MOSCOW, Idaho – Coach Paul Petrino said there was no way to sugarcoat the Idaho Vandals' flat performance in Saturday's 34-17 Sun Belt Conference loss to Troy University on Senior Day at the Kibbie Dome.

“We just played bad,” he said. “We kind of played bad the whole way. I put it all on me. I'm the head coach. It was a real disturbing day. I thought the defense was terrible in the first half and the offense was terrible in the second half. It's all on me.”

Making things worse was the disappearance of much that had been good – despite the outcomes, in many of the Vandals' previous games. They didn't control the ball like they have; they were lacking the gutsy, impassioned play that has kept them in virtually every game this fall. And, yet, they trailed by just one touchdown at halftime.

“We've come so far in the program and we've played so much better,” Petrino said. “Today we took a big step back. It's unacceptable. It's ridiculous.”

What the Vandals did do that they have had a propensity to do all fall was give up a handful of big plays; big plays that turned out to be very costly. Troy scored on pass plays of 41 and 51 yards as well as a 28-yard interception return. The Trojans ran 83 plays to 63 for the Vandals – a number that is the reserve of the average during Idaho's first nine games.

It left Petrino shaking his head.

“They kicked our butt,” he said. “We got out-hit. We got out-hustled. We got out-coached. We didn't hit. We didn't hustle. And we didn't coach worth a darn. All three things were terrible. When you do that, you get your butt kicked.”

Senior receiver Joshua McCain did notch his sixth 100-plus game with 128 yards on seven catches. With 1,115 receiving yards, he is the first Vandal to surpass 1,000 yards since Max Komar in 2009. He has the most since Antonio Wilson went for 1,203 in 1996 and has moved into ninth on the single-season list. He is one of eight players with six career games of 100 or more yards and one of only two (Kasey Dunn did it three times) to have that many in a single season.

Bradley Njoku, whose versatility enables him to play everywhere in the secondary, bade the Kibbie Dome farewell with 12 tackles, a pass breakup and a forced fumble, as did defensive end Quayshawne Buckley, who also had 12 stops – two of which were tackles for loss.