As you all were well aware of, I was a bit apprehensive about the Hawks ability to go into Holt Arena and come out with an ‘easy’ win. If anything it was going to be a total dogfight. So I thought.
The UND team itself apparently was sick of hearing about their troubles with the Idaho State Bengals and took it out on the home team Saturday by a score of 35-14. UND led wire to wire and proved the past troubles with ISU are just that – in the past.
I picked the Hawks 34-21 on the pregame show so am happy with how UND played and the 21 point separation.
The Hawks are now 1-0 on the season and head out to FBS Utah State for a nationally televised Friday night tilt on CBS Sports Network. Utah State beat Washington State in Pullman 26-23.
The Good
The Hawks defense played a solid, fundamental game overall. Tackling was above average, IMO, and they seemed to not have big dropoffs while subbing consistently.
The game plan was to keep everything in front of them and make ISU run the ball vs throwing their deep balls and RPO stuff. The key to that game plan, as we laid out in the show, was to be able to handle the run game with their base defensive look (not bring any added pressure or walk safeties up).
The Hawks did just that – they slowed the run game and thus clogged the passing lanes making the Bengals RPO game mostly insignificant throughout the day. The Bengals only mustered 301 yards of total offense.
ISU QB Tyler Vanderwaal, a very talented big-armed QB, was held to a paltry 19-43 for 229 yards and 1 TD vs 3 INT’s. The Hawks secondary played quite well vs a solid Bengal scheme.
The three INT’s by the Hawks defense were all timely and all led to big swings in momentum, specifically Evan Holm’s pick inside the red zone.
Hayden Galvin makes big plays. It’s all he does. The senior picked off Vanderwaal on the 4th play of the game, leading to an eventual Otis Weah touchdown. Don’t underestimate how much relief that provided for the Hawks sideline.
The Hawks secondary held all-conference and NFL prospect Tanner Conner to 3 catches for 54 yards and 1 TD. Conner goes 6’3″-230 and is legit fast. The UND corners battled him all game, to their credit.
The UND ILB’s played a solid game. Noah Larson and Devon Krzanowski combined for 15 tackles and were very good on the goalline stand at the end of the 1st quarter.
Speaking of the goalline stand, I compiled the four plays in the video below. Let’s all remember – ISU started at the one yard line, 1st and goal. So essentially they ran four plays, all up the middle, and lost a half yard. Eddie Schultz is smiling down after watching that series of events – I still remember his call during the D2 days on a 4th down play that UND stuffed: “………NOTHING! NOTHING! He might’ve LOST a yard – the Sioux hold”.
The biggest play was 2nd down when Larson stoned RB Malakei Rango – the Bengals offensive line actually got a very good push and opened a big hole. But Larson filled it and stopped Rango in his tracks.
Larson also made the tackle on 4th down when he stoned RB Raiden Hunter for a short loss.
This stop might be considered the biggest sequence in the game because ISU was gaining momentum with that drive and it sucked the life out of the building for a bit, giving UND more time to work their offense into sync with the lead.
The Hawks won the T.O.P battle 33-26. This is key as they want to wear teams down as the game goes on.
UND ran the ball 45 times for 185 yards. ISU ran the ball 30 times for only 80 yards.
Otis Weah had another nice game with 22 rushes for 114 yards and 3 TD’s. He did fumble once, however, but UND was able to recover. Otis will only get better and stronger as season goes on.
OC Danny Freund made a point of running the ball, knowing that he didn’t want to get into a passing contest with ISU. It paid off as the Hawks wore down the Bengals by the start of the 4th quarter. UND ran 45 times and threw it only 18.
QB Tommy Schuster was himself again on Saturday – 14-18-183 yards and 1 TD. However, Schuster showed some nice scrambling ability that we had heard he was going to add to his game over the summer. Schuster ran the ball 5 times for 27 yards with a long of 13. This was very nice to see.
Once again the Hawks allowed zero sacks. They did have one turnover, however, on a C. Cochran fumble. They still won the turnover margin battle +2 (along with the goalline stop on 4th down).
The Hawks punter and kickers were loving the thin air of Pocatello. Adam Stage went 2-3 on field goals, Brady Stevens was bombing kickoffs into the next county (7 touchbacks), and Cade Peterson was getting nice distance and hang time on his punts (51 yd avg).
The Bad
UND had multiple bad snaps in the game that could’ve cost them dearly but didn’t luckily. New center Babak Ghadaksaz was a guard at Portland State so we understand the issues in this one. ISU was jittering a lot and it caused the Hawks to jump multiple times. All things to work on this week.
The Hawks were penalized 7 times for 72 yards. Two of those were pass interference calls with the second one on Caleb Nelson being a very questionable call in the end zone as he was taking on Conner.
The Bengals were 8-16 on third down. That needs to be improved upon as season goes on. 30-40% is a nice place to be.
OLB Ray Haas broke his ankle after jumping up to intercept a tipped pass and is now out for the season. The Condor, as Jack Michaels nicknamed him, was primed for a big season and this is obviously devastating news for both Ray and the UND defense.
Garett Maag pulled his hamstring later in the game but is expected to be back, hopefully, this week.
The Hawks took care of business and did what they needed to do on Saturday. They beat a team they were better than, on the road, and improved to 1-0. Now they get a big test this week vs. the Utah State Aggies.
Utah State look very good vs Wazzu and it’s going to be a battle out in Logan on Friday. We will have our pregame show with game preview & prediction on Thursday!
Cover photo courtesy of Idaho State Athletics and Justin Prax. https://isubengals.com/sports/football
