Sometimes a bye week can disrupt a team’s momentum, but for the Idaho football team, it may have come at the right time.
The Vandals had their bye week last week after they lost to Arkansas State 49-35 Oct. 3 in Jonesboro, Arkansas. It was Idaho’s second loss in a row, and they have been dealing with injuries to key players for a few weeks.
One of those injured players was sophomore quarterback Matt Linehan, who sat out the Arkansas State game because of an ankle injury.
Idaho coach Paul Petrino said he thinks Linehan will be ready to go against Troy at 12:30 p.m. Saturday in Troy, Alabama.
If Linehan is healthy enough to play, Idaho quarterbacks coach Bryce Erickson said both Linehan and redshirt freshman Jake Luton will take snaps Saturday.
Erickson said Idaho needs both quarterbacks to win the football game.
“We’re going to play both of them and there’s certain things that Matt does good and there’s certain things that Jake does,” Erickson said.
Luton started against Arkansas State, completing 24 of 42 passes for 166 yards and throwing three interceptions. He also rushed for three touchdowns.
“I thought he did a great job of running the ball, a great job of reading on some of the zone reads,” Petrino said. “So that was something he did better than I knew because he really just hasn’t been live tackle(d) enough to be honest with you.”
Erickson joked when he talked about Luton’s rushing touchdowns.
“Well first of all I taught him everything he knows,” Erickson said. “All those moves and where to hit it — we went over that, we stayed up late Friday night and I taught him all those moves cause that’s kind of how I used to roll back in the day.”
Erickson said Luton has a natural feel for running the ball. He said the Idaho coaches were impressed after Luton scored his first rushing touchdown, so they decided to call the play two more times when the Vandals neared the end zone.
“You can’t stop Jake Luton,” Erickson said. “You can only hope to contain him.”
Luton and the Vandals couldn’t have started better against the Red Wolves. Luton helped guide Idaho down the field on an 11-play, 75-yard drive that ended with a one-yard touchdown run by senior running back Elijhaa Penny.
“We came out rolling and we were hitting on all cylinders really,” Luton said. “That was fun. We just need to do that every drive. We need to bring that intensity and that execution every single drive.”
Luton got his first collegiate playing time against Southern California Sept. 12 in Los Angeles. He said that playing time against USC helped him against Arkansas State.
“Pregame, I had a little bit of nerves, but once I was out there it was just football,” Luton said about the Arkansas State game.
Erickson said he wants Luton to read defenses better and improve the passing game. He also said he wants him to get a good pre-snap and post-snap read and anticipate a little more.
Erickson said he was impressed with Luton’s poise in his first start.
“He’s not a real up and down guy,” Erickson said. “He kind of stays even keeled and then both quarterbacks — we got to stop throwing interceptions … We got to stop forcing it in certain situations.”
Garrett Cabeza can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @CabezaGarrett