October 20, 2007
LAS CRUCES, NM (AP) - If you had said at the beginning of the year that the Idaho Vandals would be .500 in week 8, odds are that you would have been locked up in a mental institution. After all, this is a team that went only 4-8 last year, and went 2-9 the year before that. This was the team that hired a new coach prior to the season with no coaching experience at any level. Well, guess what? The Idaho Vandals are now 4-4, and even more impressive, 3-1 in conference play. They are only 2 wins away from getting a bowl bid, with 3 very winnable games down the stretch.

The game started out in Idaho's favor, after Chris Joseph connected with Max Komar in the endzone to put the Vandals up 7-0. New Mexico State (2-5 1-2 WAC) then evened the score at 7 all with a Chase Holbrook pass to Derek Dubois. Then a Hughes field goal put the Aggies up 10-7. A Brian Flowers touchdown put the Vandals back up 10-14, but a Hughes field goal and a Holbrook touchdown pass with 32 seconds left in the first half gave the Aggies a 20-14 lead. That's when the tides changed in favor of the Vandals.

With 18 seconds left in the first half, Chris Joseph threw a 63 yard touchdown pass to speedy Wesley Williams, which gave the Vandals the lead back at 21-20 just before the half. Another deep ball from Joseph to Williams and a Tino Amancio field goal put the Vandals up 31-20 at the end of the 3rd quarter. All wasn't lost yet for the Aggies, though. HB Justine Buries scored from 5 yards out to give cut the Vandals lead to 5 points. Obviously, the Aggies then attempted to go for 2, potentially making it a 3 point game, but were denied. Another Tino Amancio field goal with under a minute to play put the Vandals up 34-26, but it was still a one possession game. On the Aggies first play from scrimmage, QB Alex Gibson (who went in for the injured Chase Holbrook earlier in the second half) dropped back, and threw the ball.

It was intercepted!!! Stanley Franks picked off his second pass of the game, which let the Vandals knee off the clock and pick up their third WAC conference game.

"New Mexico State is a very good team. We had a +3 turnover differential and still nearly lost the game," said Coach Ghettoshark.

The Vandal rushing attack had another great game. Brian Flowers ran for 112 yards on 21 carries before going out with an injury, and Jayson Bird ran for 91 yards on 20 carries. But the real story of the day for the Vandals was the offensive line. The offensive line finished with, count them, 35 PANCAKES! 12 of them which came from one person, Marcis Fennell.

"Our line played out of this world today. How many times do you see 35 pancakes? That's insane," said Ghettoshark.

The Vandals also picked off NMSU quarterbacks 5 times today. 2 of them were to LB Jo Artis Ratti, another 2 to CB Stanley Franks and the last one was to CB TJ Taylor.

The Vandals will travel to Reno, Nevada to take on the Nevada Wolfpack (1-5 0-2 WAC).