The sun that a week ago beamed a ray of hope on the Palouse has once again gone behind the clouds, fading into the dark and bleak world that has become standard this season as Idaho was completely dismantled by the BYU Cougars 42-7 this past Saturday in Provo.
“This game was two steps forward and three steps back,” said senior offensive tackle and co-captain Tyrone Novikof. “We just couldn’t get on a roll. That’s frustrating.”
The Vandals looked like a team that had forgotten everything they had learn from the week before. QB Taylor Davis was shaky, throwing for -6 total yards and throwing one interception on 5 for 12 passing. When QB Brian Reader was brought in late in the game to relieve Davis of his duties, Reader managed to throw a goal line interception on his way to 56 yards on six of nine passing.
“We didn’t make any plays tonight,” Coach Robb Akey said. “That was the problem. We did a poor job executing offensively. We need to execute those things better. … It’s the whole offense. I’m disappointed we didn’t play better tonight.”
Coach Akey didn’t just have his offense to be disappointed in; he also had a very sluggish and sloppy defense to deal with as well.
“What hurt us the most was the lack of ability to stop the run tonight and to make stops on third down,” said Akey.
Using seven different players, BYU managed to rush for 243 yards and three touchdowns, which was half of their 505 total yards and 42 points on the game. The Cougars put up 14 points in the each of the first three quarters with the fourth quarter being the only one where they didn’t score. What didn’t help the Vandals stop this onslaught was recording 105 yards in penalties, which left BYU in position to score a lot.
If one was to look at this game and denote any bright spots for the Vandals, they would find two. RB Princeton McCarty led all rushers with 127 yards, including an 80 yard touchdown, giving Idaho their third 100+ yard rushing game of the season and second in a row. Along with McCarty, punter Bobby Cowan, a semifinalist for the Ray Guy Award, regained the national punting average lead with seven kicks for 322 yards to make his average to 47.0 per kick.
The Vandals will return to Moscow this week for Senior Day as Utah State comes to town for Idaho’s final home game of the year.
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