Idaho Vandals

Monday WAC EXTRA

Posted on 09 November 2009 by Jesse Baumgartner

Quick quiz, what’s about to be the most analyzed body part in the state of Idaho during the next five days? Five, four, three…..yes, the throwing shoulder of Idaho quarterback Nate Enderle. Coach Robb Akey (who kicked off rivalry week by sauntering into today’s press conference with a pair of cowboy boots) said the junior will be a “gametime decision at best,”so who knows if he’ll be ready for the rivalry game on Saturday in Boise against the No. 6 Broncos.

That gets us into this week’s edition of WAC EXTRA, so let’s get rolling. For starters, the Idaho Vandals’ 31-21 loss to Fresno State on Saturday prompted a few observations about that game and the UI season as a whole. Here we go with some …….

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK

(read the whole article here):

Front and center during the 31-21 loss to Fresno State was an offense that looked far less fluid and explosive than it had all season with injured quarterback Nate Enderle at the helm.

In first full game as a Division I-A quarterback – and against a better defense than those the Vandals have faced recently – Brian Reader looked very uncomfortable during the first half while going 2-for-10. The offense put up a 0 in a half for just the second time this season and missed all five of its third-down conversions (a large positive for UI all season long).

While Reader seemed to be much more comfortable in the second half, there was little of the dynamic vertical passing game that has become so routine with Enderle this season. And frankly, a noticeable dropoff with a backup quarterback is not uncommon for most teams.

With that reality came another that has crept up slowly on the Vandals – the fact that they have become more and more dependent on their offense as the season has gone along.

Against the lesser teams of the WAC that formula has been enough, and even versus a Northern Illinois squad that is now 6-3. But against the elite of the WAC, the Vandals have run into a problem that even a high-powered offense can’t solve.

The Vandals perhaps realized on Saturday just how much they have relied on Enderle to turn those early deficits into reasonable margins with just a few quick shots down the field.

That leads us to the third observation, which is that the Vandals appear to have hit a plateau during this turnaround season.

Losing to Boise State next week – as it will be expected to do handily – would give Idaho a chance to win at home against a 2-7 Utah State team and finish the year at 8-4.

Going from 2-10 to 8-4 (or even 7-5) in college football is a fairly shocking development.
Fresno State, Nevada and Boise State all have consistent winning histories in the WAC, so it isn’t surprising that Idaho has not gone from being their personal doormat to trumping them within a single calendar year.

The Vandals might desperately want to win these games against the WAC’s elite, and the tone in Robb Akey’s voice after the losses suggests that they do.

But ask yourself, can they reasonably expect to?

TIME TO RUN AROUND THE WAC

Down in Ruston, La., the Louisiana Bulldogs intrigued everyone for a while by pulling to within two of Boise State in the fourth quarter before eventually falling 45-35. The Bulldogs used a little BSU-esque trickery on an onside kick and had a lot of success stopping Chris Petersen’s group in the red zone. Plus, find a replay Dennis Morris’ catch over the back of a BSU corner — one of the best plays in the conference this season. But when things got tough, the Broncos exploded with a typical explosion that let them ease out the rest of the final quarter. It doesn’t look great to the BCS formula (BSU is No. 6), but the fact that that sequence was one of the season’s most challenging moments shows how dominant the Broncos have been.

Hopping over to the island, Hawaii finally snagged its first WAC victory of the season by — grab onto something if you can — RUNNING the ball for 360 yards. Yes, yes, they also passed for the usual 337 (697 total yards for the game), but that type of ground attack has rarely been seen among the palm trees. Utah State took a step back after a few encouraging games, though Diondre Borel again piled up the yards. The difference in the game was Hawaii stuffing the USU run game for just 102 yards on 39 carries. Also, Greg McMackin and his staff deserve credit for how quickly they’ve gotten quarterback Bryant Moniz adjusted to the offense. 337 yards and four TDs, all from a kid who thought he’d never see the field this year (and maybe next year, too).

