Finally football — Players, coaches ready to hit the field after two weeks of off the field storylines

Idaho football has made a lot of news during the last two weeks — little of which had to do with actual work on the field. 

After a bye week that saw a head coach fired and a starting quarterback booted off the team, the Vandals are back on the practice field and preparing for an actual opponent, hosting Western Athletic Conference foe San Jose State on Saturday at the Kibbie Dome.

“Your time is being consumed again, which is nice,” center Mike Marboe said. “Especially in the wake of all that’s happened it’s nice to get out there and be busy.”

Plenty of storylines exist for this game — like whether senior Logan Bushnell or junior Taylor Davis will see most of the snaps during the game.

“Logan will start the game, as we get going second quarter…Taylor will get a series in there, maybe two depending on how he does in that series,” Gesser said. “After that, whoever has got the hot hand…we’ll start continuing to roll with that guy.”

Coincidentally enough, Taylor Davis was Idaho’s starter in last season’s win at San Jose State, when Idaho overcame a 20-0 first half deficit to come back and win the game 32-29. Davis threw a touchdown pass to Michael LaGrone with four minutes remaining in the game to give Idaho its first lead.

This time around, it’s a different San Jose State team coming to the Kibbie Dome. The Spartans come in 5-2, their only two losses to Stanford and Utah — both bowl eligible teams already.

“They are a lot better team this year than they were last year,” said Gesser. “Defensively, they’re a bend but don’t break defense. They’ll let you get a couple plays here, a couple plays there but they won’t give up the big one. That’s going well for them because their offense is putting up 33 points a game.”

Quarterback David Fales is leading San Jose State’s offensive renaissance, a junior transfer who has torn through every defense he’s gone against thus far this year.

“He’s a difference maker,” defensive coordinator Mark Criner said. “We’ve got to get him to his second or third read. We can’t let him get the easy throw right away.”

Effectively defending Fales probably won’t be easy. Fales is completing 73 percent of his passes in 2012 with a 9.01 yards-per-pass average. He has 17 touchdowns on the season with only five interceptions, and he’s only been held under 70 percent completion in a game once — against San Diego State, when he threw for 260 yards and four touchdowns.

“What we’ve got to do is eliminate the big play, and they do a good job of throwing the ball down the field,” Criner said. “We need to make them drive the football, and we can get them to do that then we’re saying ‘Hey, we’re going to win that battle. Eventually they’re going to turn the ball over and bad things will happen for them.”

Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]