{"id":51814,"date":"2025-11-13T21:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T21:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/51814\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T21:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T21:07:11","slug":"idaho-looks-to-get-back-on-track-in-saturday-night-battle-with-sacramento-state-the-argonaut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/51814\/","title":{"rendered":"Idaho looks to get back on track in Saturday night battle with Sacramento State\u00a0 \u2013 The Argonaut"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Idaho Vandals football team just battled against a very strong University of California, Davis team and fell\u00a0 28-14 at home. They look to bounce back this weekend, against a 6-4 Sacramento State team in Sacramento.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Vandals are 4-6 now with just two games left to finish off a\u00a0bumpy\u00a0season. Idaho looks to improve a few things before next week\u2019s matchup and converting third downs\u00a0<\/p>\n

seems to be the first step to pulling out a victory over the Hornets.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to get tremendously better on conversion downs. Only one of 11 on third down, only two of six on fourth down,\u201d Coach Ford said at weekly press conference. The Vandals look to make the little plays that lead to conversions and be more consistent on offense.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Vandals have had a different season than what everyone was expecting.\u00a0Ford reflected on what he perceives from the season and the growth of his team both physically and mentally.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou only lose if you don\u2019t learn. Obviously, this year has been disappointing in the aspect that we\u2019re not a playoff team,\u201d Ford said. \u201cBut I also look at our roster and see the growth that we\u2019ve made, and I look at that kind of nucleus of guys that are second, third year guys; those guys will all be back. The only difference this time is they\u2019ll have 500 to 1,000 snaps under their belt, depending on which kid it is. We have put together a lot of key building blocks for the future of this program.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a lesson that the Vandals should take with the last two games of this season starting with when they make the trip to Sacramento.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"UI quarterback Joshua Wood escapes the pocket and throws the ball as UC Davis defender tries to tackle him | John Keegan | Argonaut<\/p>\n

Sacramento State\u2019s running game will be what Idaho looks to stop, and they have a very\u00a0strong coaching staff to back them up.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a run first team and so that\u2019s really our job to force them into throwing the football\u2026Our ability to be physical upfront our ability to change the picture for them\u2026forcing them into throwing the ball is going to be something we have to do to win the football game,\u201d Ford said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Hornets running attack will challenge the Vandals strong run defense and the Vandals will be tasked with containing the Hornets run game if they want to walk away with a victory.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got three or four kids in that tailback room that could play probably for anyone in our league,\u201d he said. \u201cEspecially with a strong front line, the Idaho defensive line will have to step up this coming weekend and fight for the tackles.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Idaho\u2019s football team this year is very resilient and will continue to show that in these\u00a0upcoming weeks. They have not lost a game by more than two possessions this season and have been a team that fights to the end.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The game will kick off from the Hornet Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 6 p.m. It can also be streamed on ESPN+.\u00a0\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Idaho Vandals football team just battled against a very strong University of California, Davis team and fell\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[17828,949,17683,121,123,122,17685,33012],"class_list":["post-51814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-big-sky","tag-football","tag-idaho-vandals","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sacramento-state-hornets","tag-thomas-ford-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}