Robb Akey spoke Tuesday about the importance for his players and coaches to take a breather after Idaho's forgettable 2-10 season. Although I get the sense the coach is not relaxing all that much, if at all, he also said he was "grateful the season is over." Clearly the tight games -- and blowouts -- wore on him.

We have details from Akey on the Vandals' coaching staff and the program's direction, the departure of receiver Preston Davis -- as well as his meeting with athletic director Rob Spear.

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We covered these topics and others in this story for Wednesday's paper. As Akey is quoted, there have been no changes made -- at least yet -- to the coaching staff. But he didn't entirely shoot down the possibility. "I’m going to evaluate everything that we do," he told me. "I get the opportunity when we’re out recruiting to get a lot of one-on-one time with each of my guys. ... I’m going to sit and visit with each of them. Obviously if there was going to be a change, I wouldn’t be talking about it now. If there are any changes, those are things we’ll take care of it house. That’s how I’ve always done things."

One of the reasons Akey might hesitate to make a move right now, or at least announce it, is where UI is at with recruiting. The program is hosting a large group of recruits this weekend in Moscow, and Akey will be making in-home visits next week (his assistants are doing the same this week).

Here are a few other quotes from Akey:

• On his meeting with Spear: "We had that meeting set previously. That was always set. It’s no different than the meeting we had at the end of the year last year. We talk about what was good, what was bad, how I expect to make things better. We talk about the things that can help those efforts over the course of the year. A lot of things to help the program. That was the intent of that meeting."
• On other offseason plans, he joked: "I think somewhere along the way we’re going to design a few plays … that score points. That might help us for next year."
• On state of program: "I have confidence we can get there, yes. I’ll be the first one to tell you that I’m not satisfied with our record this year or the performance we had in some areas. But I’ll tell you everybody involved was doing the best they could to the best they were able to. We had issues we had to deal with throughout the course of the season. It was what it was. I still feel very strongly that we have established a program. With that being the case, I do feel that we’ve got the ability, that we will be a competitive football program next year that has the opportunity to win a number of games."
• On specific positions: "We’ve got to play well at quarterback, and we should have a great competition at quarterback this spring to find out who that guy will be. And that very well could carry into the summer and the next fall camp. We’re going to have guys perform well and make plays for us at wide receiver. That’s going to be of critical importance. We’re losing three starters in our offense line. An offensive line that I thought performed better as the season went on and really did some good things. But we’ve got some really good kids coming back as well. We’re losing some kids on defense, but we’ve got some guys coming back. I do feel that we have an expectation and level … a two-win season is not the norm and it’s below our expectation. And, no, I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. I think a lot of guys don’t want to live through another year like this again. Everybody needs to get a breath of fresh air. Two weeks ago I think I told you I wish I had two more games with these guys. Right now, I’m glad this season is over with the way it has gone. But at the same time, if spring ball would start tomorrow, I’d be a pretty happy guy."
• On the program's momentum: "The way I look at it, we got to that bowl early in the process. There are a lot of things that go into building winning. And we got there in our third year. That was awesome. … Until that bowl, there had been a decade of non-winning seasons. They came here on the belief that we all could get this turned around, and we proved we could do that. The season following, we’re one snap away — pick your snap, Colorado State or Fresno — from being a back-to-back bowl team.. If we’re that competitive, that tells me something. The win-loss record this season sucked. … I’m not making excuses, I’m not saying it’s justified because it’s not. But it’s not like we were getting our tails whipped week in and week out."

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