Idaho looking forward to Aggies

A taste of the New Mexico State Aggies may be just what the Idaho football team needs right now.

The Aggies have been a soothing balm to Idaho the last two years, with Idaho beating NMSU 20-14 in 2008 in its only WAC win of the year. Last year Idaho opened the season in Las Cruces, and picked off the Aggies 21-6 in what ended up being Idaho's best season in more than a decade.

The Vandals are hoping the winning streak continues, especially as they try to keep their bowl hopes alive and pick up their first conference win.

Idaho is coming off a disappointing 48-35 loss to Louisiana Tech. The Vandals were in the game in the first half, trailing only 17-14 at intermission, but big plays and poor tackling allowed the Bulldogs to take control of the game in the third quarter.

Vandal coach Robb Akey said it was an ugly game, but they are looking to move past it.

"We're going to build on the positives and fix the things that weren't quite as good," he said. "Offensively, we have to be able to run the ball better (Idaho finished with 20 yards on the ground). (We need) to consistently protect the quarterback better."

Akey said most of the time his offensive line does a good job protecting quarterback Nate Enderle, but there are a handful of situations where the line breaks down and he needs that to stop.

Taking center stage on Akey's list of improvements is his defense.

At times the Idaho D is scintillating. It's fast, aggressive and can put the smackdown on hard and fast. But against La. Tech, and earlier in the year against Colorado State, the Vandal defense broke down.

On Saturday against the Bulldogs, Idaho struggled to stop La. Tech on third down, it gave up half a dozen big plays and they missed tackles. It also gave up nearly 700 yards of total offense.

Akey said he didn't know exactly how many tackles they missed, but it was a fair few.

"At times the defense has played fantastic," he said. "They've done well sacking the quarterback, taking the ball away. (We've) had two performances not anywhere near the standard we expect. We need better consistency. When this defense plays physical and fly around the field we're pretty good and they helped us win games. When we haven't, that's led us to our issues."

Saturday's upcoming game against NMSU (1-5, 0-2) should help in the consistency department.

The Aggies are consistently inconsistent in every facet of the game.

They are coming off a 33-10 loss to Fresno State, a loss coach DeWayne Walker said they played very poorly in during the first half, but they did do nice things in the second.

"We've shown we can look like a competitive football team in different quarters. We're still trying to work on putting four quarters together," Walker said. "We have to continue to work and build to that point. But the second half of last week's game, if we'd gotten that in the first half, it might have been a different story. We want to keep continuing to build to get to that point."

NMSU running back Kenny Turner put up his best numbers of the year against Fresno State when he rushed for 79 yards off 15 carries and scored a touchdown on a late 19-yard run. He also had three catches for 61 yards, and his emergence should mean good things for NMSU.

The Aggies also seem to have their quarterback back.

Matt Christian missed the entire New Mexico game - the only game the Aggies won - and part of the Fresno State game due to an injury, but he came back in the second half against the Bulldogs to finish with 155 yards on 11-of-22 passing. So far this season, Christian has logged 788 yards and three touchdowns.

The Aggies are averaging just more than 12 points a game while the Vandals are putting up 32, and defensively, NMSU is giving up nearly 39 points while Idaho allows 24.

If things go as scripted, Idaho should end up with a convincing win and it should be back in the conference race. But this season has had its share of ups and downs, and Akey nailed it on the head when he said they must be more consistent.

"I'm looking forward to doing everything in our power to get our team back on the right track," he said. Sandra Kelly can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 231, or by e-mail to skelly@dnews.com.