level experience in that portal exchange.
Going into fall camp what are the strengths and weakness?
I think the coaching staff is a strength. They’re deep in the running backs room and have some good players in the program. There are just too many new pieces to the puzzle and running into one another a few times in spring ball doesn’t really establish any strengths or expose any weaknesses. That’ll be up to the Jayhawks on Aug. 23.
