Weber State football: McMillan powers Wildcats in odd 19-16 victory at Southern Utah
Weber State running back Dontae McMillan celebrates after finishing a 43-yard touchdown run during a game against Southern Utah on Saturday, April 3, 2021, in Cedar City.
Weber State defenders Preston Smith (7), Raoul Johnson (15) and Ja'Kobe Harris (24) combine to tackle Southern Utah's Lance Lawson (14) during a game Saturday, April 3, 2021, in Cedar City.
Weber State's Dontae McMillan (28) runs during a 43-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter against Southern Utah on Saturday, April 3, 2021, in Cedar City.
Weber State's Dontae McMillan (28) rushes for a long gain against Southern Utah during a game Saturday, April 3, 2021, in Cedar City.
Weber State defenders Desmond Williams (0), Jared Schiess (91) and Sherwin Lavaka (55) combine to tackle Southern Utah's Jay Green Jr. (21) during a game Saturday, April 3, 2021, in Cedar City.
Weber State's football team takes the field before a game against Southern Utah on Saturday, April 3, 2021, in Cedar City.
For three quarters of football, Southern Utah seemed to be outdoing Weber State at its own game.
But freshman running back Dontae McMillan rushed for 138 yards in the second half, WSU’s defense bottled up SUU’s passing attack to its worst outing of the season, and the No. 3 Wildcats overcame a series of mistakes and oddities to defeat the Thunderbirds 19-13 on Saturday afternoon in Cedar City.
“This team we have right now is battle-tested. We’ve been through a lot of wars right now and we still have yet to play our best football, and I’m excited when that day happens,” WSU head coach Jay Hill said.
Trailing 16-9 and with star running back Josh Davis hurt, McMillan took his first carry with 1 minute left in the third quarter. He broke it for 23 yards and added a 9-yarder before the quarter expired.
On the first play of the fourth quarter, McMillan cut up the middle, spun off two would-be tacklers, juked a third and sprinted 43 yards to the end zone to knot the game at 16-16.
A few minutes later, Weber State (4-0) safety Desmond Williams dropped Jay Green Jr. on what seemed like a standard tackle and a rush for no gain. But during a timeout, officials reviewed the play and saw Williams popped the ball free before the tackle was finished and recovered it.
“I’m guessing I put my head on the ball. When I came up from it, he was still on top of me kind of, and I had the ball in my hands underneath. So I assume it came out before he was down because he was on top of me,” Williams said.
The game’s only turnover proved pivotal. From SUU’s 41, McMillan rushed Weber to the SUU 8 on two carries. In one of the game’s many odd plays, McMillan seemed to clearly cross the goal line on a second-and-goal from the 6, falling into the end zone after contact. But he was ruled down at the 1 with no review.
When asked postgame if he scored, McMillan simply said, “Yes, sir. Yes, I did.”
Two plays later, Kyle Thompson punched through the winning score on a 19-yard field goal with 10:02 left.
Southern Utah (1-4) never got close to threatening from there, twice taking possessions past their own 30 but not much farther.
The Thunderbirds bottled up WSU’s final possession at midfield and used all their timeouts to stop the clock with 50 seconds left. But on fourth-and-5 and coming out of the timeout, SUU sent 12 men into formation. The resulting 5-yard penalty gave WSU a first down, and the Wildcats kneeled it twice to end the game.
McMillan’s 138 led all rushers, with Davis adding 68 yards on 18 carries before going out with a left ankle injury early in the second half. Daniel Wright Jr. added 45 yards on 11 carries, and WSU outrushed SUU 235-55.
“Usually when that’s the case, it shouldn’t have been close,” Hill said. “We’ve got to start making sure that those games are that way on the scoreboard. I’m proud of our team, they battled and fought … the wind was something to deal with, and I thought we did well.”
Southern Utah dropped its fourth game by three or less points, but avoided a last-second heartbreak after three previous games being decided in the final 10 seconds.
While McMillan gave life to WSU’s offense, the Wildcats’ defense swarmed all game to deny what had been the Big Sky’s most efficient passing attack. SUU quarterback Justin Miller entered averaging 297.5 yards per game and just shy of a 70% completion rate.
Saturday, Miller threw 24 of 43 (55.8%) for just 181 yards. Weber lined up players in all sorts of new places while the secondary stepped up in man coverage.
