SACRAMENTO – Idaho was seeking a late building block for first-year coach Thomas Ford Jr., an encouraging finish for a team that won’t be going to the playoffs. Sacramento State needed a win to stay in the Football Championship Subdivision playoff picture.

With two games remaining, after seeing its playoff hopes dashed, Idaho (4-6, 2-4 Big Sky Conference) has to recalibrate the remainder of its season. The Vandals’ efforts to go out on a winning streak and a .500 record begin with a road trip to Sacramento State. Here are three things to watch as the Vandals face the Hornets (6-4, 4-2).

MOSCOW, Idaho – Shut out of the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the first time after a three-year run that included back-to-back trips to the quarterfinals, Idaho (4-6, 2-4 in the Big Sky Conference) is looking to make the best of a disappointing year in which the Vandals failed to live up to preseason predictions as a top 10 FCS team.

The trajectory of Idaho’s season made an abrupt shift when the Vandals lost 28-14 to 11th-ranked UC Davis last Saturday. At 4-6, with two games remaining, Idaho will miss the FCS playoffs for the first time in four seasons.

MOSCOW, Idaho – At 4-5, with three games remaining, all of them were do-or-die as Idaho sought to qualify for the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the fourth straight year. Facing 11th-ranked University of California Davis, the Vandals made it clear they understood the magnitude of the stakes. They gambled throughout like they had found a pot of house money.

For the second straight week, Idaho is facing a make-or-break game against a ranked opponent.

MOSCOW, Idaho – The Idaho and UC Davis football teams started the season ranked in the top 10 of FCS polls. But they are coming down to the final few games uncomfortably perched on the bubble as they seek to qualify for the FCS playoffs.

MOSCOW, Idaho – Having gone through its own purgatory of a four-game losing streak, Idaho finds itself entertaining the 11th-ranked UC Davis Saturday bolstered by the momentum of a two-game win streak.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – It was an unusual yet wildly entertaining game on Halloween night between two Big Sky Conference teams hoping to stay relevant in the postseason picture.

MOSCOW, Idaho – When they meet Friday in Flagstaff in a nationally televised ESPN2 game, Idaho is a hurdle to clear for Northern Arizona in what has been a largely successful season marred only by a pair of recent losses. For the Vandals, the Lumberjacks are a rung to climb on a ladder leading out of a stretch of games that flirted perilously close to disaster.

MOSCOW, Idaho – If resurrection is too strong a word, it doesn’t miss by much.