And down in San Jose, just when you thought the Spartans had bottomed out, Colin Kaepernick and the Nevada offense showed up to introduce them to even greater depths. Chew on these statistics: 515 rushing yards, 665 total yards, 8.8 yards a carry. Now for the kicker — an NCAA record-tying FOUR Nevada rushers went over 100 yards (Vai Taua, Kaepernick, Luke Lippincott, Lampford Mark). Kaepernick, by the way, with another four total touchdowns. With the 62-7 loss, Dick Tomey’s nightmare is extended (oh, and did we say it was on ESPN for the world to see?).

POWER RANKINGS

1. Boise State (9-0) — If that’s a slip-up, BSU is clearly in a different world.

2. Fresno State (6-3) – Nevada puts up the gaudy numbers, but FSU is most well-rounded outside of the Broncos.

3. Nevada (6-3) – Intriguing showdowns with Fresno State and Boise State remain for red-hot Wolf Pack.

4. Idaho (7-3) – Much-improved Vandals proving to be under the level of top three teams.

5. Louisiana Tech (3-6) – Nice performance from Tech, who pushed BSU bigtime for a while.

6. Utah State (2-7) – Not a great performance at Hawaii, but still some winnable games in the next three weeks.

7. Hawaii (3-6) — Rainbow Warriors must win out to be bowl-eligible. Should beat low-scoring New Mexico State at home.

8. New Mexico State (3-6) – One more win is important for DeWayne Walker in first season.

9. San Jose State (1-7) – When does it stop?

QUOTED

“I know I’m not supposed to say things like that, because I’m supposed to pay homage to Boise State and we’re not supposed to even line up. As a matter of fact it was suggested by some people that maybe we just treat this like a bye week and don’t bother to even go play the game because we can’t touch them. But we’re going to be there. It’s going to kick off at 1:30, we’re going to be there about 11:30 so we make sure that they can’t start without us. And we’re going to pin our ears back and we’re going to get after it and we’re going to have a great time with this ball game. And my goal is that on Sunday, Saturday night, that I will be the least popular individual with every administrator within the WAC conference because we have taken all the BCS hopes away from our conference. That’s my goal and desire.” – Idaho coach Robb Akey on this week’s rivalry game.

“Well if he did a whole bunch of things better than Nate, he’d probably have been our starter before Nate. Both good quarterbacks. Brian’s got a different touch on the ball, some of his touch passes, that might be something that, he might have an advantage on that over Nate. But that’s more of a style of getting the same thing accomplished.” — Akey, on whether Brian Reader does anything better than Nate Enderle.

“I need to apologize, because that was the worst football game we’ve played in the five years that I’ve been here. That’s a terrible reflection of me as a head coach, the rest of the coaching staff, and our players. I’ve never witnessed an effort like that.” – San Jose State coach Dick Tomey after getting routed by Nevada 62-7 and giving up more than 500 rushing yards.

“There is no possible excuse for that performance.” -- Tomey

“The holes were the size of trucks.” — Nevada RB Vai Taua. Must have been.

“I couldn’t be more proud of my players and my coaches for hanging in there and not jumping off ship, not pointing fingers, but staying united and being Warriors to the end.” — Hawaii coach Greg McMackin after winning UH’s first WAC game of the season.

“Caught off guard? (by Hawai‘i’s running game) No, I can’t say we were caught off guard.” — Utah State coach Gary Andersen. Well then he was the only one.

“That’s frustrating. We just have to finish down there and execute. We’ve got to convert on the situations.” — BSU QB Kellen Moore on leaving points on the board against La. Tech.

SECOND-TO-LAST THOUGHT

ESPN GameDay coming to Boise for the BSU/Idaho game this week was a rumor/talking point for a while. It came out Sunday that GameDay will be heading down to Fort Worth, Texas, for the TCU-Utah Game. Here’s an article from The Statesman, which says that a big reason for that decision was Idaho not being ranked while Utah and TCU both are both in the BCS’ top 16.

“Obviously disappointed. We were in contact with ESPN through last week, had a conversation with them Saturday after Iowa had lost. And I know that late Saturday that Boise was still high on the list,” WAC commissioner Karl Benson said Monday on his weekly teleconference (though it was uncertain he’d make the call since he had jury duty, not kidding).

“And the explanation that we received yesterday was that with TCU ranked No. 4 and Utah ranked No. 14, that they couldn’t pass over that matchup for Boise State-Idaho.”

