Weber State football: Wildcats' program on the rise

Weber State's senior class may or may not be playing its final game in a Wildcat uniform when it travels to face William & Mary in a first-round FCS playoff game on Saturday.

But win or lose against the Tribe, it's a special group that's made its mark on WSU football like no other — both individually and as a team.

The Wildcats have qualified for the FCS playoffs in consecutive years for the first time. They've earned national respect, as they're the only team in the playoffs with four losses.

It's a far cry from where the program was when this senior class started at Weber State. Guys such as Trevyn Smith, Kevin Linehan, Beau Hadley and Cameron Molifua, who all redshirted a year and are now in their fifth season with the program, entered the school with the football program in disarray. The Wildcats were coming off their worst season in school history with a 1-10 record in 2004.

Things weren't so grim for a four-year senior such as center Kyle Mutcher, who saw a program moving in the right direction, as coach Ron McBride helped the Wildcats improve by five wins in his first season in 2005. Since then, they've steadily made strides from perennially mediocre to a consistent contender in the Big Sky Conference.

"It's completely different," said Weber State senior receiver Tim Toone, who redshirted in 2003, served an LDS Church mission and rejoined the program prior to the 2006 season. "The expectations are higher and people are working harder to get to them."

The recruiting by McBride and his staff has helped Weber State's talent level reach all-time highs the last two seasons. But it takes more than talent for a football program to turn itself around. The players have come together as a team and their mentality has changed.

"The biggest thing is we're becoming a winning program," Hadley said. "When we go into games we want to win, we plan on winning where before it was, 'It would be cool to win or hopefully we can win.' Now it's, 'We're gonna win.' The mentality is starting to change to a winning program where we expect to win and we're going to find a way to win."

It shows how far the Wildcats have come during McBride's tenure as head coach when you consider how big of a disappointment it would have been if Weber State wouldn't have made the playoffs. The Wildcats nearly blew their chances with a late, botched snap exchange against Colorado State and poor execution in the final seconds against Montana State. The losses in those two games may have kept Weber State out of the playoffs if it hadn't gotten some help from teams around the country on a wild last day of the regular season.