The contrast could not have been more stark.

Weber State football spent three quarters at Northern Colorado looking like it was on a march to one of the worst losses for the program in nearly 10 years, then put together one magical stretch of 10 minutes to pull a win out of the proverbial hat.

Now the Wildcats (3-2, 1-1 Big Sky) try to take all the lessons it can from that game into what appears to be an increasingly difficult Big Sky schedule that begins this week in Ogden with a possibly resurgent Northern Arizona (1-4, 1-1).

“You play one really special quarter, you can beat a team. But at the end of the day, that’s not going to win you a ton of games,” WSU head coach Mickey Mental said. “I love their resolve, I love how they competed and stayed in it, but the question is how do we play a full 60 minutes of offense, defense and special teams that complement one another like we did in the fourth quarter?”

One painfully obvious element missing from WSU’s goal of complementary football is the passing offense which, behind junior quarterback Kylan Weisser, struggled to help move the ball and score points but also started to give away turnovers last week.

Weisser was 10 of 25 for 141 yards before the 74-yard drive that cut WSU’s deficit to 21-14 with 6:34 left. He threw 4 of 5 for 60 yards on that drive, helped by an explosive screen-and-run to Haze Hadley, to get the Wildcats back into the game.

Mental said one focus is helping foster ways that make seemingly routine throws become more routine in games.

“From my seat and the offensive staff, it’s about not panicking and understanding the more repetitions you get at something, that something better will come of it instead of just scrapping an offense and jumping around,” Mental said. “You’ve got to be patient, you’ve got to be diligent. It stinks, but you have to find ways to help guys execute the plays at a high level. If you start changing everything, you lose track of your identity.

“So it’s about what we do well and how do we put our guys in positions to do that.”

Though Weisser has been with the program since 2019, his 124 passing attempts in five games this season are more than double the attempts he threw in his previous 19 career games. He’s completed exactly 50% of his passes this season for 133 yards per game, throwing two touchdowns to five interceptions.

“As much as Kylan’s been here, he hasn’t really started a lot of games. You’ve got to be mindful of that as a coordinator. But you don’t make excuses for him,” Mental said. “You obviously have your backup and you’ve got to put pressure on Ky so he doesn’t feel relaxed and realize that’s a reflection of the team … but I’ve got to put him in more situations to be successful.”

Mental said the passing game was the most explosive it’s been in any game this season and two of the three interceptions were on fourth down when Weisser had to make a throw. He wasn’t worried about either of those, but the one in the fourth quarter after WSU finally got some momentum was a “we’ve got to be better” moment.

“We got more banked reps and from here, the better it should come to be successful,” Mental said. “We’re not changing our offense to stuff we haven’t repped all fall, it’s about how do we package that in different formations, and against each opponent so we can be more successful.”

Defensively, Weber State was as disruptive in the fourth quarter (three interceptions, constant quarterback pressure from the front seven) as its recent reputation suggests after an opening 20 minutes of getting diced up on three straight touchdown drives.

So why wait on that type of play?

“You want to give credit to Northern Colorado. They did a good job. But it’s having that mindset early on to go make plays,” Mental said. “Just playing more consistently. We’ve had some guys banged up so we have guys stepping up trying to fulfill those roles at a high level.”

The next test is a Northern Arizona team that handled Montana at home and had Sacramento State on the ropes on the road before losing by one point. The Lumberjacks appear to have an offense as talented, or better, than Northern Colorado’s.

It appears that on almost every week over the final six games, Weber State can’t afford another performance like last week’s first 51 minutes at Northern Colorado.

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