Idaho falls to No. 14 Lamar in home opener

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Sep. 13—MOSCOW — A football game is 60 minutes of game time, and usually to win a game a team needs both sides of the ball to click for the majority of that time. For the Idaho Vandals on Saturday, the defense clicked for about 45 minutes, while the offense clicked for just under 30.

The result? The Vandals fell to the No. 14 Lamar Cardinals 23-17 at the P1FCU Kibbie Dome.

A slow start on offense has been a throughline throughout all of the Vandals' games so far this season, including this loss to Lamar (2-1). Idaho coach Thomas Ford Jr. said that the first thing that Idaho (0-3, 0-1 Big Sky) plans on doing to try to solve that issue is to change the way the offense practices and emphasize starting fast.

"That is something that we obviously struggled with today," Ford said. "Struggled with that in Week 1, and really in Week 2 (too). We've got to do a better job starting fast. And so we'll continue to look at the way we practice, the drills that we're doing in practice, especially the competitive drills, because I think one thing we can continue to do is get those guys competing right away.

"There's no time to wait to compete, and we've got to get off to a faster start if we want to have success this year."

An Idaho defense that held up

Besides a 20-point second quarter, the Idaho defense did well on Saturday.

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The Vandals held Lamar junior quarterback Aiden McCown to 13-of-22 passing with just 159 yards and one touchdown. McCown also picked up 20 yards on eight carries and scored on a 3-yard rush, which put Lamar up 13-3 after the extra point with 1:08 left in the second quarter.

Idaho sacked McCown twice in the contest and did not let a receiver have more than 55 receiving yards.

Senior tight end Davin Driskell caught a 15-yard touchdown in the left front of the end zone with just one second to go in the first half, which gave Lamar its biggest lead at 20-3 after the PAT. Driskell led the team with 55 yards on three catches.

Junior running back Jojo Uga did the most damage to the Vandals, rushing 15 times for 105 yards. He also gashed Idaho with a long 47-yard gain to flip the field and set up the McCown rushing TD.

"I'm very encouraged (by the defense)," Ford said. "I think that group is really prideful. They know that we hadn't performed very well the first two weeks, especially statistically. We were one of the worst defenses in the country statistically after two weeks, but I think what you did see today is that we do have the ability to get stops."

True freshman safety Luca Moore led the Vandals with nine total tackles.

Fifth-year linebacker and Lewiston product Cruz Hepburn had seven tackles, including 1/2 for a loss.

Fifth-year defensive lineman Hikifo'Ou Maile started the second half with a 5-yard sack on McCown and just one drive later, senior linebacker Davon Donaldson sacked McCown for a loss of 7.

Outside the second quarter, Idaho held Lamar to just three points.

"We do have the ability to get off the field, and we do have the ability to get after the passer," Ford said. "That's something I was really excited about: getting sacks today, getting pressure today, getting quarterback hits. That's just something that we had not had in the past, and so seeing that is very encouraging."

An offensive failure

The Idaho offense was extremely inefficient against the Cardinals and ran 77 plays to gain just 296 yards, which was less than Lamar's total (303 yards) on just 55 plays.

The Idaho running backs — juniors Damonte Bias, Ferrari Millier and true freshman Kenny Golston — picked up a combined total of 29 yards on 14 carries.

Miller did score a 1-yard touchdown with 1:24 left to go in the game to make it 23-17 after the PAT.

Ford said that it will take a deep dive from the offensive coaches to see what worked well and what didn't work in the running game for future weeks.

"I think we're going to have to look at just schematically what fits," Ford said. "We did not run it as well as we wanted to early. We were really trying to attack them with some mid zone, and I think their speed kind of negated some of that. They were able to get some vertical penetration and really stop us in our tracks before we could get going."

Fifth-year receiver Lonyatta Alexander Jr. led the Vandals' passing attack with 64 yards on four catches, while junior receiver Ryan Jezioro caught the most passes with seven for 48 yards.

But there were multiple dropped passes from the Vandal receivers, including a drop from junior receiver Tony Harste open in the back of the end zone. That led to a fourth-and-10, which the Vandals failed to pick up with 6:32 left in the game.

Senior quarterback Joshua Wood was left to play "hero ball" for much of the game. He was 20-of-40 passing for 205 yards and was sacked five times. Wood also rushed the ball 19 times for a gain of 50 yards and one touchdown.

Ford was not quick to blame all the sacks on the offensive line and said that it was likely "shared responsibility" from receivers, the offensive line and Wood. He said he'll have a better understanding of the sacks after watching tape.

However, Ford said the "hero ball" approach is not sustainable for the Idaho offense.

"Joshua's a phenomenal player, and he's going to be able to make some guys miss. He's going to be able to extend plays, but that's not a way to be successful consistently on offense," Ford said. "We need to be able to protect him better. We need to be able to find concepts that get the ball out of his hands a little bit quicker, and really look at the strengths of our unit. Who are our guys, what do they do well? And try to put him in the best position to get their strengths out of them."

What do the Vandals do next?

Idaho will play No. 23 Abilene Christian (0-3) at 1 p.m. next Saturday at the Kibbie Dome.

Ford said the team is continuing to grow, but it simply needs to execute better, and that the team has two options for what to do next.

"You can pack it up and think we can't win, or you can pony up, get back to work, get back on the horse, and really get after it," Ford said. "Do more than they think they need to. Do more than they have done before, and more than anything, stay together."

Lamar 23, Idaho 17

FIRST QUARTER

IDA — FG Forsman 38, 5:38.

SECOND QUARTER

LU — FG Sandoval 36, 14:15.

LU — FG Sandoval 48, 8:13.

LU — McCown 3 run (Sandoval kick), 1:08.

LU — Driskell 15 pass from McCown (Sandoval kick), 0:01.

THIRD QUARTER

IDA — Wood 1 run (Forsman kick), 7:28.

FOURTH QUARTER

LU — FG Sandoval 45, 10:45.

IDA — Miller 1 run (Forsman kick), 1:24.

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING — Lamar, Uga 15-105, McCown 8-20, McDowell 3-12, Jenkins 6-7. Idaho, Wood 19-50, Bias 7-15, Miller 6-13, Carter 2-12, Golston 2-1, Krahn 1-0.

PASSING — Lamar, McCown 13-22-0—159, Thomas 0-1-0—0. Idaho, Wood 20-40-0—205.

RECEIVING — Lamar, Thomas 4-30, Driskell 3-55, Simmons 3-39, Girard 1-28, Thompson 1-5, Bonkowski 1-2. Idaho, Jezioro 7-48, Alexander 4-64, West-Baranco 3-21, Harste 2-30, Miller 2-24, Vliem 1-11, Bias 1-7.

Junt can be reached at 208-848-2258, tjunt@lmtribune.com or on X @TrevorJunt.

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