LOGAN — He may not have known it then, but Utah State football head coach Blake Anderson stepped in it on Labor Day.

By the end of the week, his opponents were repeating his words as a rallying cry, which then developed into more of a scoff as they left Logan with a dominant 35-7 victory.

Who knows how many times the two words ‘Super Bowl’ were uttered on the visiting sideline Saturday night at Maverik Stadium but, as Weber State held to a 13-7 halftime lead and slowly built it to a four-touchdown beating, those words were only said with increasing frequency as the night wore on.

Whatever Anderson thought he was saying or might have meant to say to start game week in a press conference, it was a miscalculation.

“Weber State is going to come in this week with their hair on fire,” Anderson said Monday. “This is the Super Bowl for a lot of players on that roster.”

Oops.

For starters, it misunderstood the nature of an FCS football season. A loss against an FBS team doesn’t usually affect an FCS team’s quest to become one of the 24 teams to make the postseason. Though a win is a huge boost in that effort, it’s not usually necessary for any substantial accomplishment like a conference title, playoff berth or deep playoff run. It’s simply a different structure than the FBS.

It also may have overstated Utah State’s place in the football landscape, which was definitely seen by WSU players as a slight — perching the Aggies above the lowly Wildcats, who were just blessed to simply play in the game. Now, the defending Mountain West champs are back down to earth after FCS Weber State pitched a defensive shutout the same way Alabama did against the Aggies the week before.

Whether he meant it that way or not, Anderson provided bulletin-board material to the visiting Weber State Wildcats on Saturday, who seemed to increase their usual edge, rose to the occasion, and took home a season-boosting win and $390,000 back to Ogden for the feat.

“We had two extra days to prepare for these guys so we studied them like nobody’s business, we knew everything about these guys … We came out and we showed it. And won the Super Bowl,” Weber State senior Ty MacPherson said. “We definitely took offense to that … we came out and played hard, we did everything we could to win this game and now it’s on to the next one.”

Weber State beat an FBS team for the first time since 1993, snapping the Big Sky’s longest drought for the feat, and provided the Big Sky’s largest margin of victory over an FBS team since 2015.

“That’s what fueled us the entire week, they said it was going to be our Super Bowl,” junior linebacker Winston Reid said. “That’s just ridiculous, it’s just another game for us. But we did pretty well.”

Head coach Jay Hill said players definitely got wind of the comments during the week.

“If they’re going to say it’s our Super Bowl for Weber State, then we were going to make it a Super Bowl,” Hill said. “(WSU players) played that way, they prepared that way, and we’ve got tough suckers who can play this game.”

The win sets up the Wildcats for a chance at a 3-0 nonconference run (2-0 against Division-I opponents) when Utah Tech visits Ogden on Sept. 17. That would provide a nice cushion heading into a tough Big Sky schedule.

WSU is 2-0 to start a full season for the first time since 2003.

“Our expectation is to go in and win every game. Someone made the comment that this is our Super Bowl but for us, it was just another game,” sophomore quarterback Bronson Barron said. “Take it as you want, but we’re going to come out and play and fight against anyone, no matter who it is.”

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