What's Next for the Wildcats as the Season Comes to a Close?

For the first time in 7 weeks, I got to enjoy seeing the Wildcats of Weber State win a football game on Saturday afternoon. With not a lot to play for, other than pride, and sending the seniors off with a win, the Wildcats pulled it together in the fourth quarter and mustered enough of an effort to send the Mustangs of Cal Poly home with a loss and at a minimum end the season on a high note. Well, high note may be a bit generous, but you get my point.

I felt a mix of emotions as I watched the game. On one hand, I felt sad that football season was at its culmination, and on the other hand, glad that we can move on from this disappointment of a season. I felt happy for the seniors who all played well and got to end their football careers with a W, and disheartened as I wondered which non-senior players will be leaving us before next season. And, most of all, I felt relieved that we finally got a win, but apprehensive and skeptical about the direction of the football team heading into the offseason.

If you follow any of the social media channels created by Weber State fans, you no doubt have heard the cohort of fans crying for Mickey Mental to be fired. I get the frustration. We’ve gone from being a perennial top 10 team to being a bit underwhelming and inconsistent at best, and looking like the Bad News Bears at worst.

We all know the issues the team had this year. The close losses, questionable play calling, bad excuses, atrocious red zone play, endless penalties… No need to dive in and hash these out again. These are all tired topics that have been talked to death.

Coach Mental originally signed a 4-year contract as head coach of the Wildcats in December 2022, which means he still has two full seasons left on his contract. Mental makes $215,000 per year plus incentive bonuses for winning playoff games and conference championships. His contract is fully guaranteed, and if Weber State decides to fire him, would owe him the total amount remaining on his contract, which amounts to $430,000.

In the two years that Mental has been the head coach, the Wildcats have a 10-13 record. The Cats had their first losing season in a decade this year and if you couldn’t tell by the anemic crowd size at Saturday’s game, many of the casual Wildcat fans have fled in response to the lack of success this season.

It must really suck to follow the GOAT. 

And by that, I mean it must really suck to follow Jay Hill as the  head coach of the Wildcats. We scream about the errors on this team so often and loudly because we just witnessed the Golden Age of Weber State football.

However I wanted to dive in and see how Mental compares to past coaches at Weber State.

Here is how each Weber State head coach did in their first two seasons as head coach of the Wildcats:

The table includes the combined record and win percentage through each coaches first two seasons, as well as a comparison of how many more or less wins each coach had from year one to year two. One thing really sticks out when looking at this table. Very few coaches have had much success during their first two years as head coach. Only two of the eleven coaches (Nalder and Arslanian) had a winning percentage over .500 through their first two seasons. Here is what the list looks like when ranked by winning percentage:

Mental lands in the middle - 5th of 11. Just below Ron McBride, and just ahead of Jerry Graybeal. This statistic makes Jay Hill look like he didn't do much in his first couple years, but if you remember, Hill inherited an absolute train wreck of a program. Reeling from arguably the worst two year stretch in Weber State football history in 2012 and 2013, Hill cleaned house, got rid of the players who didn't have what it takes to be part of a winning culture and built from the ground up. The rest is history. Conference Championships, FCS playoff berths and long runs, NFL bound players, top 5 rankings. 2016-2022 was a great time to be a Wildcat. And, while it's unrealistic to expect the football program to have that kind of success indefinitely (we're not NDSU) it hurts when we currently see the program so clearly moving in the wrong direction. Even during Jay's 1st season, you could see that things were changing. The players had bought in and were improving. The culture was changing. It was a team that was learning how to win. When the list is sorted by change in wins from year one to year two, you can see which coaches improved the most during their second season.

Here is where Mental drops down the list. Only Jerry Graybeal and Mike Price had a bigger drop off in wins from year one to year two. And neither of them inherited a playoff caliber team. This is very concerning. On the flip side, look at how Jay did from year one to year two - 4 more wins - very impressive.

Everyone knows how close some of our losses were this year. We had 4 losses by a combined total of 10 points. I've heard the argument, "Well we're only a few plays away from being 8-4!". While that is technically true, it doesn't account for the fact that in our four close losses (Lamar, McNeese, N Colorado, and Sac State) we were favored in all of those games and should have beat all of them by at least 7-14 points. It should never have come down to a final play in any of those 4 games. It always sucks to lose but it's like salt in an open wound when you consider how those games were lost. Stupid penalties, dumb play calls, terrible red zone execution... I hate to say it, but a better head coach would have won all of those games. So we are not really only 4 plays away from being 8-4, we are 4 plays away plus a good head coach away from being 8-4.

Mental does many things very well. He is offensive guru. Our offense has moved the ball up and down the field at a clip we are not accustomed to seeing. That being said, once we hit the 20, we are very inconstant and ineffective. Mental is good at getting the guys to play up to the level of their competition. How else could you explain the Idaho win ('23) and Montana ('24) wins? However, we seem to play down to our competition as well  i.e. the Northern Colorado fiasco this year. And may I remind you, that it took a miracle for us to beat Northern Colorado in 2023 - a pick-6 and TD in the final 2 minutes.

I would be surprised if Tim Crompton fires Mickey Mental this year. When compared to how past coaches at Weber have done when taking over the program, he is close to average, trending towards below average. If this was a Jody Sears type situation, I think he'd be gone. But having won 10 games in 2 years, I think they will give him at least another year before they consider buying him out. Which, I am reluctantly ok with. I am very concerned with the way things are trending, but not ready to completely throw Mickey to the wolves just yet.

What then is the limit to keeping him for his fourth and final year?

7 wins.

To me, the magic number is 7. If the Wildcats can't get to seven wins next year, then Mickey Mental needs to be fired. This would be an improvement from his first year and obviously a huge improvement from this year. I think if the Wildcats put up another 4 win season or worse, he's gone - no question. The tough spot will be if we get 5 or 6 wins. Not enough to be relevant and restore the faith of the fanbase but probably not bad enough to warrant a firing.

It's been a tough season, with a few more lows than highs, but we have reasons to stay optimistic about next season. If we can get our red zone issues figured out, we will have one of the better offenses in the Big Sky. Munoz should continue to develop as QB and his confidence and effectiveness should continue to grow. Our defense showed flashes this season of what they could become. We'll lose 3/4 of our D line, which will be tough to replace, but having experienced guys in the secondary and at LB could see our defense take a step forward. You never know what a new season will bring and I can hardly wait.

Next week I'll start diving into men's basketball. We are a basketball school right?... For this year's sake, I sure hope so.

Happy Thanksgiving

Go Wildcats

Michael Garlick