Fresno State interim head football coach says 'Dogs are moving forward

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Fresno State is moving on without Tim DeRuyter and at in his place for now is offensive coordinator, now interim head coach, Eric Kiesau. This is Kiesau's first season with the 'Dogs and Friday's game against Air Force will be the first time he's been a head coach in college.

"You have a short span of time, don't have a lot of time, you have to think about the things you can do in a short amount of time," Kiesau said. "I just want to provide some vision and leadership."

In his first opportunity to lead a college football team, Kiesau left no doubt about his vision for the program.

"The three bullet points I gave them in the team meeting, was number one thing, relentless effort, not good effort, not great effort, relentless," he said. "The second thing was discipline, discipline is what you are supposed to do, when you are supposed to do it, how you are supposed to do it, when it supposed to be done everyday. The last thing is you have to hold them to that standard, you have to set a high standard, you have to make them expect that standard and it all ties back into discipline and great effort."

Saturday's loss to Utah State eliminated the Bulldogs from bowl game contention and now all that remains are four games.

"Man lost his job because of us," linebacker Jeff Camilli said, referring to DeRuyter. "You kind of take a little bit of that responsibility, so I think that everybody really noticed how real this got and you know decided to kick it up a bit."

"Kind of a down time for us, seeing coach DeRuyter leave and having him say he loved us. It kind of just hit us," quarterback Chason Virgil said. "Coach Keys came in being energetic and he got us back going and I think it showed today at practice and we had guys flying around, we had a different feel about ourselves."

Whether or not that "new feeling" translates into wins remains to be seen but one thing coach Kiesau made certain is the team is moving forward.

"The train is not going to stop, we are going 100 miles per hour," Kiesau said. "You have to stay on. If you want to be on the train, jump on and let's do this. "If you don't that's okay. That's why the whole are you 'all in,' are you 'all in.' We have signs that are up here are you 'all in.' They are going to tap it and it's on every door, every meeting, everywhere we walk in. They are going to walk in and if you are all in it will remind you if you tap it you are all in. So that's the mindset we took the train is not going to slow down we are going to keep going and keep plugging away."

Kickoff against Air Force is set for 7:30 p.m. on Friday night at Bulldog Stadium.