Many believed Weber State deserved a seed in this year’s FCS playoff field.
For the first 25 minutes of football in Ogden, Utah, Josh Davis and the Wildcats showed exactly why.
Weber State ran the ball at will from the start against a North Dakota squad that was one of the saltiest defensive units in the Big Sky Conference during the Fighting Hawks’ brief stay (2012-2018) in the league.
The Missouri Valley Football Conference version of UND had trouble finding its footing defensively all afternoon. But the Fighting Hawks certainly did not roll over despite Weber State jolting out to a 24-0 lead.
Davis, a former All-American and the 2018 Jerry Rice Award winner as the top freshman in the FCS, has battled injuries the last two seasons. Yet he had more than 100 yards rushing and his second rushing touchdown of the day to staked WSU to a 38-17 lead with 6:25 left in the third quarter.
But North Dakota quarterback Tommy Schuster threw a pair of fourth quarter touchdowns to put the heat on the hosts and shave the margin to a touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
Weber State’s normally outstanding defense buckled down on UND’s final possession, forcing a turnover on downs to help preserve a 38-31 victory in front of 4,495 at Stewart Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
“Tough game, hard-fought game and we knew it would be,” Jay Hill, Weber State’s ninth-year head coach, said after moving to 6-5 in FCS playoff games. “Coach (Bubba) Schweigert does a phenomenal job with his team. They are always tough, they always play hard and they don’t make a lot of mistakes.
“You have to earn it, even when we were up 24-0 early. We knew they weren’t going to give up.”
Box score
Davis rushed for 129 yards on 21 carries, including 30-yard touchdown as part of WSU’s game-opening spurt of 24 unanswered points. The Wildcats finished with 330 rushing yards in a game with a first-half snow storm and wet field conditions after halftime.
WSU quarterback Bronson Barron completed just five passes, including a 46-yard bomb to set up WSU’s first score 10 minutes into the game. Damon Bankston rushed 15 times for 122 yards and a score while Dontae McMillan added 12 carries for 64 yards and rushing score.
“The way we ran the ball today was huge,” Hill said. “I’ve said all along that we got a good o-line, we got good tight ends and we have good backs. Leaning on that crew today was huge.”
Now Weber State gets the rematch the squad likely hoped for and certainly deserves. Weber’s sixth FCS playoff win under Hill (and eighth all-time) helps the Wildcats advance to the second round of the 24-team tournament. WSU will play in the Round of 16 at Montana State.
On October 22 earlier this season, Weber suffered its first loss of the season after a 6-0 start that included a 35-7 beat down of Utah State, WSU’s Mountain West neighbor 50 miles to the north in Logan.
Montana State quarterback Tommy Mellott ran wild, piling up 273 rushing yards (the second-most by a quarterback in a single game in Big Sky history). And that was far down the list of the primary story lines and wildest factors in one of the games of the year in the FCS.
Weber State punter Grant Sands snapped the ball out of the back of the end zone four times, an enormous factor in Montana State pulling out a 43-38 victory in Bozeman. Now, 59 days later, the Wildcats have a chance to come back to Bozeman.
“Win and advance,” Hill said. “There’s no easy games in the playoffs and for sure not North Dakota. We have played them enough times to know they would be a great opponent.
The last time Weber State played a Big Sky Conference rival came in the quarterfinals of the 2019 playoffs when WSU beat Montana 17-10 to advance to the FCS Final Four for the first time in school history.
Photo courtesy of Weber State athletics. All Rights Reserved.
