WSU seniors shine in home finale

SLIDESHOW: Weber State vs. Cal Poly football

OGDEN -- Was it a big enough statement?

That's the question following the Weber State's 47-14 win over Cal Poly on Saturday, during a game when the Wildcats were hoping to send a message to the selection committee that will decide today who is in the Division I FCS playoffs, and who is not.

"We came into this game with the idea that we needed a blowout," said WSU coach Ron McBride. "We needed to make a statement so everybody would see the quality of this football team. We came in with the idea that we couldn't just win a close game, we needed to win going away."

The No-19 ranked Wildcats must now wait until this afternoon's announcement, which will take place at 1 p.m. on ESPNews, of the Division I FCS playoff brackets. Eight conferences automatically send their champions, while the 10-person committee selects the other eight at-large teams and also puts the playoff matchups together.

Since the Wildcats, who tied with Eastern Washington for second place in the Big Sky Conference but own the head-to-head tiebreaker since they beat the Eagles earlier this season, are hoping to get noticed by the committee, they knew Saturday's performance had to be special.

"I think we needed to play well," said WSU running back Trevyn Smith. "It's a voting game and I think we definitely had to play well. We couldn't just come through and just barely win or something."

WSU (7-4, 6-2 Big Sky) did just that as Cameron Higgins completed 23-of-33 passes for 364 yards and four touchdowns while Smith ran for 107 yards and two touchdowns. Smith's total gave him 5,007 yards for his career at Weber State, and makes him the first Wildcats running back to surpass the 5,000-yard mark.

Smith's performance on Saturday on the ground helped WSU's attack through the air.

"We were running well, so they had to put their corners on an island," Higgins said.

So Higgins took advantage.

The junior tossed three of his touchdown passes to Tim Toone, who finished with 11 catches for 176 yards, and opened the scoring for WSU with a 15-yard scoring strike to Bo Bolen. That tied the game 7-7 in the first quarter after Cal Poly (4-7) took the early lead off a 28-yard scoring pass from Tony Smith to David Mahr.

The tie didn't last long as Josh Morris picked Tony Smith off on the Mustangs' next drive and WSU scored 31 points in the second quarter. Trevyn Smith's two touchdowns came during that quarter, as did a pair of TD passes from Higgins to Toone.

"(Higgins) did a good job of knowing what we were doing," said Cal Poly coach Tim Walsh.

Higgins also stayed calm in a difficult situation.

Just prior to his final touchdown pass, Higgins had the ball knocked from his hands as he tried to avoid the Cal Poly rush. Higgins calmly snagged the bouncing ball and continued on with the play.

"I was just going to try and pick it up and run, but I felt like I had time so I looked down field," Higgins said.

As soon as Higgins had the ball again, Toone broke for the end zone and was on the receiving end of a 44-yard scoring play.

"Cam saw me and through it to me, and that was it," Toone said.

That TD reception gave Toone 200 catches in his career at WSU, second in WSU history behind Trevor Shaw's (1989-2003) mark of 206 and 10th on the Big Sky Conference all-time list.

WSU's offense finished with 471 yards while its defense allowed just 314 from Cal Poly while coming up with interceptions from Morris and Taylor Sedillo, as well as a fumble recovery by Nick Webb.

The Mustangs reached the end zone in the third quarter on a 12-yard pass to Jordan Yocum but WSU made sure that was all the scoring by the Mustangs, especially toward the end of the fourth quarter when Cal Poly was still threatening to score.

"The last thing we wanted to do was give them another score because of the playoffs," McBride said. "Holding these guys to 14 points while scoring 47, now that's a convincing victory. Now if we give them 20 points, or 21, it doesn't look as good. It looks like it's more of a football game. That's what we had to do today."

Now the Wildcats will gather this afternoon and find out if their season will continue.

No. 19 Weber State 47 Cal Poly 14

At Stewart Stadium

Cal Poly 7 0 7 0 -- 14

Weber State 7 31 0 9 -- 47

First quarter

Cal Poly--Mahr 28 pass from Smith (Pinto kick), 11:16.

Weber State--Bolen 15 pass from C.Higgins (Snoy kick), 6:08.

Second quarter

Weber State--Smith 3 run (Snoy kick), 12:46.

Weber State--Toone 26 pass from C.Higgins (Snoy kick), 8:57.

Weber State--Toone 17 pass from C.Higgins (Snoy kick), 7:19.

Weber State--Smith 9 run (Snoy kick), 3:13.

Weber State--Snoy 30 field goal, :26.

Third quarter

Cal Poly--Yocum 12 pass from Smith (Pinto kick), 4:05.

Fourth quarter

Weber State--Snoy 19 field goal, 11:02.

Weber State--Toone 44 pass from C. Higgins (kick failed), 5:21.

A--3,390.

CP WSU

First downs 21 24

Rushes-yards 52-148 29-107

Passing 166 364

Comp-Att-Int 11-24-2 23-33-0

Return yards 0 41

Punts-avg. 2-52.5 1-38.0

Fumbles-lost 1-1 1-1

Penalties-yards 6-42 4-35

Time of possession 34:08 25:52

Individual statistics

Rushing--Cal Poly, Romanelli 15-55, Grayson 6-37, Thierry 2-17, Mahr 2-13, Yocum 6-12, Smith 18-10, Hall 1-5, Gardley 1-0, Team 1-(minus 1). Weber State, Smith 20-107, C.Higgins 6-4, Bolen 1-(minus 1), Hoke 2-(minus 3).

Passing--Cal Poly, Smith 11-24-2-166. Weber State, C.Higgins 23-33-0-364.

Receiving--Cal Poly, Hall 2-45, Mahr 2-36, Gardley 2-33, Grayson 2-26, Yocum 1-12, Johnson 1-7, R.Taylor 1-7. Weber State, Toone 11-176, Bolen 3-74, Phillips 3-55, Francisco 2-22, Smith 2-21, Collins 2-16.