OGDEN — Weber State fired its head coach with two games left in the 2025 season, setting up coaches, players and everyone else with a lot to think about.
Spencer Ferguson said he hadn’t thought much about it, though. He just wanted a chance to play one more game and find out what he’d look like if he was a major part of a game plan for a college football team.
“I haven’t thought at all about tomorrow,” Ferguson said. “I was just super excited for one more opportunity to go play the game I love.”
The Davis High alum and redshirt freshman running back sure played like it.
Ferguson rushed for 102 yards on just 11 carries, caught six passes for 63 yards, and helped key Weber State’s best offensive game of the season as the Wildcats beat up No. 23 Northern Arizona 48-28 on Saturday afternoon at Stewart Stadium to close the campaign.
“I was really, really proud of the guys and their effort, and just responding to the difficulties of last week,” WSU interim head coach Brent Myers said. “I’m so proud of who they are and what they did this week in their preparation, and then how they played. It was awesome. Really, really fun.”
Senior running back Colter May had his part, too, as did freshman quarterback Kingston Tisdell and a slew of defensive players who rose to the occasion and left their teammates with big smiles after a season full of losses and injuries.
May rushed 12 times for 87 yards and caught six passes for 46 yards.
“You never want your opportunity to come because of injuries but in this case, it’s just something I had to step up when guys got injured … coming to work every day focused and ready,” Ferguson said. “And I knew what I could do.”
They helped Tisdell get comfortable and get ball-carriers in space across the field.
“The swing screen — we had a very good perimeter blocking scheme,” Myers said. “And after we starting going, we kept calling our counter game. Our counter gap game is probably our best run … we just kept coming back to it and trying to be as physical as we could.”
The Wildcats (4-8, 2-6 Big Sky) owned the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, limiting Northern Arizona (7-5, 4-4) to 53 yards on 25 carries while running 29 times for 197 yards offensively.
WSU got creative, too, with packages that put May at quarterback and Ferguson at running back in shotgun (May said he’d lied earlier in the week that he had QB experience), and another that put May in a direct-snap running back position with defensive tackles Matt Herron and Zion Finau in front of him as fullbacks.
That Herron-Finau package took the field on a fourth-and-1 at the NAU 28 with Weber State up 34-21 and trying to put the game away. May took the snap to left tackle and found nobody there.
“I think like three of the rushing touchdowns today, we were untouched and just right up the hole,” Ferguson said. “That was amazing from (the offensive line). … They knew their job and they were hitting the right guys.”
May scampered to the 28-yard touchdown for a 41-21 lead with 10:58 left in the ballgame. At that point, WSU had outgained NAU 456 yards to 190.
Northern Arizona, who entered Saturday needing a win to all but sure up a playoff spot — especially since Sacramento State lost at UC Davis — finally got off the mat and used two fourth-down conversions to string a 12-play touchdown drive together, ending with Ty Pennington throwing 7 yards to Isaiah Eastman.
Weber ended the game with the next sequence. The Wildcats took the ball with 7 minutes left, picked up a first down and punted back to the NAU 14-yard line with 3:38 to go.
WSU chased Pennington into two incompletions, then safety BJ Carey dropped a receiver screen for a loss. On fourth-and-13, true freshman defensive end Chevy Robinson sacked Pennington at the NAU 5 for a turnover on downs.
Weber State totaled three sacks on Pennington and all three were drive-enders; Herron got a third-down sack in the first quarter and Keahnist Thompson did the same in the second quarter.
“Very proud of the way (the defense) played,” Myers said. “Played really good against the run and they were excellent in making (Pennington) hold the ball. He’s a really good QB, you’re never going to hold a guy down like that … but making that guy hitch, hold it — and timely calls by (Joe) Dale where he’d drop eight and rush three made him hold it even more.”
Despite Herron drawing a false start, perhaps eager to block for a touchdown again, the Wildcats put an exclamation mark on the win with the Herron-Finau blocking package and Bird Butler took a handoff untouched for 8 yards, making it 48-28 with 2:19 left.
