Paul Petrino has a hard time stomaching that his defense got beat on a bender.

With New Mexico State facing a 4th and 22 from the Idaho 37 in overtime, the Vandals called a coverage under the Cover Two umbrella. Armond Hawkins and Russell Siavii sat deep while Idaho's corners and linebackers made sure the Aggies didn't dink and dunk for a first down. 

New Mexico State receiver Joshua Bowen ran a bender route, meaning he was running a seam route with options designed to take advantage of a zone coverage. Bowen took the option to cut his route inside toward to the middle of the field, space left by Idaho's safeties. Siavii and Hawkins were late to arrive to Nick Jeaty's bullet throw for a 23-yard gain.

First down Aggies. 

New Mexico State scored two plays later. One freakish leg-grab interception later and the Vandals traveled back to Moscow with a 55-48 loss. 

"That’s hard to take as a coach," Petrino said. "You don’t ever think you’re going to get beat on that. But, the kid made a heck of a throw and the kid made a great catch." 

The Vandals have experienced plenty of losses over the last three seasons, but considering the recent progress being made this loss seemed to hurt much more than others. Idaho squandered an opportunity for a three-game winning streak and a .500 record. 

"I was just disappointed that we had made so many strides and we kind of moved back a couple strides," senior guard Dallas Sandberg said. "We’re going to get those back again this week and come back to the program that we’re becoming."

Petrino's message to his team on Sunday was one of learning and not passing around blame, something that may have been easy for players while watching the tape of that second half and overtime. 

"We got to move on, I told them Sunday night that everybody’s got to look at the film and I don’t want any finger pointing, everyone took a huge role in that loss starting with me. It always starts with me," Petrino said. "But we got to look at it, we’ve got to analyze it, we have to know what we could’ve done better and we’ve got to move on."

The Vandals face a winnable task on Saturday in Mobile, Alabama against struggling South Alabama (12 p.m. PST, ESPN3), Idaho's final conference road game. The Jaguars are 3-4, although three of those losses have come against North Carolina State, Nebraska and Arkansas State. 

With a trip to Auburn upcoming, Saturday may be Idaho's best chance to win two road games in a season for the first time since 2010. It's also a great opportunity to empirically prove the program is still making progress. 

"(Las Cruces) hurt and you can tell it hurt us after the game. Now we have to try and take that hurt forward, that’s part of the weekly battle of football," offensive coordinator Kris Cinkovich said. "I think (we) responded to it because there’s no way around it. That loss stunk and if you really care, and I think we’re getting enough guys that do, you’ll find a way to get that fixed and alleviate that pain."

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Other notes

- How about Elijhaa Penny? The senior halfback from Cerritos College had another career day with 192 yards rushing on 35 carries and another 58 receiving yards, with three touchdowns in total. Around 120 of those yards were 'Bull yards' or yards after contact. Penny slimmed down in the offseason in an effort to break more tackles, become more elusive and bust bigger runs. He's seeing that payoff now following his 184-yard rushing effort the week prior vs. ULM. 

He's touched the ball 74 times over the last two weeks. 

"I feel like that’s what I’m here for, that’s what I’m here to do. Carry the ball those amount of times, I’ve got the type of body that can sustain getting those types of carries," Penny said. " ... I take care of my body pretty well. The next day I just go into the training room on Sundays and go see (Barrie Steele) and hop into the ice tub and get my body back right."

- It helps that Penny is getting holes busted open by an offensive line that, for the first time in years, has five set guys who are not only healthy but jelling together as a group. That five is Calvin White at quick tackle, Dallas Sandberg at quick guard, Steven Matlock at center, Mason Woods at strong guard and Jordan Rose at strong tackle. This group has started five games together, including the last two, with only Jeff Travillion starting and rotating in for White at times. 

"Jeff Travillion played a series at quick tackle for Calvin but other than that we’re going with the same five guys, those are the guys who’ve emerged and those are the five guys who will take us forward," Cinkovich said. "Frankly there’s some guys behind them who need to push to play more and may before it’s all over but right now that’s the five that go."

- Matt Linehan's worst play of the night ended up on the highlight reels and all over social media when Terrill Hanks secured an interception with his ankles in overtime to put the Vandals to bed. Petrino justly assigned blame to his third-year sophomore quarterback, but also provided praise for his 307-passing-yard day. 

"We had 92 plays on offense and he probably had one real bad play and then the first interception I don’t put on him. It was just a bad play and he made, probably, 78 really good plays. His confidence shouldn’t be anything but high," Petrino said. "Playing quarterback is a learning experience, I think everyone grows and you learn from your mistakes and that’s something you’re going to learn from, but if he watches that tape and watches that whole game he should be confident because he played his butt off. Made a bunch of big plays running, made a bunch of good throws, made one bad decision and the guy made a great play on it so he’s got to grow from it and move on."

- Senior linebacker Marc Millan is suspended by the Sun Belt for Idaho's trip to South Alabama for his twisting fourth-quarter tackle on NMSU quarterback Andrew Allen. Ed Hall will likely fill in for him, with Kaden Elliss also able to play all three linebacker spots.

- Chris Edwards, who left last Saturday's game with a shoulder ding, will likely be back. DL Tueni Lupeamanu and back-up QB Jake Luton.

- Fr. Kareem Coles will get the nod at quarterback if Linehan goes down on Saturday for just a few snaps. If Linehan is out for an extended period, Gunnar Amos will pull his redshirt and play. Petrino said he wants to avoid the latter scenario if at all possible.