Fresno State vs. Utah State recap: Bulldogs clinch losing season, existential crisis in 38-20 loss

The Fresno State Bulldogs lost a football game last night, 38-20, on the road against the Utah State Aggies. This hardly qualifies as news anymore, so in lieu of a traditional recap, I’ve decided to pair a fact from the game with a thought-provoking painting and allow readers to draw their own connections between each.

For example, quarterback Chason Virgil finished just 25-44-205-1-0 last night. His longest pass of the night was just 22 yards, and if you remove that from his overall yardage, his yards per attempt was just 4.3:

Fresno State recorded zero sacks for the fourth time in 2016, and they have just one sack in five road games:

Dontel James had just 80 yards on 29 carries, for an average of 2.8 yards per carry. This is the fourth time in 2016 that average has been under 3.0, though most of this is because the offensive line is still very bad:

Punter Blake Cusick, who’s stepped into an unforgiving role and has generally improved as the season’s progressed, had a punt blocked and returned for a Utah State touchdown. He also had his worst yards-per-punt average to date:

Down two touchdowns early in the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs elected to kick a field goal instead of gambling to extend the drive on fourth-and-seven, at the Utah State 32. Kody Kroening, who’s been one of the team’s bright spots, crushed a career-best 49-yard attempt to close the gap to 31-20.

Utah State then embarked on an 11-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that was aided, in part, by back-to-back 15-yard penalties:

Tim DeRuyter’s firing, as a Sunday afternoon press conference suggests, is imminent:

But his interim replacement, likely offensive coordinator Eric Kiesau, would have to come from his remaining staff:

There’s still four games left in 2016: