COMMENTARY: ACU’s near comeback a blessing not a curse for Idaho

When Nate Thomas pushed through the line for a 3-yard touchdown to give No. 4 Idaho a 27-3 lead over No. 19 Abilene Christian in the third quarter, it looked like another Vandal rout.

As I watched the game from my office, I was trying to figure out how I was going to sit down for this article and talk about possibly the greatest stretch of football Idaho has ever had in the nonconference portion of its schedule.

Meanwhile, the Wildcats found their footing and finally got their highly touted passing game going. ACU scored 21 unanswered points and had the ball with the chance to pull off a major comeback victory, and I couldn’t help but wonder what silly phrase I was going to use to compare the possible loss with the infamous “Couged it” moniker Washington State had been tagged with for years.

Luckily, I didn’t have to attempt to get clever, which is good because I am not very good at it anyway.

Instead, the Idaho defense, especially Matt Irwin who had a sack and forced fumble on the final drive, came up big and the Vandals completed nonconference play with two wins against ranked Football Championship Subdivision teams and a road victory against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent.

The Vandals, of course, held on to defeat the Wildcats 27-24 on Saturday.

Winning on the road against a ranked opponent is not an easy task and for the first 32 minutes of the game that is exactly what Idaho was making it look like. However, I believe that the way the Vandals won that game was the best thing for the team going forward.

While I do believe Idaho’s team leaders would do their best to not allow it to happen, any team has a good chance of getting a little too high on itself with two blowout wins against solid competition. That is when letdown games or trap games happen.

If the game ended on that Thomas touchdown, Idaho would have beaten UAlbany and ACU by a combined score of 68-16 and you would not blame them for feeling a bit invincible.

With the start of the Big Sky Conference slate and a hungry (and also ranked) UC Davis team ready to host the Vandals this weekend, that would not be a good combination.

Instead, the Wildcats had a furious comeback and nearly pulled off one of the best wins in their program’s history and hopefully Idaho can learn a lot from that experience all while enjoying another mark in the win column.

By no means would I ever insinuate that a Jason Eck-led Vandals team would ever overlook the No. 11 UC Davis Aggies. I will insinuate, however, that the second half of the ACU game will help teach Idaho that it truly does take 60 minutes to win a game and that you cannot just sit back and allow another team to get any kind of momentum.

You would think a team like Idaho understands that concept, and I am sure that it does, but every team has a lapse. That is what the Vandals had on Saturday — a lapse.

Luckily for Idaho, it had a lapse and nearly blew a large lead, but in the end it was another win against a top-25 program and a reality check.

There are some out there who felt disappointed that the 24-point lead was cut to three. I am not one of those people. It allowed us to see what this team would do when things start to slip away.

The defensive line took over and was able to get to ACU quarterback Maverick McIvor after spending most of the game being fingertips away from several sacks.

For fans, I think it is important to look at the positives from last Saturday and remember that it is hard to win against a top-25 team. For the players and coaches, it is important to look at what happened in the second half and grow and learn from it and continue to get better.

For everyone, it is important to remember that every win counts the same in the standings and Idaho is now 3-1 going into Big Sky conference play.

Isbelle can be reached at 208-848-2268, risbelle@lmtribune.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyIsbelle.