ANALYSIS: Final grades for the Vandals as they prep for playoff run

Dec. 3—As the Idaho football team makes its final preparations for its most important stretch of the season — a third straight trip to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs — here’s a last look at how each position group fared during the regular season.

Eighth-seeded Idaho (9-3) will next face Lehigh (9-3) at 6 p.m. Saturday (ESPN+) at the P1FCU Kibbie Dome in Moscow for the second round of the FCS playoffs.

The banged-up Vandals got a much-needed bye in the first round and the Hawks defeated ninth-seeded Richmond 20-16 in their opening-round game.

We’ll get more into that matchup later in the week.

For now, here’s how the Vandal position groups showcased their depth to put together another memorable season:

Quarterback — B

You’d have to go far and wide to find many other teams that ever played four quarterbacks in a season and still came away with nine wins and a top-10 ranking.

Because of injuries, sophomore Jack Layne and freshmen Jack Wagner, Nick Josifek and Rocco Koch all saw the field this season.

All four have performed admirably at times, but Layne, the Week 1 starter, returned from a broken collarbone injury just in time to start three of UI’s final four games.

On the season, Layne is 64-of-103 passing (62.14%) for 915 yards (183 per game) with nine touchdowns and three interceptions.

His juke on a quarterback-keeper touchdown and his flea-flicker pass to Jake Cox in that Week 1 loss to No. 1 Oregon remain some of the craziest plays of the season for Idaho fans.

Despite his limited experience, Layne has shown the poise needed to win games on the big stage, and his backups have stepped in when needed and gotten the job done, too.

Wide receiver/tight ends — B-

After losing its biggest weapons from last year, wide receiver was a position group with some of the biggest question marks going into this…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/analysis-final-grades-vandals-prep-131600043.html

Author : Lewiston Tribune, Idaho

Publish date : 2024-12-03 13:16:00

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