It came in the middle of a 21-point Wildcat burst that took less than six minutes, as they surged from deficits of 14-3 and 21-10 to a 24-21 lead.
Cloud stepped in front of UM's Marc Mariani to pick off the Cole Bergquist pass, and he returned it 23 yards down to UM's 26. It set up a 30-yard scoring pass from Cam Higgins to Trevyn Smith, which gave Weber its first lead, 24-21.
By the end, after Bergquist had a pass bounce away from Mike Ferriter and get intercepted, the Grizzlies had nine turnovers in two games.
“We had a few,” said Griz coach Bobby Hauck. “What'd we have today? Three? Four. That's a lot. We don't want to turn the ball over.”
The first turnover may have been an omen. Fullback Kevin Klaboe took a handoff and had the ball knocked loose by the helmet of Weber State defensive tackle Derek Johnson.
It was Johnson who'd suffered a controversial and catastrophic knee injury a year ago by a chop block against Montana. He was a senior then, but was able to get a hardship year and was back starting Saturday.
Weber didn't capitalize on the turnover, but Johnson's teammates obviously liked the play, and the fact the 26-year-old was around for the Wildcats' first win over UM since 1998.
“Derek Johnson's a veteran, man. He's been around. He knows how to play ball,” said Smith. “If you saw what happened last year - there are really no words to explain how ridiculous it was. So it was big for him. He deserved it.
“And he's been here for 10 years,” Smith added, to laughter. “I think he was here when we beat (the Griz) the last time.”
Klaboe has caught many a pass in UM's offense, but the junior fullback hadn't had any collegiate carries before Saturday. He had two chances against Weber, and both ended with fumbles. The second one was an option pitch from Bergquist, who'd changed the play at the line of scrimmage.
“Well, one of those was a check,” Hauck noted. “You've got a helmet on the ball on one, and the other was a check, and that's my fault, we probably shouldn't have checked that. My fault for not conveying that to the quarterback during the week.”
Bergquist had pitched to Mike Ferriter for a 9-yard gain in the first quarter, and his check into a draw play to Rob Schulte for 18 yards keyed the Grizzlies' first scoring drive. The Griz also used a Shann Schillinger-to-Ken Wood option pitch on a fake punt to get a first down in the fourth quarter.
Bergquist said he saw a lot of “bracket” coverage on Ferriter and Marc Mariani.
“That frees some of the other guys up, like on the long (75-yard) pass to Tyler Palmer. That was one-on-one coverage. We needed some other guys to step up there.”
Palmer's TD was the first of his collegiate career, and put UM up 14-3 with 16.5 seconds left in the first quarter.
“I thought we had a good plan,” said Hauck, whose club gained 410 yards. “It wasn't about our offense today. Our offense did fine.”
The rainy conditions caused the field to deteriorate, but both teams had 400 yards of offense, with Weber piling up 429.
Smith was a key with his 158 yards on the ground, and another 54 receiving. The junior said the Wildcats like the rain.
“Always have,” he said. “I don't know why. Coach Mac gets excited when we play in wet weather, so that's kind of how it goes.”
Senior safety Colt Anderson delivered his usual assortment of hits Saturday - the most memorable on a tackle of receiver Bryant Eteuati early in the third quarter - but like the rest of the Griz had problems with Smith.
“Trevyn did a good job,” said Anderson, who had a game-high 12 tackles. “We thought we had him schemed, where we just had a guy over the top that could come down and tackle him. Unfortunately we just missed too many tackles.”
QUICK KICKS: Weber State's 31 points at halftime were more than the Wildcats scored in a whole game against the Griz since 1991, when they lost 47-38 to UM. Š For the second straight week Montana wasn't able to record a sack. Bergquist was sacked seven times, six in the second half. Š Kevin Linehan had two sacks for Weber. Š Mariani had 186 all-purpose yards for UM, not far off his average of 201 per game. Š Schillinger's interception was the third of his career. Š Bergquist is tied with Brad Lebo (1989-92) for seventh in career TD passes at UM with 41, and moved past Craig Ochs (5,419 from 2003-04) into eighth in career yards with 5,568. Drew Miller is seventh with 5,900 from 1999-2000.
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Gerald McPherson wrote on Oct 5, 2008 9:51 AM:
A young GRIZ team ran into a Senior laden team playing the best Weber football in the last decade. Clearly they were the best team on Saturday.
The GRIZ will regroup and play next Saturday at EWU and this will be a real shootout with GRIZ hopes of home field advantage if they make the playoffs.
The confernece season has just begun so lets not be fairweather fans and get down on the boys--they need our support more than ever. I support them when they win or lose. "