Weber State football focuses on details; why not kick it?; offensive inefficiency
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- Weber State quarterback Richie Muñoz (10) avoids a tackle from Portland State’s Jordon Tagaloa (92) on Saturday, Sept 7, 2024, at Stewart Stadium in Ogden.
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- Weber State’s Clarence Butler returns a kick against Lamar on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in Beaumont, Texas.
A disappointing road trip to Lamar has Weber State football at 1-2 after a 17-16 loss to the Cardinals.
The Wildcats missed three kicks and left one drive less than 1 yard away from points in the defeat. The defense kept points off the board well enough but blew coverage on a 72-yard dump-off touchdown to a running back.
So it’s all about the details as Weber State prepares for a trip to Northwestern State in Louisiana.
“What it always comes down to is they’re going to do what we coach, they’re going to play how we coach them and play how they practice,” WSU head coach Mickey Mental said. “So just being a bit more detailed in executing.
“Guys answered, I thought today was as clean of a Tuesday practice as we’ve had,” he continued. “They’re focused, they’re dialed in. One game won’t define us. … We’ve got a long season ahead of us. As long as we’re making the adjustments and practicing the way we need to practice, we’re going to put ourselves in a good position to be successful.”
WHY NO KICK?
Facing the 20th play of a drive nearing nine minutes long, Weber State came out of the fourth quarter’s two-minute warning facing fourth-and-goal inside the Lamar 1-yard line, trailing 17-16.
The Wildcats lined up with the offense and handed the ball to Damon Bankston, who was stopped at the line of scrimmage, instead of attempting a field goal on right hash with the ball placed at the 7-yard line.
“I didn’t like the angle,” Mental said of his decision not to kick a field goal. “You’re on the one-inch line, you go all the way down to Houston, my philosophy is you don’t deserve to win if you can’t score there. We gave the ball to our best player, and we’ve just got to be better and finish.
“That’s a tough-angle kick,” Mental said, recalling his own experience on field-goal attempts from the goal line. “I won a (playoff game) because we blocked one on the short edge, so that was in the back of my mind.”
Mental said with the team 5 of 7 on third downs, and 1 of 1 on fourth downs, in the second half, he felt his players would convert.
KICKING WOES
Would a 17-yard field goal from the right hash been sure points? After weighing the full game’s outcome, it didn’t feel like it Saturday.
Senior kicker Kyle Thompson missed his first point-after-touchdown kick of his career and had a field-goal attempt blocked for the first time in his career.
Then, despite giving the ball up with 1:55 left on the failed goal-line play, WSU got the ball back at the Lamar 49-yard line with 44 seconds left, needing just a field goal to win.
Weber State got the chance from 40 yards out and Thompson hooked it left as time expired.
Mental said after the game that he’d have to review film to see what went wrong on the missed kicks. So, what’d he see?
“Technique,” Mental said Tuesday. “(Thompson’s) process through the week has to get better. Everything you practice through the week ultimately shows up on Saturday. … He’s a senior, and I expect him to respond the right way just like Grant Sands did.”
Mental said the other components — the snap, hold and protection — were “fine.”
OFFENSE INEFFICIENT
If it feels like Weber State is gaining a lot of yards for how few points the offense scores, numbers agree.
The Wildcats and UC Davis are the Big Sky’s two most inefficient offenses in terms of how many yards the offense averages per touchdowns it scores. Interestingly, Davis has the schedule most like Weber State’s in terms of type and quality of opponent.
So far in the Big Sky, offenses average gaining 114 yards to score one touchdown (defensive and special teams touchdowns are not included in this analysis).
That includes some skewed results, like Montana’s 89 yards per touchdown after beating Morehead State 59-2 in a game Morehead State gained 45 total yards. (Credit for complementary football, though; we’ll get to that later.)
Idaho’s 108 yards per touchdown is probably the best in the league, considering its difficult schedule.
Weber State is last in the league at 187 yards gained per offensive touchdown scored, and UC Davis is at 185. Both have scored six offensive touchdowns in three games.
One fourth-down play might’ve changed it for WSU — bringing the average down to 160 yards per TD and keeping the Wildcats ranked in the Top 25, like UC Davis is.
To help the sample, I ran the same analysis on Tennessee State (who is ranked 65th, right in the middle of FCS, in Bill Connelly’s rankings) and on No. 22 Lamar, who appears to be a top contender for the Southland Conference title.
Stunningly, they’re nearly identical to Weber State (1,119 offensive yards) in yardage: Tennessee State has gained 1,119 yards in three games, Lamar 1,111. But both have scored nine offensive touchdowns to Weber State’s six.
“We’ve been pretty good 20 to 20,” said Mental, who is the offensive coordinator and play caller. “But we need to be more detailed in finishing drives and executing at a higher level. … It’s a combination of me figuring out what we do well and who we are, and just putting our guys in better situations.”
False starts damaged WSU’s offense. The Wildcats had four false starts at Lamar, three of them to start possessions. Mental, a former quarterback, says that’s on the signal-caller.
“It’s the quarterback,” the coach said. “He’s got to control the offense, command it louder. Obviously, you don’t want your line to jump but that’s on the QB.”
Mental still likes what he’s got in sophomore Richie Muñoz, who passed 41 of 60 for 403 yards in the last two games, and has (despite some admitted close calls) one career interception in 239 attempts.
“Major growth from Richie already. He’s over 60% (completion) against Portland, 70% against Lamar, he takes care of the ball. Now it’s just finishing,” Mental said.
Muñoz threw eight incomplete passes at Lamar and three were attempted to senior Jacob Sharp, who otherwise led the team with 81 yards on seven receptions. Sharp slant patterns were a staple of 2022’s strong offense and the pair missed on two such attempts Saturday, and couldn’t quite connect on what was nearly a 28-yard touchdown during the 20-play drive.
“Just timing,” Sharp said of the misses. “We worked a lot today, running routes, running slants. It just comes with time, the rhythm of both of us in the game. It will work out.”
Sharp also said the offense needs to start better. Midway through the second quarter, WSU had punted once and fumbled once over nine offensive plays while Lamar ran 33 plays and got up 10-0.
“That led to them getting momentum, the time of possession was really one-sided. So we need to limit slow starts, come out and get points,” Sharp said.
DEFENSE CAN HELP
Holding a team to 17 points on its home field should be good enough to win, but Weber State’s defense has sights set on being better, which means being on the field less. Lamar was 10 of 16 on third downs, much of that damage done in the first half, and had the big touchdown pass to an uncovered receiver.
“We need to get out of those drives,” linebacker Jayden Ah You said. “They converted too many third downs and it’s just about being gap sound, doing our assignment. We’ve got a lot of guys who can play but if we keep to our assignment, the plays will come to you.”
“It goes on all sides,” Mental said. “Offense, defense, special teams, it’s about complementary football — how do we help each other out? They did a really good job in the red zone but they’ve got to get off the field on third down.”