Though the WAC has a contract with ESPN, Benson said that’s with the programming side, rather than the production side that makes the call. The commissioner said the conference’s programming contact, vice president Burke Magnus, was encouraging the production side to go to Boise. The program has never been to a WAC stadium before.

It’s an interesting debate. GameDay was at the TCU game at BYU a few weeks ago (and Air Force, another MWC team, last week), and as a Mountain West team, the Horned Frogs have just been on ESPNU once this season — that’s it. Boise State, with the WAC-ESPN connection, will be on one of the two main ESPN channels six times this season. What do you think?

FINAL THOUGHT

Game of the Week: I’m copping out here. Idaho/Boise State & Fresno State/Nevada. Two fun games. The Idaho rivalry game on one hand, and then you’ve got two of the conference’s best teams with the most prolific rushing offenses. Get by a TV this weekend. Also, I’ll be in Boise as of Friday for the game, so stay tuned for coverage all week long.

MOSCOW – Saturday night was a time of observation at the Kibbie Dome, as the Idaho Vandals’ third loss of the season played out on the turf below.

And perhaps that is the best situation for such reflections, when the field is not being stormed by fans after a chaotic win.

Front and center during the 31-21 loss to Fresno State was an offense that looked far less fluid and explosive than it had all season with injured quarterback Nate Enderle at the helm.

The race between Enderle and Brian Reader carried over into fall camp, and Reader entered at a crucial point in the San Jose State game earlier this year. According to a coach’s quote in the Spokesman-Review, he apparently was close to getting a shot against Louisiana Tech last week, too.

But in his first full game as a Division I-A quarterback – and against a better defense than those the Vandals have faced recently – the sophomore looked very uncomfortable during the first half while going 2-for-10. The offense put up a 0 in a half for just the second time this season and missed all five of its third-down conversions (a large positive for UI all season long).

“No I don’t think that had a thing to do with it. I don’t think so,” Robb Akey said in response to whether the early struggles came from having Reader in.

“I think it was execution, because some of the things that were miscues for us early in the ballgame didn’t have a thing to do with the quarterback at that point in time.

“So no I don’t think so. I think Brian did a damn good job.”

The facts, though, say Idaho scored less than 29 points for the first time since playing Washington in the second game of the season.

With that reality came another that has crept up slowly on the Vandals – the fact that they have become more and more dependent on their offense as the season has gone along.

There’s no cure for the 70 points Nevada put up a couple weeks ago, and Fresno State did whatever it wanted in the first half of Saturday’s game while claiming a 24-0 lead. Yes, the Bulldogs ended up with only 31 points, but remember that they ran the ball exclusively in the second half while eating up the clock.

Quarterback Ryan Colburn was 8 for 8 with a touchdown in the 24-point first half and didn’t throw an incomplete pass the entire night. He only threw six passes in the second half as the Bulldogs ran out the game (though not terribly successfully, as the Vandals scurried back near the end).

Giving up points early puts immediate pressure on an offense, and while Idaho has usually dealt well with such scenarios, doing so every time is too much to ask. The Vandals perhaps realized on Saturday just how much they have relied on Enderle to turn those early deficits into reasonable margins with just a few quick shots down the field.

That leads us to the third observation, which is that the Vandals appear to have hit a plateau during this turnaround season.

Losing to Boise State next week – as it will be expected to do handily – would give Idaho a chance to win at home against a 2-7 Utah State team and finish the year at 8-4.

Going from 2-10 to 8-4 (or even 7-5) in college football is a fairly shocking development. And consider that this is not a dormant powerhouse we’re talking about, but an Idaho team that has largely defined futility since jumping up to the Division I-A level in the late 1990s.

Fresno State, Nevada and Boise State all have consistent winning histories in the WAC, so it isn’t surprising that Idaho has not gone from being their personal doormat to trumping them within a single calendar year.

Last season Nevada and Fresno State beat the Vandals by a combined 48 points. This season Idaho has lost to those same teams by 35.

The Vandals might desperately want to win these games against the WAC’s elite, and the tone in Akey’s voice after the losses suggests that they do.

But ask yourself, can they reasonably expect to?