With the last 13 games ending in defeat, the Vandals are the sole owner of the nation’s longest active losing streak. A game against rival New Mexico State 2 p.m. Saturday in front of a Homecoming crowd could be the cure Idaho needs to end its current skid.
Homecoming Weekend has been good to the Vandals in recent years. In the past six seasons, Idaho is 5-1 with three of the wins coming against New Mexico State.
Last season, not only did the 26-24 victory over Temple occur on Homecoming, but the win ended a 10-game losing streak, as well.
“It’s a little bit of a different vibe around here,” said senior offensive lineman Mike Marboe about Homecoming Weekend. “There’s going to be more people here and you’re playing for something special. Every game is important, but with Homecoming the level of importance goes up just a little bit I would say.”
After playing four of its first six games on the road, this weekend will be the first of two-straight home games for Idaho.
Idaho enters Saturday’s contest after a loss last week at Georgia Southern. The defeat came in familiar fashion as the Vandals dug themselves into a hole early, and trailed by 23 points at halftime. The team made a comeback, but it was too little too late and the Vandals lost 47-24.
“We put ourselves in a position to be right there in the game and then we just didn’t finish it,” Idaho coach Paul Petrino said. “It’s just still a process of getting there. You got to get more stops and got to get touchdowns when we get down there (to the red zone).”
A weapon who has emerged this season is junior running back Elijhaa Penny. The 6-foot-2,254-pound junior college transfer from Cerritos College in Norwalk, California, rushed for three touchdowns against Georgia Southern.
“It would have been nice to get him four, then he would have tied the school record,” Petrino said. “He’s really improved, he’s been playing hard and doing a good job for us.”
Chris Edwards, another junior college transfer that made an immediate impact, has left the team, Petrino said. The junior safety led the defense with two interceptions.
Along with senior Tom Hennessey, Petrino said junior Doyin Sule would fill the void Edwards left at safety.
Despite the loss of Edwards, the Vandal secondary could have opportunities to gain confidence this weekend as Aggie quarterback, sophomore Tyler Rogers, has struggled this season.
It’s unclear if Rogers will start against the Vandals. In his team’s first seven games, Rogers had 13 interceptions, the worst in the nation.
Therefore, the NMSU coaching staff could let freshman Andrew Allen have his shot at running the offense.
“They’ve shown both guys on film,” Idaho senior defensive end Maxx Forde said. “They change maybe a little bit tendency-wise depending on who’s in. But just the fact that we’ve seen both of them on film, it doesn’t make it difficult.”
Petrino said the Aggies run the spread offense and like to throw a lot of screens, as well as the zone-read options. He highlighted wide receiver Teldrick Morgan as a player to watch.
The 6-foot-1 sophomore has been battling Vandal wide receiver Josh McCain for the conference lead in most receiving statistical categories.
New Mexico State enters the game on a five-game losing streak. Idaho defensive line coach Bam Hardmon said the Aggies have a lot of talent, but have ran into some bad luck the past few games.
“They played some teams really well, but its just one of those things where the scoreboard didn’t show how well they really played,” he said.
The two programs have gotten very familiar with each other in recent years. Saturday’s game will be the 10th straight meeting between the schools — Idaho leads the all-time series at 14-6.
With all of the movement that has occurred throughout the college football landscape, somehow the two schools had the same exact path since 2005, when both joined the Western Athletic Conference.
Like Idaho, the New Mexico State football program was without a conference last season and played as FBS Independent teams before joining the Sun Belt Conference this year.
With all of the similarities and games played in recent years, the two teams have developed a little bit of a rivalry.
“I wish we still played Boise (State), but I’ll take New Mexico State as our rival for now,” Forde said.
After a 24-16 defeat at New Mexico last season, Marboe said everyone has a chip on their shoulder.
“It’s one of those games you got circled,” he said. “We should have beat them last year, we feel like we should have won that game and it’s frustrating.”
Korbin McDonald can be reached at [email protected]