The Idaho Vandals took a few days off early last week, when they had a bye.

But later in the week, when they began preparations for their Western Athletic Conference opener at Louisiana Tech this Saturday, coach Robb Akey was impressed.

“What really got me excited was on Thursday, when we had practice, the whole football team was out there 10-15 minutes before we started our specialists,” Akey said. “We have our specialists doing things five minutes before we start our stretching, and I had the whole football team out there, so that told me that they were anxious to get back out on the field and do some things.”

The Vandals practiced without pads last Thursday and Friday, and “sometimes it’s a little more difficult to keep guys’ attention when you don’t have the pads on,” Akey said. “And I thought we got a lot of work done on those two days. I like the work we got done (Sunday).

“I’d like to think we played a pretty good game against “bye” — it wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty good,” Akey said.

Idaho is 3-2 heading into conference play. Louisiana Tech (2-4) is 1-1 in the WAC, losing 41-21 at Hawaii before beating Utah State 24-6 at home last weekend.

Personnel dept.: Akey said running back Princeton McCarty (broken hand) and left guard Sam Tupua (concussion) should be back this week. Neither played two weeks ago at Western Michigan. Akey was less clear about the status of wide receiver Maurice Shaw, who was arrested for DUI early Saturday morning in Pullman. The Vandals said the matter was being handled internally. Shaw has started two games this year and has 14 catches for 200 yards and a touchdown.