For once, the third quarter wasn't the problem. The trouble was, the collapse came much earlier for Weber State's winless football team. The Wildcats self-destructed in the second period Saturday afternoon at Grizzly Stadium.
Montana's Tim Hauck, 1988 Big Sky Conference defensive player of the year, blocked a Brent Chuhaniuk punt with one hand, recovered the ball himself and ran 63 yards with it for a touchdown at 11:21 of the second quarter to give the Grizzlies a 14-3 lead.They upped it to 24-3 by halftime and sent Weber to an 0-5 record with a 31-6 final.
"That punt block really hurt us," said Weber Coach Dave Arslanian, whose team had scored first and played well defensively most of the day.
Weber's defense came up with six takeaways, four by rover Mike Babb, who had a fumble recovery and an interception to save a touchdown on successive Montana possessions at the end of the first half.
But Weber got only a field goal (51 yards by Chuhaniuk) out of its takeaways, and its own five turnovers - three interceptions, two fumbles lost - helped Montana, which had a sub-par offensive day that was behind Weber in several sets of statistics.
"We've got to be able to capitalize when we get scoring opportunities," said Arslanian.
Three second-quarter Weber turnovers, starting with the blocked punt, took the game away from the Wildcats.
On its next possession after Hauck's TD, Weber lost a fumble with Montana recovering at the Wildcat 12-yard line and scoring on a quick slant pass from Grady Bennett to Joe Farrish. Three minutes later, a Montana interception on the Weber 29 led to a 36-yard Kirk Duce field goal.
It was the kind of thing that usually happens to the Wildcats in the third period; this time, however, the third period turned out only 7-3 for Montana, and all of the scoring was completed by 5:26 of the third. Chuhaniuk ended things with his 35-yard field goal.
Peter Macon had another outstanding day, catching 13 passes, one more than last week, and tying for the second-best day in Weber history. He now has 46 catches for the season with six games left. But his longest was for 20 yards and his total of 109 yards included no touchdowns, and Arslanian spent some time talking about Weber's inability to throw "vertically" down the field for big plays, rather into the flats for 3 or 5 yards at a time.
Quarterback Ryan Schmidt was 27 for 54 for 273 yards, but he threw three interceptions and no touchdowns.
Arslanian noted that Weber's running game again sputtered, and that hurts the passing game because the play-action passes designed to go for big plays upfield need to be set up by runs. With no run, opponents can sit back and wait for passes, he said.
Another problem was that the cornerbacks - among the more experienced Weber players - have been getting beaten deep. It happened to both Austin Peters, who also had the game's first interception, and to Mo Jackson on TD plays. "We can't be susceptivle to out-and-ups like that," said Arslanian, adding they've got to be more physical and the pass rush has to cut down the quarterback's time with the ball.