Sep. 9—COMMENTARY
The Idaho Vandals’ sophomore quarterback Joshua Wood looked completely different in the Vandals’ matchup against St. Thomas than in the Battle of the Palouse against WSU a week ago.
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He looked so good that he was named the Big Sky Conference Co-Player of the Week on Monday.
In the Battle of the Palouse, which Idaho lost 13-10, Wood threw 12-for-20 for just 33 yards and no touchdowns, granted he did rush 12 times for a gain of 101 yards. He did not look completely comfortable in offensive coordinator Matt Linehan’s offense quite yet.
Facing the Tommies, something clicked for Wood and the offense. The unit finally found its groove.
The Vandals came out on top 37-30.
Wood exploded to throw 20-for-25 for 281 yards and three passing touchdowns. He also ran for 87 yards and a score.
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The rushing touchdown was an option play he took to the right side of the field and saw only open field in front of him. He ran for 59 yards and took it to the house to put the Vandals up 14 and place the dagger in St. Thomas.
After the game, Wood said that redshirt freshman wide receiver Trenton Swanson made a great block on the play for him.
“And once I got the edge and saw the green field, it was over from then on,” Wood said.
For the Vandals to have a successful season, Wood needed to perform much better than in the Battle of the Palouse. If Wood could open up the offense in the air the Vandals would find success, which is exactly what happened in Idaho’s home opener.
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Idaho coach Thomas Ford Jr. said that getting Wood into a rhythm is what unlocked the offense.
He also said that before the game, he told Linehan to loosen up with the play calls and unleash more of the offense. He told the first-year offensive coordinator to simply trust the playcalls on his sheets and to dial up more deep shots and more passes. Ford repeated that getting the unit, and especially Wood into a rhythm was crucial.
“Oh, it’s huge,” Ford said. “You want your quarterback to be in a rhythm. Anytime you can throw the ball on time, complete passes, feel like we’re moving the chains every time we throw it. It just builds confidence. And I think that it really helps slow the game down for the quarterback. And when the game slows down for that kid, he’s going to be pretty good.”
Wood had many explosive passes that stood out in this game, the first of which he scrambled to the left to avoid a sack, then ran backward and then ran to the right and fired a deep pass to sophomore receiver Emmerson Cortez-Menjivar for 43 yards.
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Wood found sophomore receiver Tony Harste on a deep 37-yard pass to the right of the field and on a a 21-yard pass to the middle of the endzone with just 16 seconds left in the first half.
Finally, he found redshirt freshman Ryan Jezioro on a deep pass toward the left side of the end zone for a 42-yard touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter.
So the offense found its way against St. Thomas after a stinker in Pullman. What does this mean going forward?
Honestly, I’m not sure.
If you look at it this way, the Wazzu defense is made up of a lot of South Dakota State transfers and some FBS players, which would make it one of the best FCS defenses in the subdivision.
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So maybe against tougher defenses, we could see the Idaho offense struggle.
However, I think it is important to mention that this is Linehan’s first year calling plays and it’s the first two weeks of that offense. In addition, Wood has only played two weeks in this new offense on his new team.
So it could mean that the offense actually is finding its rhythm more and can open up even more going forward. I think that the offense could be legit.
All of fall camp, Linehan worked on the short and medium passes. He called those “layups.” In his post-game news conference, Ford said those “layups” as potentially the key to opening up the offense.
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He said that taking what the defense gives you is important and that if they are going to play soft zone, they will take those speed outs all day.
“So I thought it was really the opportunity to get Josh in a rhythm, get him feeling comfortable,” Ford said. “We call them layups. Right? Like a layup. We were trying to get him some layups early. And I really think that that helped develop his confidence the rest of the way and obviously you were able to see his arm strength to get the ball down the field, too.”
The short and intermediate routes are a staple of this offense and they are not going to go anywhere, especially now that Linehan has seemingly found the way to call a winning game.
In short, I don’t expect Wood or the offense to regress to the point that they look like the same unit as they did against WSU. But at the same time, I’m not sure how sustainable 467 yards of total offense with a multitude of explosive plays and long touchdowns is. So maybe we’ll see a little bit of the in-between going forward.
But who knows? Maybe Wood, Linehan and the offense could prove me wrong.
Junt can be reached at 208-848-2258, tjunt@lmtribune.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @TrevorJunt.
