2011 Idaho Vandals Football Preview

There is no question that head coach Robb Akey has turned the Idaho Vandal football program into a force that has to be taken seriously. Idaho isn’t yet an every-year factor in the Western Athletic Conference, but it’s definitely no longer a doormat that can be safely ignored by the other teams in its corner of the country.

During Akey’s first two seasons, the Vandals won just three games. In the past two years, Idaho has won 14, and it even captured the 2009 Humanitarian Bowl championship with a stirring last-second win over Bowling Green on a gutsy, brass-balls, go-for-broke two-point conversion. Idaho fell short of a bowl last season, but even in defeat, this team pushed and exerted with a level of intensity that just isn’t commonplace in the sport. The defense played hard in a loss at Nebraska, and the Vandals kept battling against Boise State long after they lost hope of remaining close on the scoreboard. The attitude is what has certainly changed in Moscow, and the Vandals will now try to parlay their hunger into meaningful on-field results.

There are a ton of questions facing this team, especially on the offensive side of the ball, as the Vandals prepare for the coming season. Akey is about to begin his fifth season as the architect in Moscow, and he’s going to have to do some master building this upcoming autumn. Gone is quarterback Nathan Enderle, a four-year contributor who enabled the Vandals to take flight in their special 2009 journey to bowl glory. A bevy of four quarterbacks led by senior Brian Reader and sophomore Taylor Davis will vie for the chance to lead the offense in the fall.

The defense, which was a middle-to-lower-tier unit last year, has a lot of retuning upperclassmen waiting in the wings in 2011. The Vandals will surely need them. Breaking in a new quarterback and facing other unproven commodities at the rest of the skill positions, Idaho has to compensate on defense, playing a more close-to-the-vest style and winning close contests in the heat of fourth-quarter crucibles. Idaho simply can’t afford to be too uneven – there has to be a connection between both sides of the ball and a certain synthesis in the way both units play the game. A stronger defense dictates that Idaho will need more of a ball-control offense if Akey wants to continue the program’s momentum.

For the first time since 1971, Idaho will not be playing in-state rival and now Mountain West Conference member Boise State. The Vandals will play three tough non-conference road games in 2011, traveling to Kyle Field to take on Texas A&M in week three, Virginia in week five, and BYU in mid-November. Home contests against Bowling Green, North Dakota, Louisiana Tech, Hawaii, and Utah State leave open a chance at a bowl bid.

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