Bengals Fall to No. 8 Eastern Washington 45-28

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POCATELLO, Idaho- The Idaho State football team lost 45-28 to No. 8 Eastern Washington in Holt Arena on  Saturday afternoon in front of a crowd of 8,942. After a tight first-half, Eastern Washington led 31-21 at halftime and pulled away in the second half.

Idaho State is 2-5 overall and 1-3 in Big Sky play while Eastern remained in first place with a 4-2 mark and a 3-0 conference record.

Idaho State finished with 381 total yards, 155 on the ground and 226 through the air. Madison Mangum caught seven passes for 91 yards and two touchdowns and Xavier Finney carried the ball 23 times for 107 yards and one touchdown. 

Michael Sanders completed 18 passes on 29 attempts for two touchdowns and three interceptions. Tanner Gueller was 11-for-16 with one touchdown pass. Gueller's touchdown pass was a four-yarder to KW Williams late in the fourth quarter.

Idaho State turned the ball over four times while the Bengal defense forced two turnovers. Eastern Washington had 451 total yards with 104 rushing and 347 passing.
 
ISU's Hayden Stout led the defense with a career-high 15 tackles. Jake Pettit finished with 12 and Tyler Kuder and 1.5 sacks of the teams three.  Kurt Karstetter recovered a fumble and Tate Razor recorded his first-career interception.

The first quarter was a back-and-forth affair. The Bengals struck first when  Mangum scored his first touchdown on a two-yard reception on a fourth-and-goal play. The score was set up when Mangum caught a 59-yard reception earlier in the drive.

The Eagles scored on their ensuing possession on an eight play, 75-yard drive that was capped off by a Cooper Kupp 24-yard touchdown reception with 10:38 to play in the quarter.

Later in the quarter the Bengal offense took advantage of an Eagle turnover to take a 14-7 lead on a four-yard touchdown pass from Sanders to Mangum.

Eastern Washington tied the game at 14 on its next possession and would take a 17-14 lead in the second quarter thanks to a 38-yard field goal by Jordan Dascalo.

EWU led 24-14 when Finney scored his touchdown on a one-yard plunge from the goal line.  The Bengals turned the ball over late in the second quarter, allowing Eastern Washington to tack on a touchdown right before half.

The Eagles led 45-21 before KW Williams scored a touchdown with 51 seconds remaining in the game.
 
Idaho State plays on Saturday, October 24th at Sacramento State. Kickoff is at 7:05 (MDT).


Game Notes
 - Today's game captains were Kurt Karstetter, Tyler Graves, Cody Sorensen, Wesley Wingrove
- Xavier Finney's rushing touchdown in the second quarter gives him 25 for his career. He is in third place all-time. Merril Hoge is in second with 31 and Isaac Mitchell holds the record with 34.
- Madison Mangum's two touchdowns moves him into a tie for sixth place for most receiving touchdowns with 18. Rodrick Rumble (2009-12) and Tom Hoffmann (1970-74) finished their careers with 18.
- Madison Mangum's 59-yard reception in the first quarter was the 12^th longest offensive play of the Mike Kramer era and a career-long reception.
- Today was the first time ISU has scored on its first possession of the game since playing Portland State.
- Tate Razor record his first career interception and Tanner Gueller threw his second career touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter to KW Williams.
- The attendance of 8,942 was the sixth largest crowd at Holt Arena since 2005.
- Hayden Stout had a career-high 15 tackles.
- Erik Collins had a career-high nine tackles.
- Joe Martin had a career-high eight tackles.
- Nikko Hayes had a career-high seven tackles.

Post Game Quotes
Mike Kramer
On injuries
Injuries came after the fact. The facts were we had too many turnovers in the first half to beat anybody. They are all going to be doubtful for next week and we'll go from there.
 
On Turnovers and Sanders
We didn't play very well. Mike didn't play very well early. We tried to get him on a hitch, he threw it to a linebacker standing there. He fumbled in the pocket because he tried the hitch and waited for a route to get open downfield. He became the enemy of himself and quarterbacks can do that when they're looking up peeking at the rush but waiting for the bigger play. It's called confirming the throw and he started confirming the throw and we couldn't get him away from it and it ended up costing him deeply. Hopefully he's okay and hopefully we'll be able to rebound.
 
On Defense
Defensively we gave up 31 points to a football team that last year savaged us for 50 some [points]. I thought we played outstanding defense throughout the day. They threw two passes against us that they shouldn't have been able to throw into double coverage and the kids still made the plays. They've been doing that for a long time and I wish him the best of luck in the NFL.
 
On Punts and Identity
We can't punt. We can't kick the ball high enough to make them fair catch it and we don't cover well enough to catch a traditional punt. We're roll punting and that's going back to Zak Johnson. Zak Johnson will punt if he can stay healthy the rest of the year. We're a roll punt team. We're trying to identify ourselves as a traditional punt team and we can't do it, there's just no way. We don't practice it enough. We don't have a mindset of it. We are a roll punt team and when we start trying to do something we're not we pay the price. We did it in a lot of other things. We did it in pass protection today. We made a stupid mistake which we never really got corrected until the last drive. Just a stupid, over-coaching mistake by my offensive staff; it should not have happened. We over-coach so hard trying to get to a win that we've become our own worst enemies.
 
Xavier Finney Post-Game Quotes
"As an offense we weren't quitting. We came out pretty strong and got some quick scores back to back. We just couldn't sustain drives and we couldn't keep the drives going. We had some early turnovers and you know that always your momentum. I think they just got the best of us."
 
"Like we always do. We have a solid pass game and we have an established run game we just wanted to go back and forth; throw a pass then run, but clearly we weren't able to do that. Kramer was saying that the run game wasn't good when it counted."