OGDEN, Utah – Weber State scored on a 2-yard run with 1:10 left and converted the two-point try to beat Idaho State 27-20 on Saturday afternoon at Stewart Stadium, handing the Bengals their third straight one-score loss.
Trehsyn Fesili returned an interception 50 yards for a touchdown, Davis Harsin and Jordan Cooke each threw a touchdown pass, and the Bengal defense kept Weber State from converting a single third down in the first half. Idaho State (4-3, 1-3 Big Sky) carried a 20-19 lead into the fourth quarter before Weber State (5-3, 4-1) won it with the late score in front of a Weber State homecoming crowd of 8,428.
How it happened
Idaho State won the toss and received, but Cooke was intercepted on the opening drive and Weber State took over at the ISU 49. The Wildcats converted a fourth-and-3 at the Bengal 27 and reached the 23 before Jackson Irwin broke up a third-down pass. Bronson Childs then blocked the 40-yard field goal attempt, and TreShawn Shorty scooped the ball and returned it 18 yards to the ISU 49.
Two possessions later, Fesili jumped a third-down throw at the ISU 50 and raced the other way for a 50-yard touchdown. Mason Lindberg's kick made it 7-0 with 4:52 left in the first quarter.
The defense came up with another takeaway on Weber State's next drive. Gabe Tahir punched the ball loose at the end of a 15-yard run, and Shorty recovered at the ISU 18. Weber State answered with 16 seconds left in the quarter on a 68-yard punt return for a touchdown. The Bengals stopped the two-point run to keep a 7-6 lead.
Harsin took over at quarterback early in the second quarter. Collin Lewis was stopped for an 8-yard loss on a fake punt on fourth-and-3 from the ISU 46, giving Weber State the ball at the 38, but the defense held again, forcing an incompletion on fourth-and-3 from the 18 for a turnover on downs.
Idaho State took that possession 82 yards in nine plays. Harsin ran for 11 yards on second-and-10, found Julian Mason for 15 yards on third-and-7 and picked up 13 more on a run up the left side. From the Weber State 32, Harsin threw deep to Mason, who reached out and pulled the ball in at the goal line for a touchdown. Lindberg's kick put the Bengals ahead 14-6 with 3:37 left in the half.
Jordan Rucker's 48-yard punt late in the half was muffed and recovered by Weber State at its own 6, and the Bengals went into the locker room up 14-6. The Wildcats went 0-for-8 on third down in the first half, and neither team was penalized before the break.
Weber State leaned on the run to open the third quarter, driving 91 yards in nine plays for a 2-yard touchdown run at 10:37. The Bengal front pressured the quarterback into an incompletion on the two-point try to keep a 14-12 lead. After an Idaho State three-and-out, the Wildcats went 69 yards and took their first lead on a 14-yard touchdown pass, 19-14, with 4:54 left in the quarter.
The Bengals answered right away. Harsin completed throws of 11 yards to Tommy Poe and 11 yards to Jimmy Trilla, a pass interference penalty moved the ball to the Weber State 27, and Harsin ran 9 yards to the 18. With Harsin off the field for a play after losing his helmet, Cooke came in on second-and-1 and dropped an 18-yard pass into the back corner of the end zone, where Poe went up and caught it. The two-point pass fell incomplete, and Idaho State led 20-19 with 1:56 left in the third.
Idaho State controlled the ball for 10:19 of the fourth quarter but could not add to its lead. After Irwin's third-down sack, a Weber State punt went out of bounds at the ISU 10, and the Bengals put together an 18-play, 74-yard drive that ran 9:05 off the clock. Harsin hit Poe for 5 yards on fourth-and-4 to keep it going, and the drive reached the Weber State 15, but Lindberg's 33-yard field goal attempt was no good with 4:01 left.
Nathan Abbott's 6-yard sack forced a Weber State three-and-out, and the Bengals took over at their own 46 with 2:08 to play. On fourth-and-1 from the Weber State 45, Harsin was stopped for no gain, and the Wildcats took over with 1:45 left.
A 38-yard completion on the first play put Weber State at the ISU 17. A pass interference penalty on third-and-8 moved the ball to the 2, the Wildcats ran it in on the next snap and added the two-point pass to make it 27-20 with 1:10 remaining.
Idaho State moved from its own 25 to the Weber State 22 on a 23-yard completion from Harsin to Mason and two Weber State pass interference penalties. Harsin ran for 6 yards to the 16, but he was sacked on fourth-and-4, and Weber State ran out the clock.
On his message to the team after the game:
"Three in a row, three in a row. It's a tough one to take, tough pill to swallow, but we gotta own it. I told the guys I wish I could take all the pain away, but the reality is the best thing I can do is allow them to use this [as] fuel to go better."
