Shooting for yet another season home opening win under head coach Pat Hill, the Fresno State Bulldogs try to make their mark on Saturday night against the visiting Cincinnati Bearcats at Bulldog Stadium.

Under the direction of coach Hill, who incidentally took a pay cut during recent negotiations on his contract, the Bulldogs are a perfect 6-0 when opening a season at home and have won five straight season openers overall. Hill and the Bulldogs have lost four times in season openers, with those four setbacks coming against the likes of Colorado, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Tennessee. In 2009, the team began with a 51-0 rout of UC Davis, but after that the Bulldogs slumped into a three-game slide. However, wins in seven of the final eight games, including a 53-52 squeaker versus Illinois which was the 100th win for coach Hill, sent the team to the postseason where it eventually bowed to Wyoming, 35-28, in double-overtime of the New Mexico Bowl.

As for the Bearcats, they were gunning for a national title under then head coach Brian Kelly and seemed to be in the right position to throw a wrench into the whole BCS mess, but after sweeping through the regular season with a mark of 12-0, taking out all seven opponents n the Big East Conference, the Bearcats were thumped by Florida, 51-24, in the Sugar Bowl. Controversy dogged Cincinnati leading up to the postseason appearance as Kelly announced he was taking the job at Notre Dame three weeks before the meeting with the Gators. As a result, Kelly was not on the sidelines for that final matchup and that caused just as much of a distraction as anything else. Six days after Kelly announced he was leaving, the Bearcats brought in former Central Michigan head coach Butch Jones to be their new leader.

The Bearcats won the first and only meeting between these two teams just last year, coming up with a 28-20 victory at home. The Bulldogs get their revenge as they turn the tables on the Bearcats and win another season opener in Fresno.