Vandals dish out some sweet revenge

MOSCOW — The No. 4 Idaho Vandals avenged last year’s FCS quarterfinals loss to No. 17 UAlbany with a dominant 41-13 win at the P1FCU Kibbie Dome on Saturday.

The Vandals (2-1) celebrated the ability to play in front of a home crowd for the first time in 2024 with two passing touchdowns, two rushing touchdowns, a punt return for a touchdown and a pick-6.

“I thought that was a great win for our team in all three phases and, again, that was another step for our program to play a ranked team,” Idaho coach Jason Eck said. “I don’t know if we’ve had any of our ranked wins be so dominating in all three phases, so I was very impressed.”

Idaho redshirt freshman quarterback Jack Wagner was 10-of-20 passing for 156 yards and two touchdowns. He was pulled from the game in the third quarter with the Vandals up by 35 points.

Wide receiver Jordan Dwyer had another solid showing with five receptions for 68 yards and two touchdowns. Mark Hamper had three catches for 74 yards.

A majority of the starters for the Vandals did not play in the fourth quarter with the large lead.

“Those are valuable snaps and we got to play a lot of guys in this game, which are very valuable snaps to do that,” Eck said.

First four drives

Idaho and UAlbany combined for 34 plays, 14 first downs and 266 yards in the first four drives. The key difference was that the Vandals scored two touchdowns and the Great Danes could only muster a single field goal.

UAlbany was stuffed on the first possession, but an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Keyshawn James-Newby extended the drive. The Great Danes moved down to the Idaho 18-yard line, but Danes kicker John Opalko could not hit the field-goal attempt.

Idaho needed just three plays to score on its opening drive. First, freshman wideout Emmerson Cortez-Menjivar took a reverse for 28 yards. Then, junior running back Eli Cummings broke through the line for a 40-yard gain. Finally, freshman quarterback Jack Wagner found Dwyer in the corner of the end zone for a 12-yard touchdown pass.

After a Great Dane field goal on a nine-play drive, the Vandals went on the march again. Idaho needed less than three minutes to go 79 yards on 10 plays. Junior running back Nate Thomas capped off the drive with a 2-yard touchdown run.

The Vandals had 100 yards rushing after just one quarter.

Another defensive master class

After giving up seven first downs and 107 yards in the first two drives, the vaunted Vandal defense clamped down and frustrated UAlbany.

The Great Danes collected just six first downs and 83 yards in the second and third quarters combined. Fifty-eight of those yards came with 6:53 to go in the third quarter on a long completion from quarterback Myles Burkett to Levi Wentz to the Idaho 17-yard line. Idaho shut the door in the red zone again and held UAlbany to a field goal.

In five drives to the red zone, the Great Danes only scored on three possessions and the only touchdown came in junk time in the fourth quarter.

“I think we have a chance to have one of the finest defenses in all of FCS football and they’ve just got to keep staying hungry, keep improving, keep focusing on little details,” Eck said. “I think at least two of their three scoring drives today were aided by us helping with foolish penalties, and then they scored one on the twos which was a good drive by them. But that was I think a lot of their starters against a lot of our backups, so that happens.”

The Vandal defense put the game out of reach when senior safety Tommy McCormick intercepted a Burkett pass and returned it 32 yards for a touchdown to give Idaho a 41-3 lead. It was the first interception for McCormick since he had four in 2022. The Fallon, Nev., native recorded his first pick-6 of his college career.

“I’m happy for Tommy. We’re back to ‘Takeaway Tommy,’” Eck said. “It’s new and improved. ‘Takeaway Tommy’ because a couple years ago when he went to Montana, he loved to get those interceptions and get tackled at the 2-yard line and set up the backs for another touchdown.”

The Idaho defense had four sacks in the game. Dallas Afalava recorded his second sack of the season and on the very next play James-Newby added to his sack total. James-Newby now has six sacks on the season and has already topped his season total from last year.

UAlbany was only able to muster 60 yards on the ground at an average of 1.8 yards an attempt. The Great Danes finished with 290 passing yards, but the majority of those yards came on the first two drives and in junk time.

