Weber State football: Wildcats earn style points in Cal Poly rout

OGDEN — Style points mattered as much as a victory did for Weber State going into its regular-season finale against Cal Poly.

The Wildcats did not just need to beat the Mustangs to put themselves in a good position for a berth in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for a second consecutive season. They needed to get a positive result in a convincing fashion.

"We came into this game with the idea that we needed a blowout in this game," Weber State coach Ron McBride said. "We needed to make a statement so everybody would see what the quality of this football team is."

Everything played out exactly how the Wildcats envisioned after a second-quarter explosion helped them bury Cal Poly.

Weber State scored on each of its first six possessions and junior quarterback Cameron Higgins threw for 364 yards and four touchdowns, while completing 23-of-33 passes, to power a 47-14 victory over the Mustangs on Saturday at Stewart Stadium.

The Wildcats (7-4) will find out this afternoon whether routing Cal Poly (4-7) will be enough to help them continue playing football for another week.

They hope a thorough domination of the Mustangs on offense and defense — which helped build a 38-7 halftime lead for Weber State — can become just the sort of attention-grabber the team needs.

"We're just kind of flying under the radar right now as far as how much talent we have on both sides of the ball," Higgins said.

Higgins accumulated 239 yards passing and three touchdowns by halftime. Tim Toone ended up being his favorite target once again. The senior finished with 176 yards and three touchdowns on 11 catches.

His first pair of touchdowns helped Weber State break the game wide open in the second quarter. Toone hauled in a 26-yard catch to give the Wildcats a 21-7 lead with 8:57 remaining before halftime. His second score was a 17-yarder that put Weber State ahead 28-7 less than two minutes later.

Toone put the icing on the cake midway through the fourth quarter after reeling in his 200th career reception and racing 44 yards untouched for his third touchdown to give the Wildcats their final score with 5:21 left in the game. That final catch also moved him into 10th place all-time in the Big Sky for career receptions.

After an even first quarter, Toone thought Weber State finally pulled away by doing all the right things on offense. The Wildcats started making big plays and repeatedly forced the Mustangs' defense into one tough situation after another.