It doesn’t look like Matt Linehan will be able to play this week either, Idaho coach Paul Petrino, so true freshman Colton Richardson looks like he’ll make his first career start when the Vandals (3-8, 2-5 Sun Belt) close out their season Saturday at Georgia State (6-4, 5-2).

Linehan suffered an thumb injury on his right (throwing) hand in Idaho’s loss at Troy on Nov. 2 and hasn’t played since.

Redshirt sophomore Mason Petrino, the coach’s son, started the next game Nov. 18 vs. Coastal Carolina. On the second possession of last week’s game at New Mexico State, Petrino suffered a shoulder separation.

Richardson, the former Lewiston High star, made his season debut and completed 18 of 33 passes for 167 yards and one touchdown with one interception.

“He competed his butt off, did some things that will help him get better in the future,” Paul Petrino said of Richardson.

Richardson was also sacked 10 times, and Petrino said some of his struggles were typical of someone making their college debut.

“That position, as much or even more than any other position, you just need live reps,” said Petrino, a former quarterback at Carroll College in Helena, Mont., “Live reps ... getting hit. It’s definitely an experience that’s going to make him better. I think it’ll be a lot easier for him (this week) than last week, because he’s played a game. Each game you play, it makes it easier.”

Petrino said Richardson’s future with the Vandals isn’t “a whole lot different” than if he’d not played this year.

“Now he’ll just have a redshirt for down the road, in case something happens,” Petrino said. “That’s why we wanted to save it, if we could. That’s what we were trying to do.”

Petrino said Richardson’s backup is true freshman Dylan Lemle, who has yet to play this year.

Idaho’s final FBS game after 22 seasons in what was formerly called Division I will be played at Georgia State Stadium. You may remember the stadium as Turner Field, where the Atlanta Braves played from 1997-2016, before the Braves moved north and Turner Field was converted to a football stadium. The stadium was originally built for the 1996 Summer Olympics, and served as the site for the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as for the track and field competition, where former Vandal great Dan O’Brien won the gold medal in the decathlon. The stadium was converted to baseball shortly after the Olympics.

Whereas Idaho has played one-possession games in each of its seven Sun Belt outings, losing five of them, Georgia State is having a season much like the Vandals did last year, when they won the close games and finished 9-4, capped by a victory in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

“Sometimes its a game here, and game there, finding a way to win,” Petrino said. “Especially early, and then you start to believe it.”

Despite all the tough losses and the disappointment of not going to back-to-back bowl games for the first time in school history, Petrino said he’s been proud of the way his players have responded to the adversity.

“They haven’t wavered,” he said. “They’ve showed up and practiced hard. It (the close losses) hasn’t been because of attitude or effort. It’s been because of execution.”