Things to watch: Vandals eager for return of QB Joshua Wood

At 2-5, without a Big Sky Conference win in three tries, Idaho clings to hopes of making the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the fourth straight year. Now, though, every game is fraught with peril. The Vandals need to win their final five games, including picking up victories against Northern Arizona (ranked 20th in the Stats Perform poll and 22nd in the AFCA poll) in an ESPN2 game on Halloween and the University of California Davis (ranked sixth in both polls) Nov. 8.

The Vandals can get a running start on this daunting challenge, however. They play host to Portland State (0-7) on Saturday.

Here are three things to watch as the Vandals and Vikings meet in the Kibbie Dome.

1. All eyes will be on Joshua Wood. Idaho’s starting quarterback played the second half of a 41-30 loss against Montana on Sept. 27 on a sprained knee, and he missed the next two games recovering from the injury. Both were Vandals losses. But Wood has been cleared to play against PSU. Idaho’s offense is a different order of magnitude with Wood taking the snaps. In five games this season the redshirt sophomore has passed for 927 yards and six touchdowns and run for 346 yards and six scores, and he quarterbacked both of the Vandals’ wins, against St. Thomas and Utah Tech. A question will be how well the Idaho offensive line can shield Wood from Vikings edge rusher Spencer Elliott, who has 4.5 sacks and has forced two fumbles. “We have some things planned for him,” Wood says. Idaho’s backup quarterback, freshman Sawyer Teeney, will also be available. He had been sidelined after being injured in practice during Idaho’s bye week following the Montana loss. The game will be something of a homecoming for C.J. Jordan, too. Jordan played for the Vandals from 2020-22. He is a backup quarterback for the Vikings as a senior.

2. Idaho’s defense ranks fifth overall in the Big Sky, having given up an average of 27.3 points per game. But the front of the Vandals’ defense and the secondary have not always been in sync. Can the Vandals get pressure on Vikings quarterback John-Keawe Sagapolutele while defending his passes downfield? It seems like something a team hoping to make the playoffs can manage. Sagapolutele has completed an unremarkable 57.4 % of his passes for 1,034 yards with three touchdowns and eight interceptions.

3. Will Portland State outplay its record? The Vikings trail Idaho badly in their overall series, 15-2. However, more often than not the Vikings play the Vandals tough. Since 2021, when anyone on either team was on the roster, the two have played three times, and the Vandals have won them all. In 2021, though, in Moscow, the score was 42-35. In 2022, also in the Kibbie Dome, Idaho had an easier time, winning 56-21. But last season, at PSU, the Vikings kept it close again, falling 39-30.