FRESNO – Fresno State dominated its way to victory Saturday evening, claiming the Valley Trophy with a 33-10 homecoming night win over San Jose State.
Mikey Keene completed 17 of his first 18 passes on his way to going 30-for-41 for 275 yards and four touchdowns for the Bulldogs (5-3, 3-1 Mountain West Conference), who haven’t lost at home to the Spartans since 2016.
Meanwhile, San Jose State (5-3, 3-2 MWC) had three different quarterbacks throw an interception – with the Spartans immediately switching to a different quarterback after each of them.
“Our worst game the whole season and we’re disappointed it came against our rivals,” said San Jose State coach Ken Niumatalolo. “We’re not in sync right now.”
Sophomore Jalen Moss was the primary target for the Bulldogs’ signal-caller, finishing with six catches for 85 yards and two touchdowns.
At 11:14 in the second quarter, Moss made a catch through contact, spun, and ran to the end zone to finish off a 43-yard touchdown to put the Bulldogs up 10-7, a lead they’d never lose.
Moss, though, was injured in the fourth quarter and didn’t return to the game.
“They came out hot, had a game plan and stuck to it,” Spartans linebacker Jordan Cobbs said. “The key, pivotal moments of the game, the crowd played a factor. Kudos to Fresno.”
San Jose State began to put a drive together in the third quarter before Fresno’s Al’zillion Hamilton intercepted Emmett Brown’s pass and returned it 78 yards.
Walker Eget was the starting quarterback for the Spartans and finished 14-for-31 for 202 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions.
“I thought we were prepared but obviously we weren’t,” Eget said.
Eget, Brown and Xavier Ward all saw snaps in the second half and each would threw an interception that got them benched.
“We’re just trying to find a spark,” said Niumatalolo of the quarterback shuffling. “(Offensively) there’s problems that we have to fix quickly.”
Fresno State’s Cam Lockridge took advantage of the Spartans turnovers to finish with his third-career multi-interception game.
The Spartans’ lone touchdown came on the opening drive where Eget hit Nick Nash for his nation-leading 12th touchdown of the season.
“We need to treat every drive like our first drive because the first drive, we looked like the better team,” said Nash. “I think as an offensive unit we lost focus.”
San Jose State now has two conference losses and have yet to play the two opponents on its scheduled that have been nationally ranked this season – Boise State and UNLV.
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Up next
San Jose State will have a bye week before they fly to Corvallis to take on Oregon State (4-4) Nov. 9. A win in this matchup would clinch bowl-eligibility for the Spartans.
SJSU lost its only other battle against a Pac-12 opponent when it fell 54-52 in double overtime to Washington State.
