Bengals Take Down Chadron State 39-34

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POCATELLO, Idaho- The Idaho State football team won its home opener on Saturday afternoon at Holt Arena, beating Chadron State, 39-34. The Bengals are 1-2 while Chadron State dropped to 1-1.

The Bengals tallied 550 total yards, the fourth most in a game since 2004. Chadron State was held to 331 total yards.

Justin Arias passed for 318 yards and four touchdowns while Xavier Finney rushed for a career high 158 yards on 33 carries and two touchdowns.

Madison Mangum caught a career-high 11 passes for 123 yards and two touchdowns and Broc Malcom caught a career-best 126-yards and two touchdowns on eight receptions.

Taison Manu had 12 tackles, two for loss and Mitch Beckstead had 10 tackles. The Bengal defense had six tackles for a for loss and two sacks.

Idaho State jumped out to a 27-6 lead at halftime. After the Eagles took an early 6-0 lead with 7:34 left in the first quarter, the Bengals marched down on the ensuing possession to take a 7-6 lead on a Malcom 10-yard reception just over two minutes later.

The Bengals then scored three touchdowns in the second quarter to take the commanding lead. Mangum scored his first-career touchdown as a Bengal on a seven-yard reception from Arias with 14:26 left in the first half. Six minutes later Malcom scored his second touchdown on a 11-yard pass from Arias.

Finney scored the final touchdown of the first half on a five-yard run with 2:28 remaining. Finney and Mangum both scored touchdowns in the third quarter and Chadron State added a touchdown to put the Bengals on top 39-13.

Chadron State scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter but the Bengal offense ran out the clock with the running of Finney down the stretch.

Idaho State has a week off before returning to the field on September 27 vs. Sacramento State. Kickoff is at 2 p.m.
 
Game Notes
- Today's game captains were Vai Peko, Jim Bagley, Michael Berger and Christian Gines.
- The 550 total yards was the fourth most by a Bengal offense since 2004.
- The 232 rushing yards is the most by a Bengal team since Sept. 8, 2007 when ISU rushed for 245 yrads vs. Southern Oregon.
- Justin Arias cracked the Top 10 career record book for passing yards and touchdown passes. He currently ranks 10th in passing yards at 4,678. Shane Griggs is ranked ninth with 5,023 yards. Arias has 34 career touchdown passes, ranking him eighth behind Russel Hill's 36.
- Xavier Finney rushed for a career-high 158 yards and two touchdowns. He has rushed for 1,535 yards in his career, ranking him ninth in the career record book for most rushing yards. He is 35 yards away from moving into seventh place as Ken Cornist is eighth with 1,539 yards and  Craig Joseph is seventh with 1,570 yards.
- Madison Mangum had a career-high 123-yards receiving on a career-best 11 receptions. His two touchdowns scored were the first two of his career at Idaho State.
- Broc Malcom caught a career-high 126 receiving yards.
- The Bengals are now 13-3 in their last 16 home openers. ISU is 16-1 against Non-Division I schools in the last 16 years.
- For the second straight week a Bengal caught a 52-yard reception. Last week it was KW Williams and this week Malcom caught a 52-yard pass.

Mike Kramer Post Game Quotes
One thing about Chadron State is they don't know how to lose. Whereas a lot of other teams would have folded their tent and gone home. I'm very proud of the way they played, they're a real tough-minded and hard-minded team. I said it all week.

The game turned out exactly the way I thought it would be. Whether it was a one point win or a 100 point win I didn't care as long as we got out of this thing with a win.
They played their rear ends off on the road after a long bus ride and they have a tough bus ride home because they came so darn close

I'm very proud of our football team. The one thing we've done is we've matured quite a bit in some areas, particularly on our offensive front where we showed the ability to run the ball, or protect our self. After Justin got dinged out James came in and handled the offense and handled the ball and we did some nice things there. So congratulations to us, you know, in the end we're the team that won the game and we're pretty proud of that fact.

For the third week in a row we've surrendered an easy touchdown. Our right guard on PAT field goal got blown through. He just wasn't playing as hard as he needed to play against a football team that knew no quit. It ended up being a key play for us. Something as innocuous as a field goal attempt turns out to be something that really came awfully close to being devastating for us.

I'm proud of us. We played well at times defensively but give them credit they never gave up. They threw the ball deep on the outside. We got beat over the top twice late in the game and that's disconcerting.

Kramer On the play of Malcom and Mangum
"Well they had to play better because the way they played down at Utah State was unsatisfactory. They came out and played the way they capable of playing. Last week they left a lot of plays on the dirt. They had to play better this week and they responded. We expanded our offense a little more and played a little better at wide receiver then we have in the past and I expect that to be our standard from here on out."