Historic night: Bullard High hosts a game for the first time ever

History was made on Friday night at Bullard High.

The Knights hosted their first ever home game on campus.

You could really feel the excitement.

Everywhere you looked, people were just smiling from ear to ear.

You could hardly tell the field had only been a place for practices and never home football games.

The practice field had quickly transformed into a stadium for the Knights and its fans.

For the first time in its over 65-year history, Bullard hosted 'Friday Knight Lights' on its own campus.

It was something Manny Galo, a senior, never thought he'd see.

"It just feels different - I mean look it we got fans from all the way down there to all the way down here, you know. It's the first game here. It feels crazy, it feels nice, I love it."

The change came into play after six Fresno Unified schools were scheduled to have a home football game with only five stadiums - that became problematic.

"Because Bullard has the lighting here present, that gave us the opportunity to host a game at the Bullard bowl," said Bob Nelson of the Fresno Unified School District.

To bring everything together, the district borrowed bleachers from other schools, brought in porta-potties for guests and added temporary fencing for safety.

Parent Denise Segall said seeing it all come together touched her as a mom.

"I think there's probably more students here tonight than there typically is at a home game, which is not really a home game, you know. They're usually at McLane or Ratcliffe so it's exciting," she said.

Athletic director Brandon Gilbert says he even noticed players taking pride in being able to go head to head with Pittman High from Turlock on their own turf.

"I was out here this morning and they all walked out on the field and you could just see how excited they were and what makes this so special is a lot of them have never been able to walk out of their own locker room and play a football game, so I'm just really happy for them," he said.

Now the question is - will this eventually become a permanent change?

It's not certain if Bullard will host another on campus game in the future but Friday's gridiron showdown could go a long way to help administrators make that decision.

"This is one and done for the school year but today would be a really good baseline to gather some information to see what it looks like," Alvarado says. "It's Friday Night Football...that alone communicates a big message."

While that answer is up in the air, students are making the best out of what made them feel extra "Knights" proud on the historic Friday evening.