Fresno State closes out its first Pac-12 season with a home game that doesn't even have an opponent's name on it yet — welcome to the league's new flex-scheduling experiment.
Bush’s Picks
TBDFRES
TBDFRES
OverUnder
Best BetFresno State
Betting Fresno State outright makes sense as the default lean here even with the opponent still unresolved — the Bulldogs are the higher-continuity program, playing at home, with a defense that carried them to 9 wins a year ago. The catch is real: until the Pac-12 finalizes who's on the other sideline, this is a projection built on Fresno State's identity, not a specific matchup edge.
TBD
+Flex format likely produces a comparably-positioned Pac-12 team
+Fresh gameplan advantage of being an unknown quantity
−Identity not finalized, hard to build narrative or scouting edge
−Traveling into a hostile, likely playoff-motivated crowd
Fresno State
+9-4 debut season under Entz, capped by a bowl win
+Defense allowed fewest yards in program history in 2025
+Playing at Valley Children's Stadium in the season finale
−First-ever season at Pac-12 level, competition jump unproven
−Three straight grueling conference road/home tests right before this
Whoever shows up at Valley Children's Stadium on Friday, November 27, they're walking into a program that's further along than anyone expected a year ago. Matt Entz went 9-4 in his debut season and closed it out with an 18-3 win over Miami (Ohio) in the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl, a game the Fresno State defense dominated by holding the Redhawks to under 200 yards. That defensive identity, more than any single skill player, is what Fresno State is leaning on as it steps up into Pac-12 competition.
The offense is the bigger question mark. E.J. Warner was the bowl-game MVP last December, but the 2026 outlook centers on Khristian Martin, a sophomore whose arm talent has coaches talking about opening the passing game up and pushing the ball downfield more than Fresno State has in years. OC Josh Davis is back for his second season calling plays, so there's continuity even if the QB1 picture is still settling in as fall camp approaches.
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TBD
FRES Fresno State
This is also where the Pac-12's new flex format gets weird. Each team plays seven standard conference games, then gets an eighth matchup in Week 13 that doesn't count in the standings but does give teams a de facto home-and-home. Fresno State is currently penciled in to host San Diego State, but the league has explicitly reserved the right to shuffle those pairings based on the conference's playoff positioning at the time — hence the TBD.
TBD
Fresno State Bulldogs
Nov 21?vs Colorado State—
Nov 14?@ Texas State—
Nov 7?@ Utah State—
Oct 30?vs Oregon State—
Oct 17?@ San Diego State—
Oct 10?vs Boise State—
Oct 3?@ Washington State—
Sep 26?vs Rice—
Sep 19?@ San José State—
Sep 12?vs Sacramento State—
Sep 4?@ USC—
Recent form.
However it shakes out, this game caps a brutal closing stretch. Fresno State goes on the road to Utah State on November 7, then to Texas State a week later, before hosting Colorado State on November 21 — three straight tests in the season's final month before this flex finale and, presumably, a trip to the Pac-12 championship game on December 4. That's a lot of miles and a lot of bodies banged up by the time this one kicks off.
Fresno State's calling card in 2025 was a defense that allowed under 286 yards a game, its stingiest mark in almost 50 years. If that unit travels intact through the grind of Utah State, Texas State and Colorado State, the Bulldogs are the team you'd bet on no matter whose name eventually gets plugged into the other sideline.
