OGDEN — Finally.
The Weber State football team finally played a solid four quarters of football, finally beat a Big Sky team and finally had an entertaining home game this season as the Wildcats broke a five-game losing streak and upset No. 13-ranked Portland State 20-14 on Saturday afternoon.
Wildcats running back Nick Chournos returned to a starting role after his one-game benching and scored the game-winning touchdown with 13:47 left in the game. Tate Bennett also returned to the starting lineup and threw for 257 yards and two scores. For both players, Saturday's win was sweet redemption.
"(Getting benched) was tough to take," Chournos said. "I'm tired of everyone reminding me of what I can't do."
Chournos, supposedly not big or fast enough to be a decent college running back, showed that he can get the job done as he carried the ball 37 times for 152 yards and helped Weber State hold the ball for over 37 minutes.
"I'm already getting sore," Chournos said. "(The 37 carries) is where I like to be. When you do that you wear the defense down in the second half."
Bennett, who had thrown one touchdown pass and eight interceptions in his last three starts, said his time on the bench helped him realize that he needed to play with more emotion to be a better team leader.
"I was a little disappointed at first," Bennett said. "As I look back now I think, 'How can you blame them with the mistakes I made and the number of interceptions I threw.' "
Weber State's defense played its best game of the season as it held Big Sky rushing leader Ryan Fuqua to 27 yards, his lowest of the season. Weber State coach Jerry Graybeal stacked the line of scrimmage to stop Fuqua and dared capable Vikings quarterback Justin Wood to beat his team.
"That's the most important thing you do against that team," Graybeal said.
The strategy worked. Wood had a nice day throwing the ball — 308 yards and two touchdowns — but the Vikings offense was one-dimensional and attempted just one running play in the second half. Fuqua carried the ball 11 times and got 22 of his rushing yards on Portland State's opening drive. Wood threw for only 88 yards in the second half.
Besides his defensive adjustments, Graybeal also removed himself from the sidelines for the first time in his head-coaching career and made defensive calls from the coaches box high above the playing field.
Graybeal said his move helped him make calls according to substitutions and matchups that he wanted with the Portland State offense. And his players got the chance to get yelled at by other coaches other than himself.
"It's the best place to watch a football game," Graybeal said. "Sometimes the kids need to hear things from other people."
Graybeal, like most coaches, doesn't like to change things that work well at least once. So, he said he'll "absolutely" be up in the coaches box even though "it might now work worth the damn" when the Wildcats play at Sacramento State next week.
The Vikings had hopes of challenging Montana for the Big Sky championship this season and making the 1-AA playoffs. But Portland State faltered earlier this season against Northern Arizona and Montana and lost three Big Sky games by a combined 13 points.
"We had opportunities to win those three games and we didn't take advantage of them and I'm not sure we deserve to go on," Vikings coach Tim Walsh said.
The Wildcats (3-6) have two road games remaining against Sacramento State and Cal-Poly and hope to improve on last season's three-win total.