Lewison native Cruz Hepburn got into the game in the fourth quarter and had a tackle at linebacker.

Vandal protection

With quarterback Jack Layne out with a broken collarbone and backup quarterback Jack Wagner coming into the game not at 100%, it was important for the front line to keep the QB pocket clean. That it did just that.

Not only was Wagner not sacked a single time, but he had a lot of time to make plays. There were plenty of quick checkdowns and early release plays mixed in, but when the play asked for a little more time to develop the offensive line delivered.

On Wagner’s second touchdown completion to Dwyer the quarterback was able to go through all of his progressions, roll to his right and still have the time to be patient enough to allow Dwyer to get into space.

“I think they’re growing and improving. We’ve still got a ways to go,” Eck said. “There’s still some things we could have blocked a little cleaner, but it was a good step forward and, again, you’re kind of back in your own weight class playing other FCS schools, so it was good to see.”

Idaho ran for 247 yards with an average of 7.5 yards per attempt behind the stellar offensive line. Thomas had 75 carries on eight carries and two touchdowns for Idaho. Cummings had 11 carries for 73 yards.

The Vandal O-line did its work without two key starters. Both redshirt sophomore Charlie Vliem and redshirt freshman Kaden Robnett were injured in the Wyoming game last week with both players needing season-ending knee surgery.

“Very proud of Logan Harris. Grit is one of our core values and that’s the epitome of grit,” Eck said. “He’s been on the team for five years, working his tail off the whole time, got his first opportunity to start a football game today in his fifth year and played very well.”

Halftime honors

Idaho honored the Vandal Athletic Hall of Fame class of 2024 that included the 1988 Vandal football team. There were over two dozen former players and coaches from that group on hand to enjoy the festivities.

Strong crowd in opener

The official box score posted 11,432 in attendance for the Idaho victory. That is nearly 2,000 more fans than the 2023 home opener against Sacramento State and well over 4,000 more than the number who attended Eck’s first game as a Vandal coach at home.

It is the first time Idaho had over 10,000 in attendance for the first game in the Kibbie dome since it had 10,566 against Western New Mexico in 2018. It is the highest attended Vandal home opener since 2016 when 11,987 watched Idaho defeat Montana State 20-17.

“Shout out to our crowd too — again, great crowd,” Eck said. “We want to keep building this program and making it better and better and that was awesome to see 11,000 butts in the seats, and let’s make it even better for the rest of the home games, so thank you for that.”

First Quarter

IDAHO: Dwyer 12 pass from Wagner (PAT failed), 8:39.

UAL: FG Opalko 25, 3:51.

IDAHO: Thomas 2 run (Pope kick), 0:51.

Second Quarter

IDAHO: Dwyer 4 pass from Wagner (Pope kick), 12:29.

IDAHO: Marshall 47 punt return (Pope kick), 7:11.

Third Quarter

IDAHO: Thomas 1 run (Pope kick), 7:02.

IDAHO: McCormick 32 interception return (Pope kick), 6:53.

UAL: FG Opalko 33, 4:38.

Fourth Quarter

UAL: Wentz 19 pass from Burkett (Opalko kick), 1:52.

A: 11,432.

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING: UAlbany, Woodell 14-34, Burkett 12-41, Uga 5-11, Aden 2-9. Idaho, N. Thomas 8-75, Cummings 73, Williams 6-37, Cortez-Menjivar 1-28, Buchanan 4-20, Wagner 3-18.

PASSING: UAlbany, Burkett 23-38-1-290. Idaho, Wagner 10-20-0-156, Josifek 1-3-0-17.

RECEIVING: UAlbany, Wentz 5-114, McGee 5-56, Parker 5-54, Dietz 2-19, Uga 1-15, Cooney 1-12, Carter 1-10, Moses 1-9, Steinfeldt 1-2, Woodell 1-(minus-1). Idaho, Hamper 3-74, Dwyer 5-68, Thomas 1-20, Cummings 1-9, Moore 1-2.

MISSED FIELD GOALS: UAlbany, Opalko 35.

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