COMMENTARY: Rested Vandals need to stay focused

The Vandals are rested after a bye week, but they cannot rest on their laurels and overlook the three teams remaining on the schedule.

Call me a broken record, but all Idaho has to do to earn a bye week in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs is win its final three games.

The schedule is very manageable as Portland State, Weber State and Idaho State are a combined 9-17 this year. However, any slip up down the stretch and the Vandals can say goodbye to the potential first round bye.

Idaho was ranked seventh when the NCAA FCS Football Selection Committee released its only in-season rankings last week. It is exactly where the Vandals were ranked in the in-season ranking last year. Idaho moved up to the fourth-seed when the 2023 FCS Championship Playoffs began.

The Vandals are 6-3 on the season, but the resume is stacked. Idaho has a win against a team from the Football Bowl Subdivision (Wyoming) and earned three victories against three ranked FCS opponents (UAlbany, Abilene Christian and Northern Arizona).

The only three losses for the Vandals are against FBS No. 1 Oregon , and FCS top dogs No. 2 Montana State and No. 4 UC Davis. All three games were on the road and those three teams have a combined 26-1 record.

Simply put, the resume has been built, now is the time to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.

Idaho is not going to convince the committee that they need to rise up the ranks with blowout wins over any of its final three opponents. Yes, it will be great for Vandal fans to see what their favorite team can do now that Jack Layne is healthy and the team is more rested after a week off. As far as seeding goes, it will not have any positive impact.

The only way that Idaho will improve from its current seventh seed is have teams above them have their own slip ups. Case in point, in the last Stats Perform top-25 rankings that were released on Monday the Vandals improved one spot to No. 9. Obviously Idaho did not do anything impressive during its break, but previous No. 7 Tarleton State slipped at home against unranked Eastern Kentucky and dropped seven spots.

All three games on Idaho’s remaining schedule have their own pot holes for the Vandals to avoid on the road to the playoffs.

Portland State is 2-6 on the season, but have won two of its last three games. The Vikings handled Sacramento State 58-38 last week. Quaterback Dante Chachere had 14 carries for 165 yards and four touchdowns and passed for another 245 yards and a touchdown. Portland State took UC Davis to the limit, but a controversial call on a catch at the goal line allowed the Aggies to escape Hillsboro Stadium with a win.

Idaho will host Weber State in the penultimate game of the regular season, a spot on the schedule that has been a point of struggle for the Vandals under coach Jason Eck. In the first two seasons under Eck, Idaho is 0-2 in the second-to-last game of the regular season.

Last year it was the Wildcats who earned a 31-29 win on their home field to celebrate senior day. The Vandals will celebrate their senior day at the P1FCU Kibbie Dome on Nov. 16.

The season finale is against in-state rival Idaho State. It is a rivalry that Idaho has dominated as the Vandals are 32-13 all-time against the Bengals. However, this is the first year that the two teams will battle it out for the Potato State Trophy that was introduced by Jerek Wolcott before Big Sky media day.

The hope is that Idaho has used this bye week to recuperate from nine consecutive weeks with a football game. The players dealing with injuries had an extra week to work their way back and other players were able to rest and refuel the tank.

The worry is that the team has gotten out of the rhythm that it built throughout the first three-quarters of the season and does not come back with the same intensity. If that is the case the Vandals are vulnerable for a trap game.

Isbelle can be reached at 208-848-2268, risbelle@lmtribune.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyIsbelle.