Last year's Vandals opened year the same way

It wasn’t exactly like they picked up where they left off last year, thrashing Colorado State on a chilly December night in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise.

But remember, the Idaho Vandals struggled to beat Montana State in last year’s season opener.

And that season didn’t turn out too badly.

“It wasn’t our best game, obviously,” Idaho senior quarterback Matt Linehan said after the Vandals’ 28-6 season-opening victory over Sacramento State on Thursday night at the Kibbie Dome. “But last year we had the same problem and we figured it out toward the end of the year. I’d rather be worried about this (after the first game) than in November. We’re going to get better, as weeks go by.”

The good news: Idaho has now won six straight games, stretching back into last year’s 9-4 campaign. It’s the Vandals’ longest winning streak since they won seven in a row in 1994, their second-to-last year in the Big Sky Conference before moving up to Division I.

The six points allowed by Idaho were the fewest given up by a Vandal team since Nov. 20, 2010, a 28-6 win at Utah State.

“Good defense, good special teams and running the ball … that’s how a lot of people win championships,” Idaho coach Paul Petrino said. “That’s how we won today. It wasn’t as flashy as I’d liked … but we’ll get better. It was better than last year’s first game, and we won.

“That’s six in a row, three in a row at home, nine out of our last 11. We know how to win. We’re not always going to win pretty; sometimes you’re going to win ugly. Better than throwing for 400 yards and losing. So I’ll take it. We’ve got to get better, but it’s always better to get better after a win.”

OF CONCERN for the Vandals was the play of its offensive line, with three new starters. Linehan was sacked four times, twice taking big shots from Sac State defensive lineman George Obinna.

“I got hit a couple of times,” Linehan said. “He definitely left a couple of ‘remember me’ shots on me, so I’ll give him that. But at the end of the day we came out with a ‘W’, and that’s all that matters.”

Then again, the Vandals knew the O-line would be a concern, at least early.

“We knew we only had two starters coming back, and the other guys, that was their first start,” Petrino said. “We actually played three guys at one tackle. They’ve all got to keep improving, and they will. … I thought our run blocking was good, we’ve got to get better at protection.”

Petrino praised his defense, which allowed just eight first downs and 190 total yards.

“I thought they swarmed, they ran around, they tackled well,” he said. “They played with confidence, and understood … I talked to them during the game: ‘We’re not playing really great right now, you guys have got to step it up. You’ve got to get stops, you’ve got to get us good field position,’ and they did that.”

IN THE end, what did we learn about the 2017 Vandals?

Mostly what we learned after last year’s opening win over Montana State — not much. Check back in a few weeks.

“We’ll have a lot better team coming in next week, and we’ve got to make big strides from now to next Saturday (when UNLV comes to town),” Petrino said after Thursday’s game. “But I believe we will. There was not a point in that game our kids didn’t believe they could win. … three years ago, in that first quarter our kids would have probably thought, ‘Oh God, we’re going to lose this game.’ But our kids didn’t think that way.”

That would be a difference from previous years. Yes, Thursday’s game was against a team picked to finished 12th in the 13-team Big Sky, so you would hope there would be a level of confidence, no matter the struggles early in the game.

But this confidence level has started carrying over to Sun Belt games as well.

“I remember when I first got here, some of the games when things weren’t going as we expected, it kinda just died down,” Idaho junior linebacker Kaden Elliss said. “And it wasn’t just us; it was the whole stadium. Today (Thursday), even when things weren’t going well, everybody was still upbeat, positive and I think that’s where the confidence came through.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.