Vandals look to build momentum

With Sun Belt games today at Louisiana-Monroe (1-3, 0-1 Sun Belt) and next Saturday at home vs. New Mexico State (2-3, 1-1), it’s a chance for the Idaho Vandals (2-3, 0-1) to generate a little momentum heading into the Oct. 22 trip to Boone, N.C., to face Appalachian State (3-2, 1-0).

Coaches, of course, never admittingly think like that. Their focus is always on today’s practice, today’s game.

“Yeah, you don’t ever want to look that far ahead,” Idaho coach Paul Petrino said. “You take it one game at a time, and any time you don’t do that, your guys aren’t going to play as well. This week, we really need to prepare hard ... definitely this week we have to go out and find a way to win.”

Idaho dropped its Sun Belt opener 34-13 last weekend at home to Troy (4-1, 2-0). The Vandals’ other two losses were at Washington and Washington State.

“We’ve lost three games, all three teams we’ve lost to are probably going to be in bowl games,” Petrino said. “It’s not like we’ve lost to a bad team. Now it’s time to improve and take a big step forward and continue to get better. It’s a matter of taking that big hit, and keep fighting. We’ve got to get to where we can do that week in and week out.”

Idaho beat Louisiana-Monroe 27-13 last year at home, and led 30-7 at New Mexico State early in the third quarter before faltering and losing 55-48 in overtime.

This year, Monroe has dropped three straight, but two of those were “money” games at Oklahoma and Auburn. The Warhawks lost 23-21 at Georgia Southern in their conference opener three weeks ago.

Petrino said Monroe’s personnel is similar to last year, but with a new coaching staff, “the schemes are totally different, especially defensively.”

Warhawks sophomore quarterback Garrett Smith has thrown for 881 yards and seven touchdowns in four games, with four interceptions. Sophomore wide receiver Marcus Green has three of those TD catches, among his team-high 14 receptions for 173 yards.

Both started against Idaho last year, Smith going 19 of 37 for 186 yards and a TD, and Green catching a team-high six passes for 62 yards and a score.

“Any time you recruit in Louisiana, Alabama, Texas ... you’re going to have speed,” Petrino said. “We have to go down and grind it out, find a way to win it in the fourth quarter.”