It is said that championship teams are made during the offseason, and the Weber State University football team is looking to do exactly that.

For the fourth consecutive year, the Wildcat football team was back in the FCS Postseason. The ’Cats earned the third seed and were looking toward a FCS National Championship.

Weber State opened the postseason with a second round win over Kennesaw State 26–20, earning them exactly what they wanted in the quarterfinals: a rematch with the Grizzlies of the University of Montana.

No other Wildcat team has managed to pass a Friday night, quarterfinal game. However, WSU’s defense kept the high-powered Grizzly offense off the field, and with a great play on special teams along with senior defensive end Adam Rodriquez’s four sacks, all on fourth down, the ’Cats recorded a WSU record and were traveling to the east coast with a semifinal matchup with the Dukes of James Madison University.

The run ended there, though, with the Dukes jumping out early and hold WSU to a 30–14 loss, but the Wildcats built a foundation, going where no other Wildcat team has gone before, and set up for an offseason made to bring success.

“You’ve got to take steps each year,” head coach Jay Hill said after the JMU loss. “It was a step forward, but it’s not what we wanted. We feel like we can compete with the best teams.”

Weber State enters the offseason as a veteran team composed mostly of players who played this season. With a mix of upper- and lowerclassmen, all of whom saw the field this fall, the ’Cats look to build this offseason and make the next step.

And, with signing day just a month away, the Wildcats have already welcomed two players during the early signing period.

Punter Mackenzie Morgan will look to fill the open spot with Doug Lloyd graduating. Morgan is a six-foot-two native to Trigg, Western Australia, where he participated in Prokick, the same program that brought Lloyd to WSU.

Morgan is a transfer from an ACC program of North Carolina State after playing there in 2018 and 2019.

Okiki Olorunfunmi will also join the Wildcats next year. The six-foot-five defensive end is a Clovis, California, native and will join the WSU program as a sophomore after playing last year at Reedley College.

Both players will be enrolled for the spring semester and participate in the spring camp.

Meanwhile, it was a fall full of records for Weber State: four players were named to the Hero Sports All-American team.

Senior defensive end Jonah Williams earned first team honors and was named the defensive player MVP and the co-defensive player of the year in the Big Sky.

Junior kicker Trey Tuttle earned second team all honors, his second time being named to All-American Honors.

Sophomore running back Josh Davis earned third team honors, and Rodriguez earned earned honors for the second straight year.

Weber State will begin the offseason during the spring semester before spring camp starts toward the end.