5-3, on track for 7-4 in the regular season.
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 1-0
2025Arizona BowlW 18-3
This week Wed Nov 4
- Last gameW 38-22 vs. Oregon State Sat Oct 31
- This season5-3
- On track for7-4 regular season
- Nextat Utah State Sat Nov 7
- Stature60th of 138 FBS programs
What the result changed
- Playoff odds 0.9% → 1% CFB Zeitgeist forecast, before and after
Saturday: at Utah State
Sat Nov 7, 9:30 pm ET 
· Utah State is 3-5 · Entz vs. Bronco Mendenhall: 0-1 · Fresno State’s chance to win: 56% (the site’s model)
A few stories this week →
The headlines, Nov 1–4 from a few outlets
247SportsFresno State coach Matt Entz breaks down how 'Dogs slowed Beaver passing attackSun Nov 1- Fresno BeeHear from Fresno State football coach Matt Entz (Video)Mon Nov 2
OregonLiveWhat Matt Entz said after Fresno State beat Oregon StateSun Nov 1
Offense: 82nd of 138 per play. Defense: 51st.
3 games left
- Sat Nov 7at Utah State (3-5)56%
- Sat Nov 14at Texas State (4-4)
38% - Sat Nov 21vs. Colorado State (3-5)84%
Percent: Fresno State’s chance to win, from the site’s model. Records are through today. Networks as announced; the rest are set closer to kickoff.
How the season got here
Where Fresno State stood among 138 FBS programs by stature after each game (1st is the highest; the CFB Zeitgeist ledger).
- Oct 26–Nov 1W 38-22 vs. Oregon State1 headline · 87th of 138
- Oct 19–25No game0 headlinesEverything Fresno State coach Matt Entz said after frustrating loss at SDSU 247Sports
- Oct 12–18L 23-26 at San Diego State0 headlines
- Oct 5–11L 31-38 vs. Boise State2 headlines · 70th of 138
- Sep 28–Oct 4W 26-6 at Washington State1 headline · 82nd of 138
- Sep 21–27 · rebuiltW 38-24 vs. Rice0 headlines
Each week as this page showed it at the time. Weeks marked rebuilt came before this page existed: they were built afterward from only what was known by the end of that week.
Watch the biggest plays from Fresno State’s games, ranked by how much each moved the chance to win.
Poach watch
This winter
Our poach model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, his program, his pay and his background. Ranked against the 132 FBS head coaches this season. The zone words describe the market’s interest; none of them says he is leaving.
What drives his number
The biggest factors in his profile, each against the typical FBS head coach today. The games he has left are priced into the number, not listed here.
- ▲ HigherHis team is 5-3, outscoring opponents by 7.9 points a game
- ▲ HigherPaid $1.1 million in 2025, the 29th percentile of published FBS head-coach pay
How good is this number? It ranks a head coach who leaves for another head-coaching job ahead of one who stays 78 to 82% of the time, and its average came within a point of the share who actually left. What it can’t do
Tested on every FBS head coach from 2012 through 2025, each season scored by a model fit only on the seasons before it. From three games on, given one coach who left for a head-coaching job elsewhere or an NFL coordinator job and one who stayed, it ranked the one who left ahead 79 to 82% of the time; in a season’s first two games, 78%. Its average chance came within a point of the share who actually left. It counts a move a coach makes while he still holds the job; when his school ends it, that doesn’t count, even if another school then hires him.
- The live number prices the games he has left with the power model’s ratings from this season. The test priced them with each team’s rating from the season before, because ratings made during past seasons were not kept, so this live version could not be replayed.
- Programs new to FBS have no FBS record before this season in the data it reads, so their coaches are scored without one.
- It is frozen: it learns nothing from 2026 until a deliberate refit.
- A coach hired in December needs his background (age, alma mater, the state he was born in) added before his first game, or he shows as not rated.
Fans
Fan chatter
- Oct 17L 23-26 at San Diego State
Another 8-4 season if we are lucky. Get Entz The f--- out
Fresno State fan - Oct 10L 31-38 vs. Boise State
Entz’s whole thing is he wants this team to be the best effort team in the nation but heh.
Fresno State fan - Sep 26W 38-24 vs. Rice
if Davis sticks around after this year he must have actual blackmail on Entz and Klassy because he's cooking pure poison
Fresno State fan
Earlier weeks
- Sep 19W 26-10 at San José State
Huh, I didn't realize that Entz had lost so much weight since the NDSU years
Fresno State fan - Sep 4L 0-39 at USC
Likely, but Entz starts Mandal for Sac State. He saw something in camp. He’s not going to take the starting job away after a loss to a top 15 team…… right??
