Box Score Photo Gallery
POCATELLO, Idaho - The Idaho State football team dropped its season finale on Saturday, losing to the 2010 National Champions Eastern Washington, 45-14 on Saturday evening at Holt Arena. The loss dropped to the Bengals to 2-9 and 1-7 in conference while Eastern Washington improved to 6-5 and 4-4.
Saturday was the final game for the Bengal senior class and they left their mark in the game as
A.J. Storms had a game-high 17 tackles,
Basim Hudeen had 10 and
J.T. Albers and
Greg Melendez each had eight. Melendez also had an interception early in the game.
Idaho State had 363 total yards while Eastern Washington had 578.
Kevin Yost threw for 276 yards, completing 29 passes while
Luke Austin had a career-night, catching 10 passes for 146 yards.
Aaron Prier scored the Bengals two touchdowns and he had 73 yards rushing and 19 receiving yards.
The Bengals jumped out to a 14-7 lead with 13:44 left in the second quarter after Eastern Washington had the first score of the game with 3:45 left in the first quarter.
The first Bengal score was a nine-play, 68-yard drive that lasted 2:42. On the drive Yost connected with
Rodrick Rumble on passes of 11 and 29 yards. Later in the drive on a third and nine from the Eastern Washington 16-yard line, Prier took a pass from Yost and weaved in and out of several Eagle defenders for the score.
After the Bengal defense forced Eastern Washington to punt on the ensuing possession, the Bengals scored thanks to a 39-yard reception by Austin and a 16-yard rush by Prier to the goal-line.
Eastern Washington scored a touchdown and then took advantage of a Bengal turnover to take a 17-14 lead at the break. Eastern Washington scored 28 points in the second half to break the game open.
Mike Kramer Quotes
“That is a long run. It is about 360 days of a run from the 24th of November to now and I am sorry it turned out the way it did. We did some good things. We have an opportunity to be really good in the future. We say good bye to a senior class. I want to make they are recognized. They cared a lot about our program and cared a lot about each other. I am proud of us.”
“What happens is in a game coaching only lasts x amount of a time. It goes until the eight minute mark of the second quarter and from then on your natural ability carries itself the rest of the way. From the eight minute mark of the second quarter on our coaching wore out. I am proud of our staff. We banged away and did some nice things. We had a little bit of an semblance of a running game today. We had some nice runs by Aaron. We did a better job of protecting our passer and Kevin did a lot better.”
“I am proud of all of them. A.J. and Bo know how I feel about them. When you take
Luke Austin, a walk-on who took every rep in spring drills and then never got a scholarship until about the 20th October and today had 10 catches for 146 yards. We have mine guys like Luke onto the field.”
“It is the run game we have missed all season long. It has to do with our offensive line being more confident in playing the position.”
“There are a lot of cool things that went on during the season, things that will never be discovered or seen. For example, up in Bozeman Montana won and it puts the Bobcats four out of the last five games they lost against Montana. Eric Gray played for us in 2000 and it was a 0-11 season. He played every rep and every time we won I always thought of Eric Gray. Now every time I win I am going to think about Bo Hudeen and
A.J. Storms. Those guys have played their guts out and I am proud to have them as friends.”
Notes
- Prior to the start of the game, seniors,
Basim Hudeen,
Kelvin Miller,
David Harrington,
A.J. Storms,
J.T. Albers,
Jack Francis,
Jordan Monga,
David Tyler,
Braeden Clayson,
Brad Shedd,
Andrew Zamora and
Kelvin Krosch were honored.
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A.J. Storms had 17 tackles in his last game as a Bengal. He finished his career as the Idaho State all-time leading tackler with 434. The Big Sky all-time leading tackler is Kane Ioane from Montana State with 471.
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David Harrington finished with the best single-season average for an Idaho State punter as he had an average of 48.7 yards a kick on 56 punts. He had a season long 70-yard punt and 29 punts of 50-yards or longer.
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Aaron Prier carried the ball 11 times for 73 yards and scored two touchdowns. His 41-yard run was the longest run by any Bengal this year.
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Kevin Yost finished the season completing more passes than any previous Bengal quarterback as he had 300 completions this year. Yost had 493 passing attempts, second behind Mark Hetherington's 504 attempts in 2004.
- This year Idaho State finished its five-game home schedule with an attendance average of 7,512 for a total of 37,558 fans. This was the best average for a five-game home schedule since 2005 when the Bengals averaged 8,480 fans, for a total of 42,399 fans. In 2007, ISU did play a six-game home schedule and averaged 6,820 fans for a total of 40,922 fans.
