Only one semester after their COVID-caused spring season, the Vandals opened the 2021 fall football season against Simon Fraser University, who played their first game of organized football since November of 2019.
The result was outright dominance by the Idaho Vandals — as they coasted to a 68-0 blowout against the Canadian university.
The Vandals won this game by dominating in the trenches — running for 316 yards and seven touchdowns. Graduate student quarterback Mike Beaudry and freshman quarterback CJ Jordan went 17 for 27, passing for 277 yards with two passing touchdowns from Jordan.
The running game was so dominant that four of the five running backs to receive handoffs all scored, with sophomore Nick Romano being the only exception. Redshirt junior running back Roshaun Johnson had three touchdowns rushing just by himself to go with 87 yards on 8.7 yards a carry. Quarterback Jordan also added a rushing touchdown to go with his two passing touchdowns. The receiving core also made critical catches with sophomore wide receiver Hayden Hatten finishing with two catches for 106 yards and a touchdown, with redshirt sophomore wide receiver Michael Noil finishing with four catches for 68 yards.
The defense also showed up via the defensive lineman, who then worked to match the dominance showed by their teammates on offense — allowing only 13 total yards — rushing and sacking the quarterback six times. The secondary also performed great — with sophomore wide receiver Sean McCormick recording an interception and a sack of his own. Junior linebacker Tre Walker and junior defensive lineman Noah Elliss both had great days as well, as the offensive line of Simon Fraser seemingly had no answer for them as they constantly broke into the backfield throughout the game.
It was an overall dominant performance from Idaho that ended up scoring the most points of a game since Nov. 12, 1994, against Weber State and recorded the second-largest margin of victory ever, the first being an 83-0 win over the College of Idaho in 1923.
The special teams also performed great, with running back Johnson returning a kickoff for 44 yards, senior wide receiver Mekhi Stevenson returning four punts for 61 yards and Romano adding nine punt return yards to go with a 29-yard kick return. Redshirt sophomore kicker Logan Prescott also went 9/9 on extra point attempts and 1/1 on his only field goal attempt of the game. The overall difference in yardage was as lopsided as it gets, with the Vandals gaining 593 yards of total offense and 143 return yards on special teams to Simon Fraser’s 90 yards of total offense and 14 return yards on one kick return.
Despite the dominance, this is not to say that the Vandals were without mistakes. The Vandals’ second drive of the game featured a play in which running back Johnson lost the ball on a hit that sent him landing on his head. Although he was called down, replay showed the ball coming loose before he hit the ground. Quarterback Jordan ended up fumbling the ball in the same drive two plays later and Beaudry lost a fumble later in the game. Beaudry also threw too high to a wide-open Hatten in the endzone and the Vandals ended up taking three points on the field goal as a result.
“I thought Mike improved on some things too. You can’t have that fumble on the (one-yard line), but he did a good job at using his (running) backs and checking down and doing different things, so there was good improvement,” Head Coach Paul Petrino said during the post-game press conference.
When it came to the quarterback competition and each quarterback’s performance, Petrino saw growth in each of the players.
Despite Jordan’s fumbles, Petrino said, “CJ did some really good things … he took some really big strides.”
Regarding redshirt sophomore running back/quarterback Zach Borisch, Petrino said, “I think we’re always going to have a little package with Zach that people need to prepare for.”
Petrino also believes this game, as well as the one against Indiana, are games to build on as they look ahead to UC Davis — their first Big Sky Conference game of the season on Oct. 2. UC Davis will be the Vandals’ fourth game of the season and their second home game.
Leading rusher Johnson also shared a similar mentality of this game being used as a step forward and something to learn upon.
“We got a lot of things we got to work on,” Johnson said. “But we definitely got better today, as a whole.”
Johnson said the team needs to “clean up the little things” and stay even keeled throughout the season. Johnson made sure to shoutout his fellow running backs — giving credit to freshman running back Elisha Cummings for his efforts running the ball, especially with his touchdown. Johnson lastly gave the offensive line credit for blocking.
Although this is a historic win for the Vandals, Petrino and other players seem to be ensuring this win won’t get to their heads. With two Power Five conference teams coming up in the next two weeks in enemy territory, the Vandals seem to have a winning and focused mindset looking ahead.
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Teren Kotwatsch can be reached at [email protected]