A heroic, late-game drive by a third-string quarterback wasn’t enough to lift Idaho to a big football victory Saturday night in Davis, Calif.

No. 4 Idaho failed on a late 2-point conversion and lost on the road to No. 14 UC Davis 28-26 in its Big Sky Conference opening contest.

A third-stringer to start the season, freshman quarterback Nick Josifek walked off the field with a light limp and blood on his right elbow. It was a battle wound for a young signal-caller who was asked to come into the game after Jack Wagner went down in the third quarter with an injury.

Josifek entered with Idaho trailing 28-17 and led two scoring drives to allow the Vandals (3-2, 0-1) to have a chance to tie the game with a 2-point conversion. The passing attempt to Jordan Dwyer went long and the onside kick was unsuccessful for the Vandals.

“I think Nick earned a lot of stripes and respect from his teammates today,” Idaho coach Jason Eck said. “You know, he got to come in that Wyoming game and basically just, you know, hand the ball off at the end of the game, but to come in this situation ... and take us down for two scores and two, two-minute drills (was huge).”

UC Davis (4-1, 1-0) has now won five consecutive meetings against Idaho and the Vandals are 0-2 in the Jason Eck era against the Aggies.

“I thought they did a good job with their tempo early,” Eck said. “That’s something we got to really focus on because I think now two weeks in a row, teams are kind of shown going fast. They’ve had some success against our defense.”

Preseason All-Big Sky Offensive MVP Lan Larison was as advertised for the Aggies. Larison had 138 all-purpose yards, a rushing touchdown, a receiving touchdown, was 3-for-3 passing and recovered the game-sealing onside kick.

Idaho had a balanced attack that started strong. The Vandals gained 459 yards on the day — 274 passing and 185 on the ground.

Josifek was 9-for-19 passing for 96 yards and a touchdown in relief of Wagner, who threw 178 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. Jordan Dwyer had eight receptions for 114 yards.

Miles Hastings had a strong passing game for UC Davis, going 25-for-32 for 248 yards and three touchdowns. The Aggies were one-dimensional on offense with 286 yards passing and just 26 yards on the ground.

Idaho’s hot start

The first 11 minutes were owned by the Vandals. Idaho used 18 plays on two drives to go 134 yards and score twice. Meanwhile UC Davis went three-and-out on its first possession and lost 9 yards in the process.

Wagner diced up the tough Aggie secondary early and found four different receivers on the first two drives.

Idaho was a perfect 4-for-4 on third down on the two scoring possessions and had a balanced attack.

Key defenders Keyshawn James-Newby and Dallas Afalava were limited in the game and did not start, but that did not stop the Vandals from sacking Miles Hastings for a 10-yard loss. Malakai Williams and Xavier Slayton were credited with a share of the sack.

UC Davis ups the tempo

A major focus for the Idaho defense was keeping fresh legs on the field by using several different defenders throughout the game and trying to keep its players from having heavy legs late in the contest.

Injuries coming into the contest had already hampered the Vandals in that game plan. UC Davis also made it difficult when it went to a no-huddle attack. Idaho was unable to substitute as it would have liked and on multiple plays the defense looked out of sync.

The Aggies took advantage with back-to-back 10-play touchdown drives to tie the game 14 all.

Late-half turnovers

Andrew Marshall gave Idaho great field position late in the first half when he stripped the ball away from Trent Tompkins and was able to pick up the loose ball.

The Vandals had the ball on the UC Davis 21-yard line with 1:52 to go in the second quarter with all three timeouts.

Two plays into the drive, Eck dug too deep into his playbook and called a double reverse pass by wide receiver Tony Harste. Harste looked deep for Mark Hamper, but Kavir Bains pulled in an easy interception.

“We put Harste in a tough position there and you can’t throw the ball away when you don’t initially have the thing, but you know, at least got to run it there,” Eck said.

High risk, no reward

The reverse pass was not the only gamble that Eck had in the game.

The Aggies struck first in the second half on a two-play, 28-yard touchdown drive by UC Davis set up by a 72-yard C.J. Hutton kickoff return, and the home team had its first lead, 21-17.

Idaho responded with a nine-play drive that went down to the UC Davis 5-yard line. Instead of going for a field goal and cutting the lead to one, Eck went for it and an errant pass gave the Aggies the ball.

“We like to be aggressive,” Eck said. “I remember the one we were down four, so a field goal doesn’t provide a ton of value because you’re still down and need a score. Obviously, a field goal can help you more if you get two field goals, but that was the thought with that.”

Two Idaho possessions later, the Vandals faced a fourth-and-4 near midfield, again Eck went for it. Wagner was rushed out of the pocket and threw the ball up for grabs and UC Davis’ Porter Connors intercepted the pass. Wagner was injured on the play and did not return.

“He was trying to throw, but I think he felt like he didn’t have any strength or power, couldn’t throw it very far,” Eck said. “So we’ll have to see, I mean, I don’t think it’s awful because he was throwing, he just wasn’t throwing it very far and with a lot of velocity.”

UC Davis scored six plays later on a drive that included a Larison wobbly 31-yard completion to Winston Williams. Hastings would find Williams to conclude the drive and make it a two possession game.

Late heroics for Josifek

On the final drive, down by eight points. The freshman quarterback led the offense onto the field with 2:22 to go on the clock and needing to go 88 yards.

Several short passes to Dwyer and two big scrambles by Josifek later and Idaho was inside the UC Davis 20-yard line with under a minute to go.

The Walla Walla, Wash., native found Emmerson Cortez-Menjivar for a 19-yard touchdown reception to give the Vandals the opportunity to tie the game up with a two-point conversion.

UC Davis 28, Idaho 26

First Quarter

IDA: Cortez-Menjivar 9 pass from Wagner (Pope kick), 11:27.

IDA: Thomas 1 run (Pope kick), 4:00.

UCD: Davis 10 pass from Hastings (Ridley kick), 0:38.

Second Quarter

UCD: Larison 1 run (Ridley kick), 8:35.

IDA: FG Pope 43, 5:17.

Third Quarter

UCD: Larison 26 pass from Hastings (Ridley kick), 14:12.

UCD: Williams 13 pass from Hastings (Ridley kick), 1:45.

Fourth Quarter

IDA: FG Pope 24, 4:28.

IDA: Cortez-Menjivar 19 pass from Josifek (conversion failed), 0:44.

RUSHING: Idaho, Cummings 11-72, Josifek 6-55, Thomas 12-41, Cortez-Menjivar 1-9, Wagner 4-8; UC Davis, Larison 18-46, Perez 5-14, Hastings 5-(minus-31).

PASSING: Idaho, Wagner 13-25-2-178, Josifek 9-19-0-96, Harste 0-1-1-0; UC Davis, Hastings 25-32-0-248, Larison 3-3-0-38.

RECEIVING: Idaho, Dwyer 8-114, Hamper 2-48, Moore 4-40, Cortez-Menjivar 4-33, Harste 2-25, Thomas 1-9, Cummings 1-5; UC Davis, Larison 4-54, Williams 4-54, Hutton 3-48, Gale 3-40, Tompkins 7-33, Davis 2-31, Gbatu Jr. 3-21, Perez 2-5.