Robb Akey likes the bye week because it gives his players a few extra days of rest.

But what the Idaho football coach doesn’t like about this particular bye week is having to sit around for an additional week with a 1-6 record, not being able to do anything about it until Oct. 29, when Western Athletic Conference favorite Hawaii visits the Kibbie Dome.

“They (the Vandal players) don’t feel well. I don’t feel well. Nobody feels good,” Akey said in a teleconference on Wednesday, one day before his team returned to practice after a few days off.

“Being 1 and (6) hurts, and we’ve got to get ourselves over that. We find ourselves so close to being able to get over the top, and haven’t got that accomplished yet, but I am very confident that we will.”

Akey spoke of being “a play away” from a much more respectable record.

The Vandals went for two and the win in overtime at Virginia, and the pass fell incomplete and Idaho lost 21-10. Virginia, as Akey pointed out, just knocked off 12th-ranked Georgia Tech last week.

Idaho had a chance to score on the final play at New Mexico State and was unable to, and fell 31-24 to the Aggies last week.

“We’re that close to being able to make some very strong things happen,” Akey said. “A play away. Was it a play at the end of the game? Who’s to say it wasn’t one of the other plays during the game? We need to pick up two plays, somewhere along the line, one to make the difference and one to put us over the top, and that’s a very very fine line.”

Asked if he would have gone for two points had the Vandals scored at the end of the game at New Mexico State, Akey replied, “I hadn’t made the decision just yet. That one could have gone either way.”

Akey was asked if senior Brian Reader would remain the starting quarterback when the Vandals took the field against Hawaii.

“You’ll just have to come to the ballgame and find out, won’t you?” Akey said.

He continued: “Brian Reader is our starting quarterback. Have you seen anybody else play quarterback? Come to (the) Hawaii (game) and see how it plays out.”