Big Sky notebook: Weber State finds itself in unfamiliar territory near bottom of standings

Among the bottom four teams in the Big Sky football standings – Eastern Washington is one of them – the most surprising one listed is Weber State.

A conference champion four of the past six seasons, Weber State sits in 10th place in the standings midway through its conference season. You have to go back to 2015 to find the last time the Wildcats finished lower than sixth place, and you have to go back one year before that to find the last time they finished with a sub-.500 record.

Yet with four games to go, the Wildcats are in danger of meeting both those criteria. They are 3-4 overall and 1-3 in Big Sky play with games at Eastern Washington (Saturday), at Idaho State (Nov. 4), home against Idaho (Nov. 11) and at Cal Poly (Nov. 18) remaining.

Like Weber State, Eastern (2-4, 1-2) dropped out of the FCS Stats Perform Top 25 this week.

The most obvious change to the Wildcats from last year to this is the departure of Jay Hill. In nine seasons as head coach, Hill’s teams went 68-39 – the most wins under any coach in program history – and went to the FCS playoffs five times.

Hill is now BYU’s associate head coach, defensive coordinator and safeties coach. In its first season in the Big 12, BYU is 4-2 overall with a 1-2 mark in conference play. Its defense is allowing about as many yards per game (398) as it did last season (408.1).

Weber State’s defensive numbers are worse than last year when the team was coached by Hill. The Wildcats are allowing about three more points and 43 yards per game more than they did a year ago.

But the difference on offense is even more striking – and perhaps surprising, given that new head coach Mickey Mental was the team’s offensive coordinator last year and remains so in 2023.

Through seven games this year, the Wildcats are scoring barely more than half as many points per game (18.6) as they did last year (35.2) and are averaging 134 yards fewer per game (266.6, down from 400.2).

The Wildcats rank 11th in the Big Sky in scoring and 12th in yards of offense and are the conference’s only team averaging under 300 yards per game.

Compounding the difficulty of a turnaround is that the Wildcats have just one more home game, though being at home hasn’t provided a notable advantage. They have lost three Big Sky games at Stewart Stadium in Ogden, Utah, by a combined 84-26.

Last week, the Wildcats turned to true freshman Richie Munoz at quarterback. He completed 15 of 30 passes for 138 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions in a 17-16 loss to UC Davis. Munoz is listed as the starter on the team’s two-deep this week.

“At times, I thought there was good rhythm,” Mental told the media after the loss Saturday. “But at other times, we bogged down with freshman mistakes that we’ve got to get corrected here in a hurry.”

It sets up a matchup of weakness versus weakness when Weber State’s offense takes on Eastern Washington’s defense, which has allowed the third-most yards (444.8) and fourth-most points (34.7) in the Big Sky.

Another shootout in Hillsboro?

One week after Dante Chachere accounted for six touchdowns in a 45-21 road win over Northern Arizona, the Portland State Vikings (3-3, 2-1) return home this week to host Idaho State, which is coming off a 42-41 win over Eastern Washington.

Chachere, a junior, was named Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week following his performance: He completed 14 of 19 passes for 159 yards and five touchdowns and ran 12 times for 83 yards and a score. He ranks as the conference’s fourth-most efficient passer and is tied for the lead with 11 touchdown passes.

Portland State will host Eastern Washington on Oct. 28 in Hillsboro, Oregon.

The Eagles’ last opponent, Idaho State (2-4, 2-1), is looking to win at Portland State for the first time since 2018, when the Bengals beat the Vikings 48-45.

The Bengals have the conference’s most prolific passing game at 350.2 yards per game but its 10th-best passing defense (255 per game). The Vikings have the Big Sky’s second-best rushing attack (246.2 per game) and its fifth-best defense overall at 352.3 yards per game.

Big Sky teams meet again on ESPN2

Saturday night’s game between No. 2 Montana State (5-1, 3-0) and No. 3 Sacramento State (5-1, 2-1) will air on ESPN2, the second time in as many weeks the network will broadcast a Big Sky matchup.

Montana’s 23-21 win at Idaho on Saturday drew more viewers than two Sun Belt games and an ACC game, according to a tweet by Big Sky senior associate commissioner Jon Kasper.

Montana State is the only Big Sky team to lose a conference game. Montana, which moved up to No. 9 in the FCS Stats poll, and Idaho, which dropped to No. 10, are both 3-1, followed by the 2-1 Hornets, Vikings and Bengals.

In 2022, the Bobcats and Hornets did not face each other. They shared the title with identical 8-0 records in Big Sky play.

Eastern Washington plays at Montana State on Nov. 11; it is not scheduled to play Sacramento State again until next season.