FRESNO STATE READY TO STATE CASE VS. UCLA BRUINS BEWARE: BULLDOGS OUT TO PROVE THEY BELONG AMONG CALIFORNIA'S BEST.

Byline: Brian Dohn Staff Writer

SAN JOSE - Fresno State says the California contingent of the Pacific-10 Conference has a phobia about playing the his team and considers the Bulldogs the wannabe school from the Central Valley.

Fresno State claims California, Stanford, USC and UCLA cling to the nothing-to-gain adage when the Bulldogs try to schedule games against them.

But once in a while, Fresno State gets its shot.

It did so at the 1992 Freedom Bowl in Anaheim, where the Bulldogs thumped USC 24-7. Tonight, the Bulldogs get their shot at UCLA in the Silicon Valley Classic on the neutral ground of Spartan Stadium.

Don't think the Bruins aren't aware of the repercussions if they lose.

``It would be a very bad thing,'' UCLA senior linebacker Brandon Chillar said. ``That's the only way you can say it. When you're UCLA playing Fresno State, you don't want to lose to littler schools and stuff like that. You want to prove you're a bigger program for a reason.''

Bruins senior defensive end Dave Ball, rarely at a loss for words, summed up the matchup between UCLA (6-6) and Fresno State (8-5) as just what it is: The Bruins are the Pac-10's sixth-place and final bowl team, and the Bulldogs (8-5) needed the Western Athletic Conference to do some behind-the-scenes finagling to get in.

``I think they're an average football team, just like we are,'' Ball said. ``It's the Average Bowl.''

When it came to describing what a UCLA loss would mean, Ball searched for words.

``What would it be like? I don't know,'' he said. ``Oh, man. I don't know. It just would be not very good at all, you know what I mean ... with my tremendous vocabulary.''

Here's some help.

A Fresno State victory would strengthen coach Pat Hill's argument that his team is worthy of such games as it tries to improve its national status. But a win likely would keep UCLA from scheduling Fresno State in the future.

``Coming from California, I have a better feel for how good this program is, and I take my hat off to Coach Hill and his staff for what he's done up there,'' UCLA coach Karl Dorrell said. ``We've talked many times in the offseason about playing against each other, and I've said, `No, I don't want to.' I told him that. But here we are.

``We are playing against each other, and it's a great challenge for both programs. For us, we're just getting started. It's a mission statement for him. He likes the challenge of playing against these programs that have a little bit of history.''

If the Bruins - who are 6-0 in the series - win, it will be viewed as expected.

Already, Fresno State is finding it difficult to play Pac-10 schools from California, and Hill has all but given up on getting them to travel up Highway 99 for a game.

The only time Fresno State played USC was in the Freedom Bowl. The last time the Bulldogs played Stanford was in 1928, and they beat Cal in their only two meetings, in 1995 and 2000.

UCLA has played Fresno State more often. The teams met in 1995, 1999 and 2000, but the Bruins don't have an open date on their schedule until 2009. And every game was in Los Angeles.

``We'd rather play those games than travel across country, so having an opportunity to play UCLA in this game is a great opportunity for us,'' said Hill, who is completing his seventh season in Fresno. ``It won't change our recruiting. It won't change any of those things. It just gives you an opportunity to keep trying to prove yourself as a school that belongs at the Division I level, at the highest level.''

Brian Dohn, [phone]

brian.dohn(at)dailynews.com

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SILICON VALLEY CLASSIC