Fresno State players react to Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes about ticket sales leading into L.A. Bowl

Sounds like ticket sales are slow for the second annual Jimmy Kimmel L.A. Bowl between Fresno State and Washington State.

Jimmy Kimmel says so, himself.

The late-night TV host made fun of the number of seats still available three days before the Bulldogs play the Cougars on Saturday from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood (kickoff is 12:30 p.m., ABC30).

“There are still seats available,” Kimmel said in his opening monologue during Wednesday’s show. “If you look at the areas ... in blue, almost all the seats are available.

“So that’s good. ... You got so much leg room. ... This is like when nobody came to my eighth-grade birthday party, which was also held in an empty football stadium.

“Next year,” Kimmel continued, “we’re calling it the Jimmy Kimmel L.A. Bowl presented by Stifel and Taylor Swift.”

The exact number of tickets sold so far was not immediately known.

But for what it’s worth, Fresno State fans appeared to do their part.

Within the first few days after it became official Fresno State would play in the L.A. Bowl, Bulldogs fans bought the initial 2,000 tickets allotted for the university.

Bulldogs officials reached out to L.A. Bowl officials to request additional tickets, including more access to suites for Red Wave fans on game day at SoFi Stadium.

Fresno State players in attendance for the Wednesday show got in on the act.

“Who’s excited to be playing in the Jimmy Kimmel Bowl?” Kimmel asked; the cameras showed a room full of Bulldogs players cheering.

“Who thinks they’re going to win this weekend?” Kimmel asked before the cameras again showed the room of Fresno State players smiling and cheering.

Then Kimmel asked the Bulldogs players a random question: “Who’s going to plan to ask Guillermo (Kimmel’s “security guard” and sidekick on the show) to buy beer after the show tonight?”

To which Fresno State players still kind of cheered and laughed.

By the way, neither Fresno State coach Jeff Tedford nor his coaching staff were shown on TV during the Kimmel Live! broadcast.

Kimmel concluded his line of questions by telling the Bulldogs players, “None of you are allowed to leave until you sell 10 tickets each, OK?” the room of players looked confused and even frustrated.

Nonetheless, it was mostly all smiles for the Bulldogs football team, with players able to meet Kimmel and take photos with him after the show.

“It was great,” Fresno State safety Evan Williams said. “We had a lot of fun. Guys were just having a good time. Anytime we’re around each other we have a good time. They had everything set up for us. You kind of get to see the behind-the-scenes of how that all operates, and it’s different than what you would think it was. But we got to meet Guillermo, Jimmy, take pictures and all that and the guys were having a ball. We definitely enjoyed that time.”

Last season’s inaugural L.A. Bowl between Utah State and Oregon State generated an announced attendance of 29,896.

Fresno State (9-4) gets its third crack at a Pac-12 program this season, having previously lost to Oregon State and USC during the regular season and now facing the conference’s seventh-place team in Washington State (7-5).

Fresno State hasn’t played Washington State since 1994.

The Bulldogs have won their past three bowl games.