“I thought the secondary played absolutely outstanding. I put them on an island a lot today. The defensive ends did a phenomenal job batting balls down,” Hill said. “We tried to just confuse him and get after him a little bit, change up our looks from blitz to drop eight to four-man pressures, and I thought (we) did a good job with it.”
Weber State sacked Miller just one time, from George Tarlas, but seven players recorded pass breakups including defensive linemen Okiki Olorunfunmi and Kalisi Moli.
Williams led with nine tackles, one breakup and his forced and recovered fumble. Eddie Heckard had six tackles, and Conner Mortensen and Raoul Johnson each had five. Kamden Garrett, Sherwin Lavaka, Preston Smith and Marque Collins each had a pass breakup.
Weber State found life early with the return of freshman quarterback Bronson Barron, who missed last week’s game with a wrist injury. WSU opened its second series with a play-action pass that Barron bombed to Ty MacPherson for 56 yards to the SUU 15.
That’s when penalties started to bite the Wildcats, which finished with 10 infractions for 112 yards. The Thunderbirds had just one penalty for 12 yards until the substitution infraction that ended the game.
Barron threw on third down to Rashid Shaheed close enough to the first-down marker at the 5, but WSU was called for offensive pass interference and Shaheed picked up an unsportsmanlike conduct flag after the play was over.
WSU salvaged the third-and-31 with a 12-yard completion to David Ames, and Thompson, with the wind at his back, booted through a 51-yard field goal for a 3-0 lead midway through the first quarter.
SUU struggled to find footing, but took the lead when Dayne Christiansen blocked a punt near the Weber 30. La’akea Kaho’ohanohano scooped it up at the 25 and ran it in for a touchdown. WSU blocked the point-after kick.
Southern Utah got the ball back with 1:30 left in the half when Jared Schiess jumped offsides on a third-and-8, helping the T-Birds pick up a first down on a short-yardage play and eventually drive to the WSU 22. Manny Berz put through a 39-yard field goal and SUU led 9-3 at halftime.
The third quarter consisted of just two complete drives. Weber State took the kickoff and drove 75 yards in 13 plays over 5:53 as WSU began to hit MacPherson and tight end Dallin Jamison on underneath misdirection screen passes.
That drive finished with a 4-yard pass to Jamison to tie it 9-9. Weber State lined up in its usual spread formation for a point-after, but inexplicably ran a play instead of closing in to a kick formation. Haze Hadley was stopped on the run.
SUU then went 78 yards on 18 plays, taking 8:01 off the clock. The Thunderbirds picked up a fourth-and-1 at the 5 before Weber again forced a fourth-and-goal from inside the 1.
Miller plunged into the end zone on a QB sneak and appeared to have needed extra effort to secure the snap but, on replay, the ball and Miller disappeared into a pile and it was an apparent touchdown to put SUU up 16-9. Tarlas came out of the pile with the ball before whistles were blown and ran by himself down field but his run was whistled dead as a line judge signaled touchdown.
“I thought George’s play in the second half down on the goal line was a touchdown for us but it gets blown up, and touchdown for them,” Hill said.
When asked about that play and McMillan’s non-touchdown run in the fourth quarter, Hill said: “I have no idea … There’s a lot of stuff I’ve got to ask about, quite frankly, on what was going on out there.
“There were some frustrations but that’s going to be the deal for us and for some reason that’s happening to us a lot right now. And that’s OK, we’ve got to overcome it. Like I say, this team is battle-tested and overcame a lot of things today.”
Barron finished 13 of 23 for 167 yards and a touchdown for Weber State. MacPherson caught four balls for 87 yards, Shaheed four for 26 yards, and Jamison three for 33.
Weber State gained 255 yards in the second half; SUU totaled 236 for the game. WSU finished with 402 total yards.
Weber State remains the lone unbeaten team in the Big Sky. Eastern Washington (4-1) defeated UC Davis (3-2) 32-22 on Saturday.
WSU concludes the regular season April 10 by hosting Idaho State (2-3), who took four-point losses to Eastern Washington and UC Davis before defeating Idaho 24-22 on Saturday. The Wildcats opened the spring season with a 49-21 win at ISU.
“There’s going to be a lot riding on it. We’ve got a chance to be outright conference champions, and that’s what we should be. We’ve got to go play great this week and let the chips fall,” Hill said.