Balanced Spartans stop Idaho

SAN JOSE, Calif – Adam Tafralis threw a pair of touchdown passes and James T. Callier rushed for two scores as San Jose State won its third straight, 28-20 over Idaho on Saturday.

Kevin Jurovich caught 10 passes for 161 yards to become the first Spartans receiver with back-to-back games of 100 receiving yards or more in five years.

Callier helped San Jose State (3-3, 2-0 in the WAC) re-establish its running game, going for 93 yards on 31 carries as the Spartans recorded their first 100-yard rushing game of the year.

Tafralis finished with 302 yards and completed 22 of 30 passes.

WAC rushing leader Deonte Jackson, slowed by a sprained ankle, gained 94 yards on 22 carries for Idaho (1-5, 0-2 WAC), which lost its fourth straight. Bryan Flowers added 86 yards on 10 carries.

Vandals redshirt senior Brian Nooy, making his first career start in the wake of a hand injury to Nathan Enderle last week, completed 8 of 15 passes for 68 yards.

Idaho piled up 141 of its 251 yards in the first quarter, and held onto the ball for nearly 10 minutes.

Tino Amancio’s 34-yard field goal with 4:31 left in the period was all the Vandals had to show for it.

SJSU scored 2 minutes later and never trailed again.

Amancio connected on a 27-yard attempt early in the second quarter to bring Idaho within 7-6, but the Spartans put together two 80-yard scoring drives in the final 5:13 of the first half and took a 21-6 lead into the intermission.

The Spartans failed to convert on a fourth-down pass play in Idaho territory, which ended their first drive.

San Jose State’s David Marrero, a running back at Stanford two years ago, returned a kickoff 21 yards to the Spartans’ 39-yard line and Tafralis found David Richmond to complete a 48-yard pass that led to San Jose State’s first rushing touchdown of the season – a 2-yard run by Callier. He also ran in from 1 yard out with 5:13 left in the half.

Tafralis found a wide-open Jurovich for a 33-yard TD with 33 seconds left in the first half.

The Spartans tacked on another TD early in the fourth quarter on Tafralis’ 13-yard pass to Jeff Clark to make it 28-6.

That’s when the ball began bouncing into the Vandals’ hands. Maurice Shaw recovered a blocked punt in the end zone to bring Idaho within 28-13 with just less than 10 minutes to play. Joseph Dickson rushed in untouched to get his hands on the ball, blocking the punt.

Eric Hunter picked off a Tafralis pass seconds later, setting up a 19-yard run by Flowers.

The Vandals got the ball back with just more than 2 minutes left, but Jonathan Harris intercepted a Nooy pass to secure it.