The Kibbie Dome became a real life house of horrors for Idaho as their spiral into unending pain and sorrow continued with a 16-14 loss to Hawaii.
“Painful. It’s painful right now,” Coach Robb Akey said in the post game news conference. “We had every opportunity to finish this one. Offense had a chance to finish it. Defense had a chance to finish it. Special teams had a chance to finish it.”
The Vandals landed on the scoreboard first with a Matt Cleveland fumble recovery in the end zone after RB Princeton McCarty had the ball knocked loose on a run. Hawaii would answer back and then some, scoring thirteen unanswered points going into the second half.
The Vandal defense did a good job of limiting a very potent Hawaii offense. In total, the Warriors only had 338 yards of which only fifteen were rushing. Idaho also managed to record six sacks, twelve tackles for loss, and three total turnovers.
Idaho would get back on the board after Tracy Carter returned a fumble 70 yards to make the back 14-13 in favor of the Vandals. It was all for nothing though as Hawaii kicked home the winning field goal with just 32 seconds left to win the game. Even after the Vandals drove the field, a missed kick by Trey Farquhar as time expired left Idaho in a sadly familiar place.
“I think we’re capable of it,” Akey said. “We just have to finish it. It kills to be sitting here with only one win. When they’ve come as close as they have. There’s nobody that wants to have that success more than these guys do. It’s our names that are on the label.”
If the Vandals are going to have success, it will need to start with the coaching staff. Twice in the game the coaches decided to go for it on fourth down when they could have taken a field goal to at least put points on the board. Their play calling was also suspect in the fourth quarter when they opted to have the struggling QB Brian Reader run a pass play while on Hawaii’s nine yard line as opposed to handing it off to McCarty who had another great game, rushing for 99 yards.
Idaho, now 1-7, will travel to San Jose State this weekend in the hopes to get just their second win of the season and first against a D-1 school.
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