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Fresno State–San Diego State football rivalry

American college football rivalry

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ16972172 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Fresno State–San Diego State football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Fresno State Bulldogs football team of California State University, Fresno and San Diego State Aztecs football team of San Diego State University (SDSU). Both schools are members of the Mountain West Conference. The winner of the game receives "The Old Oil Can" trophy.

History

The rivalry dates back to 1923 when the two teams competed in the Southern California Junior College Conference. The Aztecs won 12–2 at home. Since then, the sides have met 52 more times, including every year from 1945 to 1979, when the two competed in the same conference or were independents. After not facing one another between 1979 and 1991, the schools resumed the annual series from 1992 to 1998, when both were members of the Western Athletic Conference. In 1999 the Aztecs were one of eight teams that left the WAC to form the Mountain West Conference (MW), which put the rivalry on hold. The two teams however met in 2002 in Fresno. The Bulldogs defeated the Aztecs in a close game 16–14.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Fresno State–San Diego State football rivalry” is american college football rivalry. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fresno, State and Diego, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1923, 1945, 1979, 1991—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Fresno, State and Diego is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american college football rivalry” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16972172. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1923, 1945, 1979 and 1991.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Fresno State–San Diego State football rivalry”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Fresno State–San Diego State football rivalry primary sources, Fresno State–San Diego State football rivalry archive and Fresno research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Fresno State–San Diego State football rivalry”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Fresno State–San Diego State football rivalry” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.