Fresno State Football: 3 takeaways from dominant win over UConn

Fresno State manhandled UConn in a home blowout to open the 2021 season. Here are three things we learned about the Bulldogs in the victory.

After deciding to sit out the entire 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, UConn returned to the football field in more than 15 months. The Huskies took to the gridiron on Saturday for the first time since losing to Temple in their final game as an American Athletic Conference member on the last day of November 2019.

That post-Thanksgiving game ended in a 49-17 Owls rout. UConn’s losing streak continued on Saturday as they fell 45-0 to Fresno State. The game was out of reach by halftime in the heart of the Central Valley, as the Bulldogs racked up a 31-0 lead by the time the clock wound down on the second quarter.

It was the kind of performance that will send UConn back to the drawing board and the film room. We are likely going to hear far less talk moving forward from Power Five conferences about how UConn should count as another Power Five independent like Notre Dame rather than a team on the outside looking in like BYU.

More importantly, though, Fresno State asserted itself as a legitimate contender in the Mountain West race this season. Here are three critical things we learned from the Week Zero blowout by the Bulldogs over the visiting Huskies.