A pothole on the way to seven

It was supposed to be a game the Idaho Vandals would win — step No. 3 on the way to a second straight appearance in a bowl game.

But following last Saturday’s 36-34 loss at Colorado State — a team which had lost its last 12 games — the Vandals are still stuck on the second step.

“You’re right, we were supposed to win that ballgame — I’ll be the first one to tell you that,” Idaho coach Robb Akey said earlier this week on his weekly teleconference with area media. “That’s why it’s disappointing to me as a coach that we did not ... It better irritate this football team, and lift up the level of play, and I think that it will.”

Last year, Akey said he often called the bowls affiliated with the Western Athletic Conference — the Humanitarian Bowl, the New Mexico Bowl and the Hawaii Bowl — saying “don’t forget about us, pay attention to us.”

This year, after Idaho beat UNLV convincingly, Akey said he got a congratulatory call from a bowl rep. A rep from a bowl affiliated with the WAC — Akey wouldn’t say which one — was at the Colorado State game.

Last year, Idaho needed six wins to qualify for a bowl and won seven games. This year, because the Vandals play a 13th game, they need seven wins to be bowl eligible.

After Western Michigan, Idaho is idle, then plays eight WAC games in eight weeks — at Louisiana Tech, vs. New Mexico State, at Hawaii, vs. Nevada, vs. Boise State, at Utah State, at Fresno State and vs. San Jose State.

“We had a chance to win a game Saturday, that’s correct,” Akey said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re going to shut it down. Last I checked, 13 minus 4 is somewhere in the ballpark of 9. So we’ve got nine more weeks to win a minimum of five more games. So we’ve got a chance to make that happen. Does that make it harder? ... sure. But does that mean we can’t do it? No. If we’re going to accomplish the goals that we’ve set out to accomplish, it’s going to be more than one loss that’s going to create some issues for us.

“No, I’m not happy about not having won this ballgame, but hopefully all of us not being happy about it will keep it from happening again.”

Where’s the ‘D’?: After being ranked nationally in some defensive categories, such as takeaways and red zone defense, Idaho was torched for 494 yards by Colorado State — including 386 through the air.

“Had we been playing better on defense before this game? Yes, we have been,” Akey said. “We didn’t play well on defense. We didn’t tackle well, and we got too soft in our coverage. We’re not going to play good defense if we’re playing like that. We will respond ... I hope that our defense got their stingers bent a little bit and I’ll see some irritation come out of them.”