OGDEN — It was awfully wet and cold, with plenty of snow and some wind, too. A downright miserable, blizzardy, frozen-tundra-of-Lambeau-Field kinda day.
Yep, a Coach Mac kinda day.
On a wintry day when Weber State University bid a fond farewell to beloved head football coach Ron McBride and 13 WSU seniors in their final home game, junior quarterback Mike Hoke scored the game-winning touchdown with just 26.8 seconds remaining to give the Wildcats an emotion-charged victory over Northern Arizona University at Stewart Stadium.
"All week we knew we were going to get that weather; Mac wanted us to get that weather," Hoke said. "Everything just kinda fell into place for Mac it seems like."
Oh, and the final score, you might ask? Would you believe ... a very fitting, a very Mac-like 34-31.
Yes, the same score that McBride's University of Utah teams beat archrival BYU by in back-to-back years in the early 1990's, resurrecting the Utes' fortunes against the Cougars and turning things back into a fierce, intense instate rivalry again.
But that was another lifetime for McBride, 72, who announced on Tuesday that he'd be retiring effective the end of this season, his seventh at Weber State (4-6, 4-3 Big Sky).
"You know how much you love the game," McBride said in savoring the victory, "and how important it is to you, how important the guys that play it are, how important victories are and how disheartening defeats are.
"But the big thing today is the kids proved that they can win a game when their backs are to the wall and come back and win it. That was a big thing for this particular football team."
The longtime collegiate coach, who suffered a fractured bone in his knee in a sideline collision on Nov. 5, has always loved playing football games in wet, lousy weather.
And despite the storm and his injury, he spent the day on the sidelines, with the help of crutches.
"Once the weather got bad, I was gonna be on the field," McBride said. "If the weather was good, I'd have come upstairs, because then you send a bad message. 'OK, as soon as the weather got bad, he goes indoors.' I said no way I'm not gonna be on the field. ... That's the opposite of how you're supposed to think, right?"
That's true. And Saturday, in his Weber State home swan song, he got his wish — bad weather and a memorable win, too, with many of his former players in attendance.
C.J. Tuckett's monstrous coming-out party coincided with McBride's going-away party. Tuckett, who entered the day with just 197 yards rushing for the season, broke loose for 254 yards on 27 carries — an average of well over 9 yards per carry. He added 144 more yards on kickoff returns and wound up with a school-record 407 all-purpose yards, the second-most in Big Sky Conference history.
"I've just been waiting for my chance all season," Tuckett said. "Today I was able to get that opportunity and able to capitalize on it.
"Our backfield, we're very competitive. We've got five running backs, and every chance you get you've got to take advantage of it. I was able to do that today. ... I was grateful for the opportunity I had."
NAU (4-6, 3-5) tried to spoil Coach Mac's farewell party when Zach Bauman, who finished with 126 yards rushing and two touchdowns, scored on a 9-yard run to give the Lumberjacks a 31-27 lead with just 1:36 remaining in the game.
But Tuckett's subsequent kickoff return helped kick-start the Wildcats' final scoring drive. Hoke then hit passes to Darchon Taggart and Eric Shufford that vaulted WSU all the way to the NAU 20. A pass interference penalty put Weber 5 yards from a go-ahead score, and two plays later Hoke hit paydirt on his 2-yard run to win it for Mac and the 'Cats.
"We've seen it time and time and time again," said WSU senior linebacker Nick Webb. "The offense comes down and drives and makes those miracle plays. It's the faith that we have in our team as a whole."
And soon, the postgame celebration began.
"We carried him off the field. It was almost like a 'Rudy' moment," said Webb, who moved into the school's all-time top 10 in career tackles. "Coming in with Coach Mac and leaving with Coach Mac has been a blessing, so I would say winning this for Coach Mac was almost everything to me.
"We wanted to do this for Coach Mac. We practiced even harder than we normally would; we pushed ourselves further than we usually would, and it was all for him."
email: rhollis@desnews.com