Vandals look to rebound

Idaho coach Robb Akey says he doesn’t know what a “must-win” game is.

“As a football coach, every game is a must win,” he said. “When I see ‘must-win’ out there in the media, that generally means if the coach don’t win that game, the coach isn’t going to be there anymore. I don’t know what the president and AD think, but I look at every game we play (as), we must win this football game.”

The question came up, following last week’s 48-35 loss at Louisiana Tech, in advance of Idaho’s homecoming game today vs. New Mexico State at the Kibbie Dome. Idaho (3-3, 0-1 WAC) still needs four wins in its remaining seven games to become bowl eligible, and are 24-point favorites over the Aggies (1-5, 0-2).

“We’ve got three losses, unfortunately, at this point in time,” Akey said. “One of them (to Nebraska), everybody said, ‘that was OK.’ I’m happy to hear that we have two of them that people are upset about, because ... I’m glad the outside world has expectations like we do. And in the big picture, we’ve lost one conference game. Last year, we lost four conference games. What I can’t change is the past. I’m going to put all my attention into what we can affect, which is right now.”

The Vandals are playing at home for the first time since Sept. 18, when they routed UNLV 30-7 before a raucous crowd of 15,390.

“When this place is jam-packed, it has a huge influence on our football team,” Akey said. “It brings us more energy ... as opposed to, when you’re rolling into somebody else’s stadium, they’re telling you you’re No. 1, but they’re using a different finger to tell you that.”

Idaho opened last season with a 21-6 victory at New Mexico State. The Aggies have lost all five games this year by at least 20 points, including 33-10 at Fresno State last week. Its lone win was 16-14 over New Mexico two weeks ago.