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OGDEN — Losing is not something Weber State football coach Jay Hill wants his team to become accustomed to.
Losing has been something that has followed the Wildcats for the past few seasons, along with players making critical errors, getting flagged for penalties at the wrong time and miscommunication.
Weber lost Saturday, falling 24-7 to No. 1-ranked North Dakota State, but the way the Wildcats played showed everything about the team appears to be improving. First, North Dakota State scored first in the game midway through the first quarter, and Weber promptly responded with an 11-play, 75-yard drive ending with an Eric Wilkes touchdown to tie the game.
Despite the loss, Hill said there were moments that showcased the growth of the team’s toughness.
“I’m really proud of our team and how they fought,” Hill said. “There is a lot of toughness and resiliency in this team. We made some mistakes that you just can’t make if you want to beat a great team."
"That was a good football team that we beat," North Dakota State coach Chris Klieman said.
The improvement Weber State continues to make made an impression on North Dakota State coach Chris Klieman, who said the Wildcats are a quality football team.
“That was a good football team that we beat,” he said. “They did a great job at the line of scrimmage and gave us some fits with running the ball and blitzing. They have a good (defensive line) and linebackers. I was really impressed with their football team.”
The Wildcats opened the game with a flea-flicker pass quarterback Billy Green completed, and they stayed aggressive offensively. Green threw it 43 times, and Weber moved the ball well, except in the red zone. The Wildcats were 0-for-1 on their red zone attempts.
Klieman said his team’s improved red zone defense made the difference against Weber’s otherwise strong offense.
“We were a bend-but-not-break defense, even though we gave up some plays,” he said. “(Shaydon Kehano) is a heckuva football player, and we had our hands full with them. He made some plays that kept things alive, but we played better red zone defense this week than we did at Iowa State.”
For his part, Green said Weber’s red zone offense must improve for the Wildcats to win.
“There’s a lot of things I feel the offense did well,” he said. “But there’s a lot of things that we need to clean up. Red zone was probably the biggest thing… So, there’s a lot of things we need to work on, but I think there’s a lot of things we can build on as well.”
The Wildcats had a chance in the fourth quarter to score in the red zone and cut the score to 21-14. However, Weber bogged down and used a fake field-goal attempt on fourth down to attempt to score. That play initially appeared to be right, but a key missed block cost the Wildcats a score.
Hill said the team had prepped all week on the situation, but the missed block was critical.
“It should have been the play of the game for us in our favor,” he said. “We worked it over and over again. In practice, they ran it well, and Cody (McKague) had done a great job on that block all week long. I told him it was going to come down to that one block.
“I was actually happy when the offense stalled on the left hash because I knew what look we were going to get. We ran it into the perfect look and we didn’t execute it.”
There were also several other mistakes costing the Wildcats a chance at victory. One of them included a Green fumble deep in North Dakota State territory that eventually led to a Bison touchdown.
Green said the mistake came about from the North Dakota State blitz.
“I was going through my reads, and I tried to step up and see the under route we had coming,” he said. “And I just go blind-sided and I got the ball knocked out.”
Now, the Wildcats begin preparation to face fellow Big Sky foe Sacramento State in a non-league game. As if playing a conference foe wasn’t enough motivation, Weber will face off against former coach Jody Sears, who is the head coach for the Hornets.
Cornerback Deon’tae Florence, who recorded one of Weber’s two interceptions, said it is imperative the team continues to focus on improvement.
“We all came in confident, and our coaches had us well-prepared,” he said. “It’s a tough loss. We did a couple things well… We’ll get better from here.”
Hill said his job as a coach is to continue to improve everything about the team.
“There were a lot of positives that we can build on,” he said. “We can’t get used to losing and I don’t foresee that with our team. We just need to keep improving.”