The game started with a bang. Weber State took the ball first and scored in six plays, capped with May scampering 24 yards untouched to the end zone for his first career touchdown.
NAU answered with a quick five-play drive to make it 7-7 at the 9:57 mark of the first quarter.
After two punts, Ferguson provided the next score on a one-play drive, dashing from the 50-yard line to the right pylon for six.
The Lumberjacks had a one-play answer when Pennington roped a perfect throw under pressure to Kolbe Katsis up the left sideline, blanketed by Montae Pate but delivering the catch nonetheless and running for a 74-yard touchdown. That made it 14-14 still with 4:31 left in the first.
Weber scored first in the second quarter, a seven-play drive ended with Ferguson swinging right on a short pass and going 16 yards through several NAU defenders eating turf on blocks by WSU receivers.
“Our blocking scheme outside, the kids did a great job on it,” Myers said. “Really good scheme by our guys; coach (Skyler) Ridley and coach (Robert) Conley did a wonderful job of identifying how to crack the guy who’s covering the back in man-free coverage and give us a chance to outrun them into the sideline and open the field a little bit.”
WSU took its next drive inside the NAU 10 but a loss on third down sent Sloan Calder out for a 27-yard field goal, making it 24-14 with 1:47 to go.
NAU gave the ball back quickly on three straight incompletions. With two timeouts and 1:11 to go, Weber State wanted more points but in two plays, Tisdell made his only mistake of the game on a throw to the far sideline, picked off by Mikale Greer and returned 42 yards for a touchdown to make the halftime score 24-21.
It felt for a moment that WSU had given up its shot to take control, but the Wildcats weren’t phased in the second half. Forcing NAU into two three-and-outs, Weber State soon benefited from Tisdell’s composure.
On third-and-10, Tisdell felt pressure, stepped through the right of the pocket and leveled out at the line of scrimmage going right. That allowed Marvin Session to break free up the right sideline and, on the move, Tisdell delivered a perfect strike in stride to Session, who ran in a 61-yard touchdown for a 31-21 lead with 8:13 left in the third.
“When he came here, he was 17 years old,” Ferguson said about Tisdell. “So much poise and composure and confidence. … He just carries himself older than his age.”
NAU never really threatened the result from that point.
Tisdell finished 26 of 38 for 277 yards and two touchdowns. Session caught three passes for 84 yards.
Defensively, WSU totaled 11 tackles for loss. Sione Hala had seven tackles, one for loss, and intercepted Pennington immediately after gaining the 31-21 lead to keep the pressure on the Lumberjacks.
Senior Easton Payne — the Bear River High alum heralded during the trivia portion during one timeout as the team’s oldest player (26) — finished his career with six tackles, four solo, and one for loss.
Pennington threw 21 of 39 for 250 yards.
While Weber State University cranks up the search for its next head coach, the players can celebrate coming together under one good game plan to win going away.
“Coaching change with two games left, nobody’s ever really gone through that before. All props to coach Myers and the coaching staff,” May said. “Just wanting to play for that guy, and the coaches who have been here for a long time and have gone through the ups and downs — we wanted to have their back.”
No. 3 Montana State (10-2, 8-0 Big Sky) outlasted No. 2 Montana (11-1, 7-1) for its 10th straight win and an outright Big Sky title, handing the Griz their first loss in a 31-28 classic in the Brawl of the Wild.
No. 15 UC Davis (8-3, 6-2) rallied in the fourth quarter to beat Sacramento State (7-5, 5-3) 31-27 to strengthen its playoff position and put the Hornets, playing their final game in the Big Sky, in limbo ahead of playoff selection.
Idaho State (6-6, 5-3) crushed rival Idaho (4-8, 2-6) in a 37-16 final to give the Bengals a .500 record.
Northern Colorado (4-8, 2-6) put the finishing touches on Portland State’s (1-11, 1-7) miserable season by a 24-13 tally.
Cal Poly (4-8, 2-6) finished its season with a 43-34 win over Eastern Washington (5-7, 4-4).
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