Q&A with Idaho QB Brian Reader

Brian Reader knows the grim numbers from the last two weeks: no touchdowns in regulation, five interceptions, and a completion percentage that has been “awful,” in the words of his coach. But the Idaho quarterback has also seen enough this year to know the Vandals’ offense — and his numbers — can look much better in the second half of the season.

I spoke with Reader earlier this week after practice and talked about refining his approach, getting the season back on track, and other things. See below.

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Q: Do you feel like you guys have bounced back in practice?

Reader : We had one of our best practices in a long time (Tuesday). We were connecting on just about everything. I knew what I was doing, the receivers knew what they were doing, the line knew what they were doing.

We’re working well as a unit right now and I’m kind of proud of our group to have a good sense of confidence going into this game after our last couple of rough games on offense.

Our goal is to win the last six games of the season and get a bowl.

Q: Going into a bye week, a win here would really help, right?

Reader : A win this week would do more than great things for us. It would do great things for our fans, our community and everything. We need this win. I can imagine we’re going to be real pumped up for this game and getting that win and going into this bye week feeling good going into this bye week and Hawaii (on Oct. 29), it’s going to be huge for us and our confidence throughout the season.

This is really the turning point of our season. We have a choice, and it’s to come out and beat these guys and play our best game like we’re playing the best team in the nation, or an NFL team or anything like that.

Q: You heard the crowd’s reaction on Saturday (it booed the offense during a 24-11 loss to Louisiana Tech). How do you react to that? Do you just try to block it out?

Reader : You try to block it out. You don’t even hear half the stuff as it is. You don’t complete a pass on third down, they always groan. It’s been like that at every college game I’ve been at. But at the same time, they want us to play well and I don’t blame them one bit. They’re not happy when we don’t play well. They came to watch us win.

We want to change that around, and we want our fans to be our fans again. … It’s been like that since I’ve been here. If we don’t win, that’s just kind of how it is. And everybody understands that. We have to have that confidence in our own ability.

Q: Like you said, your confidence has taken a hit. Is there somebody you go to for guidance? Do you try to simplify things or what?

Reader : I’ve been in with Coach Akey this week already. Had a nice, long talk with him (Monday), and Coach Axman too. Just making sure that we’re still on the same page with everything. There’s a few things I did last game that I shouldn’t be doing, and we have to make sure we cover those things during the week in meetings and whatnot. And we were starting to lack in doing so, and that’s on me if anybody.

I feel like I’ve been prepared for every game, but there’s certain things that we need to get better at as a unit that we used to be able to get by with because we had a high-powered offense. … It’s the little things that we’re doing now that we’ve got to start getting better (at) because those little things start leading to big things.

This is the turning point of the season — six games in and we’ve got six games to go. We’ve got six games to make it happen.

Q: Akey talked about trusting your keys. Do you feel like you need to trust the call and not do as much audibling? Or are you not doing as much of that?

Reader : Well, it’s not as much audibling as it would be we basically we have two plays in one, two sides to the play. What he is talking about with keys is you look at a certain player on the field, say the safety. And if the safety is helping out the corner on a single receiver side, you don’t want to play to that side — you want to stick to the three-receiver side. And that’s the kind of things that we need to be looking at quarterback and know a lot better what’s going on.

We didn’t use to do a lot of that stuff. We were more of, I guess, a simplified reading — that’s kind of pre-snap and post-snap you got to see him right away. If he’s here pre-snap and moves to the other side post-snap, you’ve got to know what that’s going to be — and it’s on the quarterbacks to understand that.

Coach Akey talked about the defense the first game — you’ve got to trust your eyes. I’ve got to trust my eyes as a quarterback. If I see that happen, I know I have to go to the other side. I can’t try to make something out of nothing.

Q: The first three or four weeks you only had one interception, and the last two weeks you’ve had five. Is that maybe coming with trying to forcing things too much because you know things have to get going?

Reader : I’m definitely pressing a lot more than I was in the first few weeks. That and the completion percentage is down just because I personally have been forcing. I want to make things happen instead of just letting stuff happen, instead of just chipping away at teams trying to take more shots and just try to be the hero and do everything you need to do. And that’s not what you need to do, especially in college football. Take what they give you … and make (the other team) think that we’re going to throw short the whole game and once they stop respecting our short passes, we throw over the top. That’s kind of what we’ve been doing in the past and I personally have been getting away from.

Q: The last couple years it was always you pushing (Nate) Enderle. Now it’s (Taylor) Davis pushing you. Do you feel like you still have that strong grip on the No. 1 spot?

Reader : Yeah, I mean if I start worrying about something like that than I’m not focusing on the right things to help this team win games. I know he’s there, and I know if I don’t perform to my ability they won’t be afraid to put him in there, because they did the same thing to Nate when I was his backup. There was a game when he was a junior, I was a sophomore and he wasn’t performing at the end of the game. They threw me in for the last drive and (we) won the game. I know Coach Akey won’t be afraid to do that if that ever comes about. But that’s got to fuel my fire. I’ve got to make sure I’m so prepared for the games that that will never cross my mind.

I’m treating this as two different seasons. First season’s over, second season’s now. Because you can’t worry about what’s in the past. You’ve got to worry about what’s ahead of you and what’s going on in the present time. And there’s no reason why we can’t split the season in half — 50 percent completions, finish the season 80 percent completions. That’s pretty dang good. Get our team going and get some offensive production and help our defense out, because they’ve been playing lights-out and we haven’t been.

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