It’s one thing to leave the West Coast to play a ranked team when you’re a Group of Five program. It’s another to go and face not only the defending national champion, but a team that’s hungry to prove the year before wasn’t a one-off.
Fresno State isn’t scared to play anyone, as evidenced by the Bulldogs’ upset win at Purdue last year. But new head coach Tim Skipper is excited about the challenge of facing Michigan football at The Big House. And with it being a night game on the road to open up the season, he’s expecting it to be a raucous atmosphere.
“I love hostile environments, to be honest with you,” Skipper said. “I think that’s the magic of college football. You get 110 (thousand) in a stadium. It’s loud, it’s rocking, you can’t hear. You want it to be as hard as it could possibly be — that’s at least the way how I think about it.
“We did a lot with noise, we played noise over the speakers and things like that. And with the coaches having to communicate with the players with the new technology we have in the helmets and things like that. But we definitely have a lot of tools we can use. We’ll see how loud it is and when it gets loud, we’ll go to the tools that we need. But we’ve definitely been practicing it.”
Of course, one thing about Michigan the past few seasons is that it has overpowered lesser teams. Even Alabama had its struggles on the line of scrimmage in the Rose Bowl last season.
Skipper expects more of the same from the Wolverines, but as he notes, his team strives to be physical, too.
“They’re a physical football team,” Skipper said. “They put it on film. they’re fundamentally sound. so — hey, we got this. We have the same model. Let’s go out there and see who has it, who’s going to take it. and I’m excited for it. I think our guys play physical. We have a lot of full pad practices. We did a lot of live tackle-to-the-ground stuff. So it’s time to go, let the chips out there and see how they fall.”
One thing that makes it extra hard to prepare for Michigan this year is that there is no returning quarterback and the competition continues to be ongoing between Alex Orji and Davis Warren. A starter won’t likely be revealed until kickoff on Saturday evening.
“We’re anticipating seeing both, and we’re ready to see both, but they’re going to do however they’re going to do it, and then we’re going to have to adjust,” Skipper said. “You get ready, you see all the stuff they did last year, and then you get in the first game, and then there’s going to be new wrinkles, because they obviously have good coaching staff also.
“So they’re going to do things that are good for their quarterback, their O-line, and their running backs and all that type of stuff, so we’ll see how it goes. It’s a game of adjustments. It really is. And it’s not halftime adjustments. This is going to be series-to-series adjustments. If we wait till halftime, this game will be over. So, we’ll be adjusting as we go.”
Michigan and Fresno State are set to kick off at 7:34 p.m. EDT at The Big House. The season opener will be broadcast live on NBC.