Fresno State fan
A few stories about him this week
Sat Nov 7: Utah State
81st of 104 FBS head coaches · from a few outlets and r/CFB
What they’re talking about
The headlines for each topic are on the News tab.
Dozens of stories about him this season
from many outlets and r/CFB
Matt Entz has big plans for Fresno State going into USC game
Trojans Wire +2 Sep 1 · a few outlets
All 3 articles
What they’re talking about
The headlines for each topic are on the News tab.
Could another school hire him? What has he said?
Across his career
26 stories about him across 2 seasons
Stories are headlines grouped by what they are about, counted through Nov 4.
Stats
Big games
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
1-3 against his rivals.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Called about what the situation called for.
842 run and pass snaps at Fresno State, 2025–2025, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Building the roster
Three numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His one ranked Fresno State class of his own finished #70 nationally.
His class — he had the full signing cycleTransition — he was hired mid-cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his; inherited and mid-transition classes still show here, faded, but stay out of the average.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2026 roster arrived on his watch — 84 of 118 players. The other 34 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 26% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
Everyone he has brought in, 2025–2026Counting players who have since left: 30% of the 93 arrivals we can classify came through the portal.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 32 of 46 signees (70%) across his 2025–2026 tenure, drawn from 9 states in all. Next: NE (4).
74% of his signees come from CA and its 3 border states (AZ 2).
Off this map: 1 signee to the east (NJ). 1 signee without a plottable hometown location not shown.
- median hometown distance
- 216 mi
- within 100 mi
- 24%
- within 500 mi
- 70%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 26%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
News
Stories about him
Headlines, grouped by what they are about. Each is the outlet’s own.
This week
Press conference and quotes
This season
Press conference and quotes
Sports Illustrated +1Fresno State's Matt Entz Gets Real On Experience Coaching For USC Trojans, Lincoln RileyAug 31All 2 articles
- Trojans Wire +1Lincoln Riley discusses relationship with Fresno State’s Matt EntzSep 3
All 2 articles
- Fresno BeeFresno State football coach Matt Entz talks USC (Video)Sep 1
KMPHFresno State HC Matt Entz talks familiarity with USC players, coaching staffSep 4- Trojans WireFresno State’s Matt Entz praises USC following his team’s lossSep 8
Quarterback and depth chart
Game preview
- Sports Illustrated +1Fresno State coach Matt Entz calls Boise State the 'golden standard' ahead of rivalry gameOct 6
- 247SportsUSC set to face familiar foe in Fresno State's Matt EntzSep 3
In his own words
Every quote, back to August 2026
In his own words
They [defensive adjustments] weren’t good enough. We need to get better
He’s an awesome kid, a great leader
I thought as the game went on, we adapted to the speed, to the tempo, to the system that they were running
Football is a different sport
We got behind the chains
The minute we get over the Grapevine, we’re gonna think about going 1-0 next week
I’m proud of both of them
Khristian Martin is a wonderful young man but Mandal’s ability to get us in and out of place and always making the right calls
He [Mandal] got healthy and he went through different surgeries and what not
He [Mandal] is very intentional about his actions in being a quarterback. And he told me in the Spring when he was kind of coming off of his injury, ‘Coach I want to be the starter, I’m going to do everything I can.
It was an open competition that went on a bit longer, the quarterbacks have known for a long time now but it’s great to see how they’ve responded. It was very competitive and that was part of the reason why the decision was kind of prolonged, because I wasn’t necessarily 100% sure.
Career
Hires into jobs like this
Hired into programs rated 31 to 31 (National Program II tier). Rough match, not calibrated yet — ranked on what the job inherited alone. Coaches hired into this same job aren’t used as comps.
- Tim Skipper20246–7-0.9
- Kalen DeBoer20203–3-2.1
- Jeff Tedford201710–4+3.0
- Eric Kiesau20160–4-4.1
- Tim DeRuyter20129–4+2.8
- Pat Hill19976–6-0.6
- Bob Padilla19783–8-2.2
- Jim Sweeney19765–6+2.3
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Followed Tim Skipper (2024).
| Season | 2025 | 2026 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||
| Record | 9-4 | 5-3 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | |||
| OC | Josh Davis | Josh Davis | |
| DC | Nick Benedetto | Nick Benedetto | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||
| Offense | 20 | 47 | |
| Defense | 92 | 68 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||
| 1st-down pass% | 32.8 | 36.2 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 36.0 | 34.8 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 34.3 | 20.0 | |
Underperforms his recruiting talent on offense and outperforms his recruiting talent on defense.
Brings in smaller-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits younger transfers than most — more of a development bet.