On taking responsibility:
"I gotta look at some things and figure out what we're doing schematically, personnel wise, to put us in the best position to be successful. There are answers out there, but it's our job to find them. The blame goes to no one but myself. It's my job to get 'em ready to go, and we have a ton of respect for this conference, how good every team is. You gotta bring your best every week, and we just have not been at our best the last three weeks."
On three straight one-score games:
"On one hand people just wanna say, 'Hey, you're close,' but that's not my message to them. I say, 'Guys, you gotta face the music and you gotta pore over the details,' 'cause at some point someone is gonna have an opportunity to change the game, and we need them to try to make that play. That could be coaches, too, for coaches being more detailed, whether it's schematically or technically, making sure we do everything there."
On where the team goes from here:
"You gotta double down, and we gotta put it all on black. It was going one direction, now it's going the other direction. I told the guys, 'You can't look at the stuff that has happened and [say], "Hey, we're good." You can't look at the stuff that just happened and say we're bad.' Everything that we have done is a collection of what we can be, but right now we're not playing great football in a couple phases, and we gotta push to get better there."
On the move to Harsin at quarterback:
"It was just kinda where we were at. I didn't think we were doing a great job up front. We needed to get an extra hat to try to generate some run game, and when you're running the quarterback it allows you to do that. Tried to do that a little bit with Jordan early on and he just wasn't hitting it great. I think that's something that [Harsin] has a really good feel for. Obviously, Jordan is a world-class thrower and they're both fantastic leaders, but [Harsin] prepares a ton, and I kinda knew in the back of my mind, hey, if we're not able to run it really well, then we're gonna have to make a change."
"They're gonna play so much man-to-man, they're gonna play with a loaded box, that you have to gain an extra hat, 'cause beating man-to-man coverage consistently is so dang hard. So there I was just trying to get more consistency than anything. Not necessarily from Jordan, but just for the entire offense as a whole."
On the defensive line:
"The line played their butts off, man. I think the world of [defensive line coach Ricky Ali'ifua]. That room, they played awesome, and it's such a bummer that they don't get their moment in the sun 'cause we're not playing well enough in the other areas. You're close in the other areas, but we are there on defense. Everybody has stuff that they can improve, but asking them to operate at a 100% level of efficiency is not fair when everybody else is operating, like, 70% capacity. So we gotta keep loving up those guys and playing to our defense a little bit."
On getting ready for Portland State:
"I gotta make sure we do a better job just kinda generating some consistency, whether it's a short passing game, a legitimate reliable run game. We're so dang methodical on offense right now that I gotta look at whether, is it a human issue? Is it a scheme issue? Is it a me issue? We got good players, we got good coaches. We're playing good football, right? But not good enough. It's been ugly, it's been tough to watch and not the standard that we expect, or that Bengal fans expect, so we gotta look at improving it in every way we can."
Bengal Bites
Game stats
- Davis Harsin completed 14 of 27 passes for 145 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions. He also led the Bengals with 83 rushing yards on 20 carries.
- Jordan Cooke went 5-of-9 for 53 yards with a touchdown and an interception.
- Julian Mason led all receivers with 82 yards on five catches, including the 32-yard touchdown. Tommy Poe had four catches for 41 yards and a score, and Owen Tomich added four catches for 39 yards.
- Nathan Reynolds had a game-high 10 tackles and forced a fumble. Titan Saxton added six tackles, and Troy Wilkey and Jacob Perez had five each.
- Trehsyn Fesili had three tackles to go with his 50-yard interception return for a touchdown.
- Jackson Irwin had a sack and a pass breakup, and Nathan Abbott had a 6-yard sack.
- Bronson Childs blocked a 40-yard field goal attempt in the first quarter.
- Jordan Rucker averaged 49.2 yards on four punts, with a long of 52 and one downed inside the 20.
- Idaho State held the ball for 30:38 to Weber State's 29:22 and was penalized once for 13 yards. Weber State was flagged five times for 68 yards.
- Weber State outgained Idaho State 358-318, with 185 of its yards on the ground.
Notables
- Fesili's pick six was Idaho State's second of the season, following Collin Lewis' against San Diego, and the third for the Bengals since 2021.
- Shorty's fumble recovery was his first of the season.
- Neither team was penalized in the first half, the first penalty-free half for the Bengals in 2026.
- Weber State went 0-for-8 on third down in the first half and 4-for-6 in the second.
- Idaho State scored seven points off turnovers. Weber State scored none.
- All three Idaho State possessions in the fourth quarter reached Weber State territory.
Up Next
Idaho State returns to Pocatello to host Portland State on Saturday, Oct. 24, at 4 p.m. at the ICCU Dome.
