Offense
Jason Gesser walked into a nearly impossible situation — and he did so with a smile on his face. For two weeks without his starting quarterback, Jason Gesser dialed up a game plan he believed fit to take down the San Jose State Spartans, favored by more than three touchdowns at the Kibbie Dome last Saturday.
Unfortunately for Gesser, the Spartans ended up covering that spread, but not for a lack of effort and good showings from Idaho.
Starting quarterback Logan Bushnell didn’t look good in the box score, but on the field showed a little bit of promise. It’s pretty evident that Bushnell has a talent ceiling. His stature is going to be a detriment to him and he doesn’t have the prettiest deep ball in the world. But if he lacks anything, it’s certainly not determination. Bushnell earned the opportunity to go back out in the second half over Taylor Davis after operating the no-huddle offense in the second half a little better than Davis did. Bushnell is going to have to get better at putting touch on his passes, not over throwing receivers intermediately and not under throwing receivers on deep passes. He’s not comfortable in the pocket yet when it comes to pressure — he’ll need to get better at that as well in these next three weeks if Idaho hopes to not finish 1-11.
Receivers played relatively well on the night. Najee Lovett made a great catch in the corner of the end zone to get the game started off on the right foot, while Mike Scott proved to be Bushnell’s most reliable target. For a majority of the game, the receivers made plays when opportunities were given to make plays, with the exception of freshman Camryn Harris who had two poor drops in the second half. It seemed like Harris heard footsteps coming from defensive backs on those drops.
Defense
Rob Siavii and Gary Walker were leaders on Saturday. As seniors with nothing to lose and only four games left in their collegiate careers, the two were all over the field making plays, tackles for loss and helping contain the San Jose State running attack. Altogether, their effort contributed to the defense, keeping Idaho within one possession of the Spartans until late in the third quarter.
Solomon Dixon played well at the corner spot opposite Grymes in the absence of Tracy Carter. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Dixon stay at that spot for the rest of the year.
The defensive line showed a lot of new life, with contributions from Bradley and Ryan Edwards. It seemed like Criner wanted to go with a rotation effort on the line more than what the Vandals have done in the past. Jesse Davis and Quay’Shawne Buckley did a tremendous job getting penetration and pressure up the middle on the Spartans.
The pass rush, however, was noticeably absent most of the night, which was why David Fales got in to a rhythm in the second half and started torching the Idaho pass defense late.
All in all, the defensive effort can only be labeled as valiant. With Idaho’s offense going 4 of 18 on third down and failing to move the ball methodically on most drives, Idaho’s defense did as well as it could against a very good offense.
Special Teams
Trey Farquhar had his first miss of the season in the Kibbie Dome, missing from 36 yards out with an opportunity to draw Idaho to within five points. Bobby Cowan was his usual self, a lot of great punts with hang time, which allowed Idaho’s coverage to get down the field and force fair catches. The kick return game was non-existent, even putrid at times. Ryan Bass had one moment where he stepped across the goal line, only to hesitate on if he was going to take a knee or not, then ran it out to be tackled inside the 10-yard line.
For the first time all year we actually got a real look at Justin Veltung returning punts, though he was usually bottled up and wasn’t able to show the explosiveness we saw from him last season.
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]