PULLMAN, Wash. ? For the second straight week, the Idaho football team stormed out to fast start and jumped to an early lead. This time, however, things ended very differently as the Vandals finished on the short end of a 45-28 decision at Washington State Saturday night at Martin Stadium.

Like last week's game against Cal Poly, the Idaho offense took the opening kickoff and drove right down the field. Also like last weekend, the Vandals started the scoring with a Nathan Enderle-to-Max Komar touchdown strike.

One week after Idaho made all the plays and came up big at crunch time, the team gave the Cougars too many extra chances and couldn't seem to make the big plays when they needed them.

While the team did produce its best offensive output of the season and finally unleashed the passing game, there were far too many miscues and mental errors that either killed Idaho drives or extended WSU drives. Five Vandal turnovers led to 17 Cougar points.

“We need to respond to adversity better,” Idaho head coach Robb Akey said. “We found out some things we need to fix.

“We have to take better care of the football. That's one of the battles within the game that we need to win to the influence the ballgame.”

Quarterback Nathan Enderle produced the best passing effort of his short career with 205 yards on 17 of 35 passing with three touchdowns. Unfortunately, his four interceptions stand out even more. Two of those interceptions were made after the passes bounced off the hands of Vandal receivers.

“We started pretty strong,” Enderle said. “Then things kind of panned out. We just can't let that happen.”

After averaging just 43 penalty yards per game through the first two games, the Vandals accumulated 54 penalty yards in the first half alone and 94 for the game. The Vandals were hit with five personal foul penalties for late hits.

“We were on a bit of a roller coaster,” Akey said. “We have to get ourselves to a level and perform at that level.

“I'm very disappointed in the penalties.”

The Idaho defense forced three turnovers, but only forced the Cougar offense to punt three times. Defensive captain David Vobora summed up the game in simple terms.

“They made big plays on third down and we didn't. We have to play 60 minutes,” Vobora said.

The Vandals received the opening kickoff and quickly drove 57 yards down the field in just four plays, which culminated in a 38-yard touchdown strike Enderle to Komar.

Offensively, the first half was the total opposite of last Saturday's win over Cal Poly. Enderle completed 10 passes for 136 yards and three touchdowns in the first two quarters. He completed just seven for 101 yards in the game last week.

Komar ended up with a career-high five catches and two touchdowns, with a total of 96 yards receiving. Freshman Maurice Shaw caught his first career touchdown pass late in the first when he wrestled the ball away from a Cougar defender in the endzone. The play was originally ruled an incompletion, but was overturned following a booth review.

Despite the miscues, the Vandals came up with a few big plays. Stanley Franks grabbed his first interception of the season to give him 10 career picks and put him at eighth on the Idaho all-time career list. Franks also led the team in tackles with nine.

Vobora and Jo Artis Ratti both had eight tackles.

Shiloh Keo had a huge hit on a deep route to break up a Cougar pass in the Idaho red zone and force a punt on WSU's opening drive.

Taylor Rust had a solid game for the defensive line. He tallied three tackles, a sack, a fumble recovery, a pass break-up and a pair of quarterback hurries.

Deonte' Jackson broke the 100-yard barrier for the second straight game as he gained 113 yards on 28 carries.

The Vandals will remain on the Palouse this week as they play host to Northern Illinois next Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Kibbie Dome for Dad's Weekend.