Vandals take a turn for worse in second game
PULLMAN – It’s often said football teams make their biggest improvement between their first and second games. That won’t be said about the 2006 Idaho Vandals.
After pushing Michigan State deep into the fourth quarter in the season opener, Idaho followed up by looking completely overmatched in a 56-10 loss to Washington State on Saturday at Martin Stadium.
Many of the Vandals’ old bugaboos resurfaced – dropped passes, crushing turnovers, missed tackles, lack of a running game and an ineffective pass rush. As jazzed as Vandals followers were after the Michigan State game, Saturday demonstrated that Idaho has considerable work to do to become competitive on a weekly basis.
“I think I stuck a pin in that (balloon of momentum) pretty fast,” said Idaho coach Dennis Erickson, who suffered the most lopsided loss of his career as a head coach. “I mean, we have a lot of work to do. Hopefully, we can learn something from this, if you possibly can. The thing I want to check is who played hard in the fourth quarter and who didn’t play hard. That’s important to me. That kind of gives you an idea of where we’re at and what we have to do.”
Idaho inexplicably came out flat.
“A lack of discipline, we were out of our gaps, we just were flat,” said linebacker David Vobora, describing Idaho’s inability to stop the run. “We were flat and we started to get tired and we were on the field a lot. They kept banging on the run and we weren’t tackling well. When you don’t do those things, big plays are going to happen.”
A couple of Vandals said the team wasn’t sharp during practice this week.
“We just can’t come out and play around and joke around,” receiver Wendell Octave said. “We have to get real serious and play harder.”
Added tight end Luke Smith-Anderson: “We need to take practice a little more seriously, not that we haven’t taken it seriously, but we have to come out every day to get prepared for the next game. I think we were kind of coasting a little bit and it caught up to us.
“We’re a good team. That team you saw out there is not the Idaho Vandals, I guarantee that. We’re going to come back as a different team.”
Bird grounded
Jayson Bird, who rushed for 88 yards last week, found few openings against the Cougars. To make matters worse, he tweaked his knee late in the first quarter and played sporadically the remainder of the game.
“It’s fine, nothing’s wrong,” said Bird, who was limited to 34 yards on 15 attempts. “There just wasn’t a lot of green out there today.”
Idaho gained only 2.6 yards per carry.
Hands off
Idaho receivers and tight ends dropped as many as five passes, resulting in an 11-of-31 afternoon for quarterback Steve Wichman.
Octave, Smith-Anderson, DeAngelo Ramsey and Max Komar bobbled passes that cost Idaho first downs and potential points. In the second quarter, Wichman got away with a throw into traffic, but Octave couldn’t make the reception in the back of the end zone.
“I didn’t really get a clean look, but I had my hands on it and I should have caught it,” Octave said. “No excuses.”
On the positive side, Marlon Haynes, who missed last week’s game while sorting out academic issues, had four catches for 64 yards, including a 35-yarder where he got behind the WSU secondary.
“I thought he made some plays – he and Tariq (Ikharo) are going to make a difference for us down the road,” Erickson said. “We just have to find out who is going to catch it. (Drops) just killed our momentum.”
Notes
WSU QB Alex Brink stung UI with 46 rushing yards, similar to a week ago when Drew Stanton’s scrambles resulted in 55. That’s an ominous sign for Idaho when it reaches WAC play and faces Boise State’s Jared Zabransky, Nevada’s Jeff Rowe and Utah State’s Leon Jackson. … Backup quarterback Brian Nooy handled Idaho’s final series. He completed 3 of 5 passes for 50 yards. … Idaho had no first downs and four 4 yards on its first three possessions.