Weber Finds Going Rough Slumping Wildcats Face Eagles In Big Sky Regular-Season Finale

Jerry Graybeal doesn’t like to talk much about his Weber State football team or his golf game these days.

And who can blame him.

Graybeal’s Wildcats, who will provide the opposition for Eastern Washington in this afternoon’s 1:05 season finale for both teams at Albi Stadium, are in a deep funk, having lost their last five games.

“Do we have to?” Graybeal whined jokingly when asked to discuss his injury-plagued team that comes in 3-7 overall and 2-5 in the Big Sky Conference. “Something’s wrong, and I’ve been trying to fix it for some time.”

And the golf game?

“It’s on hold - probably for the next five years,” added Graybeal, an avid golfer who spent 16 seasons as an assistant at Eastern before taking over at Weber following the Eagles’ run to the semifinals of the Division I-AA playoffs in 1997.

Yes, these are worrisome times for Graybeal, who lured four other former Eastern assistants - including offensive coordinator J.D. Sollars - away from Cheney. But you will have to excuse his previous boss, Eagles coach Mike Kramer, for not being overly sympathetic.

The situation was much the same last fall when Kramer took his Eastern team to Ogden, Utah, for a lateseason matchup against Weber. The Wildcats rode a five-game losing streak into that game, also, but managed to gallop away with a 27-23 upset victory.

That defeat, coupled with a lopsided 43-21 loss at Southern Utah the following weekend, cost Eastern a third consecutive winning season. And Kramer has not let his team forget - even though the Eagles (6-4, 5-2) are already assured of finishing above .500.

This game, he insists, is far from the slam-dunk win it might seem to be on paper.

“In the games that they’ve lost, they’ve been in every single one, other than the Montana game,” Kramer said of the Wildcats, who were thundered by the Grizzlies 81-32 in Missoula. “They’ve just been bogged down with all sorts of misery late in ballgames.”

There has been no better example of Kramer’s assessment than Weber’s 36-19 loss to Northern Arizona on Saturday. The Wildcats were trailing 15-13 but driving for the go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter, when senior running back Morgan Welch fumbled into NAU’s end zone for a touchback.

The Lumberjacks then mounted a long scoring drive and, on Weber’s next two possessions, picked off passes and returned them for touchdowns.