Lucas Gebhart
Sports Editor
In a game with two completely different offensive styles, a run-heavy North Dakota team (6-2) took down an air-it-out Idaho State squad (2-5), 28-21 Saturday afternoon in Holt Arena.
ISU now has dropped its third consecutive conference game and falls to 1-3 in conference play while North Dakota continues to flex its muscles at the top of the Big Sky, improving to 5-0 in conference play.
Quarterback Tanner Gueller threw the ball 49 times, completing 26 of them for 220 yards and three touchdowns, while North Dakota’s running back duo of John Santiago and Brady Oliveira combined for 34 carries, 146 yards and one score.
“A Midwest type of game in Pocatello,” said head coach Mike Kramer. “Entertaining game, hope everybody enjoyed it. I sure didn’t, but that’s okay, I’m not buying a ticket.”
The Bengals trailed by two scores late in the fourth quarter and missed opportunities cost ISU a chance to make the game more interesting.
Josh Cook dropped what would have been an easy fourth quarter touchdown on a third-and-five, forcing the Bengals to punt. The play could have cut the Fighting Hawk 14-point lead to seven.
“Fundamentals of catching the ball over your head are what?” Kramer rhetorically asked. “Catch it with your thumbs together. Otherwise you catch it like a little child. A varsity player catches the ball with your thumbs together. Fundamentals.”
ISU later cut the lead to seven, by way of a KW Williams 17-yard touchdown grab, but it was too little, too late.
A failed onside kick and a Fighting Hawk first down, curtesy of Oliveira, ended the game.
ISU was without senior running back Jakori Ford who was pulled at halftime and spotted on the Bengal sideline without pads on in the second half. His status is currently unknown.
“Who do you think I am a doctor?” Kramer said on Ford’s status. “Jakori didn’t play in the second half. That wasn’t the reason we didn’t get going.”
The game was tied at 14 going into the locker room.
North Dakota opened the second half with a physical, in-your-face, 15 play, 78-yard drive that soaked up over eight minutes of the clock. The Fighting Hawks ran the ball on 11 of the 15 plays, including a fourth-and-five fake field goal, where Santiago replaced holder Stetson Carr and bulldozed his way for a North Dakota first down, only gaining the necessary yardage by a matter of inches.
North Dakota scored on the next play and never relinquished the lead.
“Those running backs, both of them, those guys are good at evading tackles,” Kramer said. “A great lesson for our football team was watching those running back play.”
The defense held a run-heavy North Dakota squad, who averaged 221 yards coming into this afternoon’s game, to 206 yards on the ground while holding North Dakota to 28 points, much improved form giving up 52 points to Northern Arizona and 45 to Portland State.
“It was frustrating against Portland State and Northern Arizona because we know we are a better defense than that,” said linebacker Hayden Stout. “I am not as frustrated. I am frustrated we lost, but we are starting to pick up momentum as a defense.”
Gueller played a turnover-free game while running the ball eight times, seven were scrambles, one was a designed quarterback counter.
“He had how many carries? Eight.” Kramer said. “That means seven times he was wrong.”
Despite a four-and-five, 21-yard scramble that kept ISU in the game late in the fourth quarter, Kramer still says he does not want to see his quarterback running with the ball. End of story, no ifs ands or buts about it.
“I don’t care if he is going, extending plays, running for first downs,” Kramer said. “Every time he does that, he takes a play away from us and an opportunity for us to go down the field with the ball.”
“He is right,” Gueller said. “That is not my job to pick up those yards. We called one run play for me, that is all I should have had is one carry.”
Despite the ill-advised scrabbles, Kramer says that Gueller has a lot of potential.
“That is a good sign for us,” Kramer said. “I shudder to think how good he is going to be.”
ISU will host Southern Utah next week before visiting Montana and Eastern Washington. Despite being handed their third loss in conference play, Kramer was relatively pleased with his team’s performance.
“A lot of positives today,” Kramer said. “I don’t go away disjointed like I have the last couple weeks.”
