He wanted to punch Ron McBride.

No, that wasn't exactly it, although ...

He realized his Weber State Wildcats were going to be pretty good this season, better than they'd been in years. His reasons revolved around not just talent, not just the perspiration draining off the brows and bodies of him and everyone else, but the camaraderie that was building among the greater group.

It had a common enemy: Ron McBride.

And it had an uncommon friend: Ron McBride.

"For a whole week he made us run and run," says Johnson, a 6-foot-2, 295-pound defensive tackle. "It wasn't fun. It wasn't pretty. Some people only see the buddy side of coach Mac. We saw the nasty side. Anytime anyone screwed up, he made us run. He made the point that being mediocre wouldn't be acceptable. It caused us to come together as a team."

And so the Wildcats have.

They went on to tear off one of the best football seasons in school history, winning the Big Sky title and qualifying for the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the first time since 1991. Weber plays at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo on Saturday in the 16-team format's opening round.

The drive behind the upward movement - "This is the most complete team I've seen in my 30 years here," says assistant athletic director Brad Larsen, "it's good on both sides of the ball" - is multifaceted, but it begins with McBride, now in his fourth season steering the Weber bus, after all those years as the head coach at Utah.

And Johnson, a 26-year-old senior who waded through the 1-10 slop of a season in 2004 under former coach and current athletic director Jerry Graybeal, says McBride has rebuilt football at the school, utilizing structured methodology and emotional motivation.

"His recruiting process, the guys he brought in and the system he put in place are a big part of the reason we're where we're at," Johnson says. "He believed in us, and in football, when somebody believes in you, you believe in yourself. It gave us more power. Once we started believing, it snowballed. Players became more dedicated, they cared more, and the success grew from there."

Prior to, the growth had ebbed and flowed.

McBride's team finished 6-5 the first season, in 2005, following that up with records of 4-7, 5-6, and now 9-3.

"Anytime a program goes 1-10, the attitude is not good and you have to make changes," says McBride. "You've got to put some toughness in the thing. You bring in the right assistant coaches and you recruit the kind of athletes you want. But you have your struggles. Not everybody is going to buy into what you're doing. Some guys leave the program, they go the other way, and that causes some problems."

In Weber's case, those troubles - brought on, in part, by that aforementioned attrition - included falling below acceptable standards in APR (Academic Performance Rate), a collective means of tracking the progress student-athletes make toward earning their degree. The 'Cats were subsequently put on probation.

"Over the last year, we've popped some good numbers," says Graybeal. "We've now got good support people who are monitoring that closely. It's a work in progress, but we're almost there."

As for the football, McBride first bolstered his lines by stockpiling recruits on the defensive and offensive sides. He then stressed skill players, who included sophomore quarterback Cameron Higgins, junior running back Trevyn Smith and junior receiver Timmy Toone.

Higgins, out of Hawaii, who has a pass-efficiency rating of 171.1, already is third on Weber's career passing-yards list. Smith, from Springville, is the school's all-time leading rusher. And Toone, of Peoria, Ariz., is the best receiver in the league, having caught 67 passes for 1,230 yards this season.

McBride says he and his assistants recruit high schools from the Pacific islands, the West Coast, Utah and Idaho, straight through to the eastern states.

"We're just looking for our kind of guys," he says. "The kind of kids you can get a lot out of."

Weber State is the 10th college project the coach has taken on as an assistant or head coach, starting with Gallivan JC, then moving to UC Riverside, Long Beach State, Utah, Wisconsin, Utah again, Arizona, Utah one more time, Kentucky and now Weber.

He says he knew the Wildcats were on to something extraordinary this season when he saw the way they played at Hawaii, at Utah and then against Montana, a traditional FCS power.

"We played a full four quarters at Hawaii," he says. "We were ahead at the half, we had some opportunities in the fourth quarter, and the guys weren't intimidated. When we played at Utah, these kids weren't worried about it, they just wanted to go out and play. That told me we were going to be all right. The next week, they went out and beat Montana, and then Montana State on the road, and, all of a sudden, they knew what they could do. They came together as a team."

Johnson says that happened long ago, clear back in January, when McBride lifted them and bonded them by running them into God's unmerciful turf.

"They learned to fight through it," McBride says. "They figured out, 'Whatever that [SOB] gives us, we can handle as a team.' "

They've given McBride nine wins, so far, in return.

"We knew there's nobody who would be on our side more than coach Mac," says Johnson. "He was doing everything he could to help us succeed. If he puts all his effort into us, we had to give back to him. He yells and cusses in a non-PG way, but we get it. He's an intense guy, but he's also the nicest guy in the world. Everybody loves him, and we all want to win for him. He knows what he's doing. He's no rookie."

The 69-year-old McBride, whose body is crumbling a bit, having suffered multiple heart attacks, and who has coached for 47 years, is anything but. Despite recently signing a four-year contract extension, nobody, not even McBride himself, knows for sure how much longer he'll coach. Although he felt dizzy during a recent game, winding up in a hospital, he says he last week underwent a stress test that handed out good news.

"The doctor told me that my heart is happiest when it's exercising," he says. "He said my heart is happy when it's working. I don't know what that means, but I do know I don't have the energy level I once had. I still enjoy being around my assistants and the players.

"I'm just worried about tomorrow, nothing beyond that. I don't have a crystal ball. I just want to keep going. If I ever wake up and am not excited about that day, I'll know it's time to get out. That hasn't happened yet. I'm as enthusiastic as I've ever been."

His heart is happiest when it's coaching.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Monson and Graham Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com.