Season Opener: Fresno State Football Kicks Off 2009 Against UC Davis

That familiar smell is in the air. The smell of freshly cut grass, the smell of anticipation around the campus, the feeling that something new is about to get started. 

It's the college football season and, for Fresno State, it begins this coming Saturday as they kick off their 2009 season against the Aggies of UC Davis.

The Fresno State Bulldogs have looked forward to this all summer long. They've looked forward to wiping the slate clean after a disappointing 2008 season that finished with a 40-35 loss to Colorado State in the New Mexico Bowl.

Head Coach Pat Hill will put his team through the fifth toughest schedule in the nation. A schedule that will send the Bulldogs to Madison, WI to face the Badgers, to Cincinnati, OH to take on the nationally ranked Cincinnati Bearcats and to the Hawaiian islands to take on Western Athletic Conference rival Hawaii.

If there was ever a test of this team's character, they won't have to wait long for those it to come. The first five games could make or break this team for the remainder of their schedule. 

But before they can begin that stretch run against Wisconsin, Cincinnati, and Hawaii, they'll have to have their focus on Bulldog Stadium for their home opener against the Aggies of UC Davis.

These two teams used to face each other nearly every year between 1922 and 1938, but the two haven't faced each other on the football field since 1956.  The Bulldogs currently hold an 11-5-1 record against the Aggies.

For Fresno State, the 2009 season will mark it's 88th season in college football and it will also mark the fourth time in the last five seasons that the Bulldogs have opened the season at home.  They won all four of those games by a combined score of 107-39 and haven't lost a season home opener since 1996 and are 12-2 all time in those games.

The question that still remained unanswered, just days before their season opening agame against UC Davis, was who Hill was going to have under center for the game on Saturday. 

That question was answered on Tuesday night when Hill announced that Junior Ryan Colburn would be the starting quarterback for the Fresno State Bulldogs, ending speculation that the job could possibly go to Freshmen Ebahn Feathers or Derek Carr.

"He's been here four years, so he had a great lead in knowledge and everything else," Hill told the Fresno media. "Derek has done a great job. But Ryan Colburn won the job on his performance. It was very, very close. But he won the job."

Hill said he liked what he saw in Colburn, "I just felt that his pocket presence, his accuracy, his change in his ability to throw the longball, just his consistency was the deciding factor."

When Hill was asked if Feathers or Carr could see some time during the season, he responded, "There are times when a starting pitcher is pulled for a relief pitcher. We're in a position now, we can bring someone off the bench and hopefully win the game for us."

Now that a starting quarterback has been made clear, Fresno State will be have their final practices to get ready for UC Davis this weekend.

The one thing the Bulldogs need to make sure of is that they're not looking past this game against the Aggies and looking to their trip to Madison to take on the Wisconsin Badgers. 

They need to keep their head in this game and make sure they take care of business. Once that's done, then coach Hill will get his team ready for what could be their biggest road trip of the season and biggest statement game of the season.

Lose this game on Saturday, and they face possibly returning home 0-2 and facing the 12th ranked Boise State Broncos.  That's why it's so important that they keep their focus and get the win on Saturday and have some momentum heading to Wisconsin.

Kick off will be at 7 PM PDT from Bulldog Stadium and according to The Fresno Bee, 27,978 tickets had been sold for Saturday's game.