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LA Bowl: Fresno St (-3.5) vs Washington St (+3.5)
Washington State and Fresno State are two programs that you'd expect to have more of a history with one another given the close proximity, but the LA Bowl on Saturday marks just the fifth meeting between the pair as they have only played four times in their history. The last meeting was in 1994 when the Cougars beat the Bulldogs 24-3 in Pullman, Washington. All four meetings took place between 1987 and 1994, with the Bulldogs managing one win in 1991.
This will be the first time these programs have met in nearly 40 years. Hopefully, this game will have been worth the wait. The Cougars were a pleasant surprise in the Pac-12; though expected to reach a bowl, they still finished 7-5 under first-year coach Jake Dickert with impact transfer quarterback Cam Ward running the offense.
They'll face a Fresno State team that won the Mountain West by avenging its lone conference loss against Boise State in a 28-16 win in the conference title game. Fresno finished the season 9-4, but its other three losses were of the nonconference variety against Oregon State, USC and UConn.
Washington State vs Fresno State: Need to know
This is a great QB matchup: Thankfully, neither Fresno State's Jake Haener nor Washington State's Cam Ward has opted out for this game. Both are two of the Most College Football Quarterbacks you'll ever see. Haener is listed as 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds, but I suspect Fresno is being a bit generous. Either way, he's the definition of a gamer and refuses to quit. Anybody who saw his performance against UCLA during the 2021 season will know why I refer to him as college football's answer to Monty Python's Black Knight. Then there's Wazzu's Ward, who transferred to Washington State from Incarnate Word as a dual-threat big play waiting to happen, and he's lived up to the billing. This game will be worth watching for these two alone.
Fresno State's three-bowl win streak is on the line: The Bulldogs have won three straight bowl games, though those games haven't been in consecutive seasons. They won the 2017 Hawaii Bowl, the 2018 Las Vegas Bowl, and beat UTEP in last year's New Mexico Bowl. Washington State hasn't had as much success in the postseason. The Cougars lost last year's Sun Bowl to Central Michigan, which was their fifth loss in their last seven bowl appearances. They haven't won a bowl game since beating Iowa State 28-26 in the 2018 Alamo Bowl under the late Mike Leach.
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Originally Posted by 209 Life
