Boise St. crushes Vandals

BOISE – If new University of Idaho football coach Nick Holt didn’t realize it before, he does now. The rebuilding job he faces with the Vandal program is rather enormous.

Idaho and Holt went through the equivalent of a three-hour root canal Saturday night as rival Boise State administered a 65-7 thrashing of the Vandals before a Bronco Stadium record crowd of 30,944. It was the most lopsided outcome in the 34-year history of the rivalry and Idaho’s worst loss since a 77-3 rout by Houston in 1968.

The Broncos, rolling to their sixth straight victory over Idaho, had this one on ice pretty much before time expired in the first quarter, if not sooner. That left Idaho to endure three more quarters of complete domination.

“It was ugly, we didn’t play very well and we were sloppy,” Holt said. “And it was kind of my worst fear coming in here. Playing a good team, not tackling well, not moving the ball on offense and it was made even worse with our kicking game. … It just shows you we have a lot of work to do.”

And not a lot of time to get it done. Idaho dives into Sun Belt Conference play against Utah State in Logan on Saturday.

“That was one of the roughest things I’ve ever gone through,” said junior defensive end Mike Anderson. “We’ll have a team meeting on Monday and we’ll tell everyone it stinks, but we have to regroup and move on.”

BSU toyed with Idaho in all three phases of the game in the first half. Heck, the Broncos toyed with Idaho during pre-game introductions. BSU kept the identity of its starting quarterback a secret all week, then had both Jared Zabransky and Mike Sanford announced as starters prior to kickoff. Zabransky started and had three rushing touchdowns and 234 passing yards before departing early in the fourth quarter.

Back to those three phases:

Offense: Idaho went 22 minutes before its initial first down – and that came via a roughing-the-passer penalty on the Broncos.

BSU had 203 total yards after the first quarter. Idaho’s output wasn’t measured in yards. It gained 3 feet.

The Broncos led 21-0 after one quarter and that was a little misleading. Lee Marks fumbled inside Idaho’s 15-yard line to end BSU’s opening series.

In the first half, Idaho had just three plays that gained 10 yards or more – an 11-yard scramble by Michael Harrington, a 20-yard pass to Wendell Octave and an 18-yard run by Justin Wall.

“We weren’t the same team we’ve been for the past three weeks,” said Harrington, who finished 13 of 27 for 91 yards. “Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.”

Defense: The Vandals were trampled by BSU’s ground game and unable to cover tight end Derek Schouman or the rest of BSU’s receivers. On most plays, Idaho had just a single tackler in the vicinity of the ballcarrier and the difference in speed between the two teams was substantial.

BSU never punted.

“Every great team has to have a power running attack,” said BSU coach Dan Hawkins, whose team rushed for 254 yards. “It was great to see us get the yards we needed to.”

BSU didn’t exactly open up its playbook as most running plays were up the gut or off tackle. When the Broncos did try to fool Idaho, it worked to perfection. On the opening play, Anderson bit on a fake handoff inside and fullback Brad Lau slipped into the flat uncovered for a 21-yard pass play.

BSU tacked on its final touchdown of the half with a fake handoff right and a pitch to Quinton Jones running left. He was gone from the second he touched the ball and his 27-yard run gave BSU a 31-0 lead.

Special teams: UI’s Mike Barrow had a first-quarter punt partially blocked and missed a 43-yard field goal attempt on the last play of the first half. His opening kickoff, despite a brisk tailwind, only went to BSU’s 10. On punt coverage, there usually wasn’t a Vandal within 15 yards of Chris Carr when he caught the ball.

“When there’s a lot of space in the kicking game, that means we need to get better team speed,” Holt said.

It didn’t get any better for Idaho in the second half. The only questions left were if BSU would cover the 31-point spread (that question was quickly answered), if Idaho would score (it did on true freshman Jayson Byrd’s 71-yard run with 1:20 remaining), and if the Broncos would post its biggest victory ever in this rivalry (they did, easily surpassing a 42-point win in 2000).

The Broncos moved the ball at will in the third quarter as Zabransky completed three straight passes to position BSU at Idaho’s 1-yard line. Lau plowed in for the TD and a 38-0 lead.

Carr took a punt return 62 yards – only one Vandal got within 5 yards of him – for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter as the Broncos lead swelled to 52-0.

“You could tell they weren’t nervous and they were ready to go,” Anderson said. “It was totally different on our side.”

Aside from Byrd’s run, Idaho didn’t have a play gain more than 20 yards.

“I told them (in the locker room) we didn’t do a good job as coaches,” Holt said. “We’re a better team than that. If we played our best football we still might have come out on the losing end, but we’re not that bad of a football team.”

BSU entertains Oregon State, which lost 22-21 to LSU in overtime, on Friday.