Old 'Dog Jeff Tedford Continues Teaching New Tricks at Fresno State

Fox’s national prime-time broadcast window in Week 6 offers a refreshing matchup for the national audience with Wyoming hosting No. 24-ranked Fresno State.

Fresno State makes the hike to 7,220 feet carrying the longest winning streak this side of Athens, Georgia into a pivotal Mountain West Conference showdown. Always-tough Wyoming sits at 4-1, the Cowboys’ sole blemish coming at College Football Playoff hopeful Texas, and Craig Bohl’s bunch has an opportunity to make a statement.

It’s a high-stakes contest more than deserving of its spot on national airwaves, and it’s a ripe opportunity to appreciate the profound impact and remarkable longevity of Fresno State coach Jeff Tedford.

Tedford has consistently adapted in a college football landscape that has undergone so much transformation since he broke in, the sport’s almost unrecognizable.

Case in point, when Tedford passed for 2,620 yards as Fresno State quarterback in 1982 that was good for 11th-most in the nation. Only five quarterbacks passed for 3,000-plus yards, and leader among the quintet was Todd Dillon of a long-since defunct Long Beach State program.

In 2002, Tedford’s first season as a head coach — making the short move from Fresno to the Bay Area and Cal, by way of Eugene, Oregon — his Golden Bears quarterback, Kyle Boller, threw for 2,815 yards.

That was 35th-most in Div. I-AA that season. Twenty-six passers exceeded 3,000 yards, four cleared 4,000 yards and Texas Tech’s Kliff Kingsbury reached 5,000 yards.

Another 20 years later in 2022, 3,000 yards essentially marked the floor for an upper-tier productive college quarterback. Thirty-eight hit that milestone, representing around 30 percent of all FBS programs.

Fresno State did not have a passer among the 38; Jake Haener’s 2,896 were good for 45th. Now, Haener would have were it not for his missing four games; the reputation Tedford established during the ‘90s and into the 2000s as a quarterback guru is still intact.

If anything, Tedford’s modern-day success coaching quarterbacks mirrors when he gained said reputation coaching in the Pac-10. Back then, he helped transform a floundering minor-league baseball prospect, Akili Smith, into the NFL draft’s No. 3 overall pick.

At Cal, a JUCO transfer who opened the 2003 season second on the Golden Bears depth chart ascended to legendary status.

Likewise, his successful two stints as Fresno State head coach featured breakout play from quarterbacks maligned at their previous stops — Marcus McMaryion at Oregon State, and Haener at Washington.

Both left their stamps on Fresno State history, alongside other all-time great Bulldogs quarterbacks like Trent Dilfer and David & Derek Carr. Of note, Tedford coached Dilfer and the elder Carr.

Tedford’s continued impact with quarterbacks spanning multiple generations and changes to the way offenses run is certainly significant. However, Fresno State’s defense has been at the forefront of the program’s success in Tedford’s split tenure.

The 2017 Bulldogs ranked 10th nationally in scoring defense; last season’s squad, 14th. Both were 10-game winners.

Fresno State’s Mountain West championship-winning 2018 defense held opponents to 14.1 points per game, fewer than all but two teams — one of which was national champion Clemson.

Defense travels, as the saying goes. So, too, has Tedford’s influence.

When he stepped down from his first tenure as Bulldogs coach after the 2019 season for health reasons, Kalen DeBoer returned from a one-year stint coordinating the offense at Indiana.

DeBoer oversaw the Fresno State offense on Tedford’s staff in 2017 and 2018. In 2021, the Bulldogs won 10 games with him at the helm and boasted one of the nation’s most electric offenses.

Fresno State’s brand of football that season contributed to DeBoer being offered the head-coaching role at Washington, where DeBoer brought with him another former Tedford assistant in Ryan Grubb.

DeBoer’s Huskies are Playoff contenders in just the coach’s second year in Seattle. Grubb is a hot name among potential head-coaching candidates in the coming years for his work transforming a Washington offense that was dreadful in 2021 into the nation’s most prolific in 2023.

Speaking with DeBoer the summer prior to his Fresno State’s team breakout, the coach offered some insight that nicely summarizes Tedford’s legacy.

“I haven’t been in a lot of places, but I’ve been in enough to know what a winner feels like. When I was here in ‘17 and ‘18, I knew this was a winner right away,” he said. “It was so crazy doing what we did coming in on the heels of a tough year the year before¹.

“Coach Tedford did a great job, and I think him knowing and being familiar with Fresno State, because of him being an alum and having coached there, helped him,” DeBoer added. “And that helps me, being here in ‘17 and ‘18; knowing the recruiting territories, the areas that are huge emphasis, understanding the connections between high school coaches.”

Tedford having 40 years of influence in a variety of roles, through myriad changes to the sport at one program is a truly remarkable accomplishment. I don’t know how many seasons he has left, considering he recently stepped down once already.

He’s earned his flowers now and then some — not the least of which includes a spot on prime-time broadcast TV.

1. The 2016 Fresno State team finished 1-11, the worst record in program history. Tedford and the 2017 staff engineered one of the greatest turnarounds ever in college football.