POCATELLO — For being just two years old, the rekindled rivalry between Idaho and Idaho State already has a lot of heat.

The first matchup between the two in a decade was last year, and the Bengals ran the Vandals out of Holt Arena, winning 62-28.

This year, the Kibbie Dome in Moscow hosts the rematch, and the Vandals will likely be looking for revenge.

“It’s a game that I think we should play every year, and it should be the last game of the year,” Idaho State head coach Rob Phenicie said Monday. “We shouldn’t have a year off from Idaho. ... They’re going to be fired up beyond belief. There’s going to be no letdown from them. They’re going to come with their A-game, and if we don’t prepare for it, then we’re going to come up on the wrong end.”

Overshadowing all of that is that the game is coming at a crucial point in the season for both teams.

Idaho (2-5, 0-3 Big Sky Conference) has lost its first three conference games. Getting a home rivalry win is one of the Vandals’ few potential remaining bright spots in the season, while a loss could send them into a tailspin to close the year.

Idaho State, meanwhile, successfully bounced back from a blowout loss at Montana, beating North Dakota 55-20 to get back to .500 on the year at 3-3 (2-1 in the Big Sky).

The Bengals still have playoff hopes. Idaho State plays three games in which it will likely be favored — at Idaho, at Southern Utah, home against Northern Colorado — before a tough season-ending stretch, meaning that now is the time to make a run.

“I think when we’re rolling, everyone’s doing their jobs, and we’re executing, we’re very, very hard to defend,” offensive lineman Jacob Molenaar said. “But everybody has to show up. ... I think Montana was kind of a wake-up call, because we know we’re better than that. I don’t think that’s going to happen again.”

Idaho could end that before it even starts, dooming the Bengals to a mostly meaningless back half of the season, which would surely be revenge enough for last year’s beatdown.

The Vandals have enough talent to do it.

Idaho has a strong 1-2 punch on offense with 240-pound redshirt freshman running back Aundre Carter and senior wide receiver Jeff Cotton.

Carter has 378 yards and five touchdowns in six games, while Cotton is leading the Big Sky in receptions per game, with 8.2.

“They’re going to try to establish the run on us,” Phenicie said. “They have two real big tight ends that come in ... so they’re going to give us a lot of problems with their personnel. They can kind of dictate what you have to do a little bit.”

On defense, sophomore middle linebacker Tre Walker has 78 total tackles — more than 11 per game, second in the conference. Junior linebacker Christian Elliss, brother of NFL draftee Kaden Elliss, is also in the top 10 in the conference in tackles.

Junior defensive end Charles Akanno, meanwhile, is tied for the conference lead in tackles for loss, and also shows up on the leaderboards for sacks, forced fumbles and passes defended.

“They’re first in the conference in third-down conversion defense. They’re only allowing teams to convert 30 percent of third downs, which is excellent,” Phenicie said. “It makes it tough, when you have (Akanno) and (Elliss) on the edge with the pass rush, that’s hard. Pick your poison. You can’t slide your line one way or the other.”

The big question for the Vandals, as it has been for a few years, is what to do at quarterback.

Mason Petrino has started all year and been reasonably effective, completing 62.9% of his passes, but has eight touchdowns to seven interceptions and is averaging fewer than 200 yards passing per game.

In the third quarter of a 24-0 shutout loss to Portland State last week, the Vandals replaced Petrino with Colton Richardson, who lost a quarterback competition to Petrino in the fall.

He wasn’t any better, completing 5 of 14 passes for 86 yards and two interceptions. Petrino finished the game 8 of 15 for 70 yards and two interceptions, and it’s still up in the air which of the two will start for Idaho this week.

“They rotate two quarterbacks in consistently, and we need to be aware of that,” defensive lineman Hunter Eborn said. “They’re a little different, so we need to be aware of what they’re doing. Colton is more of a pocket passer, and Mason is a little bit more athletic, can run the read-option. We have to be aware of which quarterback’s in the game and what we need to do to stop them.”

Notes:

- Phenicie was still uncertain about the status of ISU safety Christian McFarland, who was ejected after an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the second half against North Dakota. Because of the ejection, he could potentially be suspended for the first half of the Idaho game.

“We don’t know if the league is going to clear him or not,” Phenicie said. “I’m in contact with Karl Richins, (the Big Sky’s) head of officials, on that. ... (Christian) did something a little bit above and beyond. It was just objectionable conduct. We talked about it this morning in our team meeting, and it shouldn’t happen again. We have to learn to walk away from things.”

- Idaho’s Cotton is one of the few receivers in the league who has comparable talent to Montana’s Sammy Akem, who went over 100 yards in the first half against Idaho State in their matchup. Compared to Montana, though, Idaho doesn’t have nearly the same talent in the rest of the wide receiver group, which led Phenicie to compare him to an all-time NBA great.

“They’re going to get him the ball, and if they catch you leaning coverage that way, they’re going to run the ball or throw it the other way,” Phenicie said. “You have to mix up your stuff, what he sees and what the quarterback sees. Sometimes you do (let him get his), and hopefully you contain everybody else. Like Michael Jordan’s gonna get his 45 points, contain everybody else.”

- ISU kicker/punter Kevin Ryan was named the Big Sky’s special teams player of the week after making 2 of 3 field goals and 7 of 7 extra points against North Dakota. He also handled kickoff duties and put both his punts inside the 20.

“The first thing was, he kicked it out of the end zone (on kickoffs), and we’ll take that 100 out of 100 times,” Phenicie said. “He’s been solid punting pretty much all year, and he’s been solid on the field goals. ... Lefty’s a good kid, I’m glad that he got that honor this week.”

- The chemistry between ISU quarterback Matt Struck and his receivers has been improving every week, as wideout Tanner Conner pointed out, using a specific play from the North Dakota game as an example.

“We love having Matt on the field, and he trusts us a lot,” Conner said. “He’ll go out and try to make throws for us. Like, the throw he made to Mitch (Gueller) on the run, he’s confident that he can make that throw and he’s confident that Mitch will go get it.”