Fresno State is not your typical Group of Five team. They come to Purdue on Saturday as the defending Mountain West champions and they have won 10 games in consecutive seasons. By comparison, Purdue has one 10-win season in its entire history. In four of the last six seasons the Bulldogs have won at least 10 games, with the 12-2 2018 season as the pinnacle.

Jeff Tedford took over before the start of the 2017 season and produced an immediate turnaround. The Bulldogs were 1-11 in 2016, and he flipped them immediately to 10-4 with a spot in the Mountain West championship game. They are also very familiar with playing power conference opponents in that time as well. They did a home-and-home with Minnesota in 2018 and 2019 and lost both games by one score. Tedford briefly retired for health reasons after the 2019 season, but returned last season. In 2021 they played a 10-4 Oregon team tough in a 31-24 loss before winning 40-37 at UCLA. Last season they had a three point loss to a very good Oregon State team that won 10 games.

The Bulldogs have gotten this done thanks to a solid offense that also made Tedford quite successful at Cal. The Golden Bears are not a great program at the moment, but Tedford won eight games in six of his 11 seasons there. He also won a share of the 2011 Pac-10 championship. Tedford is also a Fresno State alum, so having success at his alma mater is an added perk.