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Sources: Washington State, Idaho set date for 2025 football season; Vandals to collect $625,000 payout

Washington State Cougars running back James Williams (32) runs the ball against \25d\ Idaho Vandals wide receiver David Ungerer (2) during the second half of a college football game on Saturday, Sep 17, 2016, at Martin Stadium in Pullman, Wash. WSU won the game 56-6. (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review)
By Theo Lawson theol@spokesman.com(509) 459-5584

PULLMAN – Washington State and Idaho will meet for the 94th time on a football field during the 2025 season, sources have confirmed to The Spokesman-Review.

FBSchedules.com first reported the 2025 game, which will take place on Aug. 30 at Martin Stadium in Pullman and presumably serve as the season opener for both the Cougars and Vandals. WSU and Idaho have yet to make an official announcement.

According to sources, Idaho, which is joining the Big Sky Conference, will receive a guaranteed payout of $625,000 to play the Pac-12 Cougars. The payouts received by Football Championship Series (FCS) schools who play Power Five opponents generally aren’t as substantial as those received by “mid-major” Football Subdivision (FBS) schools. However, the $625,000 payout Idaho is receiving for the 2025 game is larger than the pot of money the Cougars offered up to host the Vandals in 2016 when UI was still an FBS member playing in the Sun Belt Conference. Idaho collected $600,000 from that game.

The border rivals have another game on the docket before the 2025 meeting. Idaho will also visit WSU on Sept. 19, 2020. The schools negotiated the terms of that contract in 2016 and settled on a $550,000 payout for the Vandals.

Recently, the gridiron series has been kinder to the Cougars than the one on the hardwood. WSU has won the last nine football games and never by fewer than 12 points. The Cougars obtained their second-most emphatic win in the rivalry’s history – one that dates back to 1894 – when they pummeled the Vandals 56-6 in 2016.

The schools have played 92 times and 72 have resulted in WSU victories. The Vandals have 17 wins in the series and there have been three ties.

The Cougars own a 70-49 lead in the basketball series, though they’ve conceded three of the last four games to Idaho and last December gave the Vandals one of their most resounding wins in the rivalry, losing 91-64 at the Cowan Spectrum in Moscow.

Per FBSschedules, the Vandals also added three future home games against NCAA Division II schools: Western New Mexico on Sept. 8, 2018, Central Washington on Sept. 7, 2019 and Western Oregon on Sept. 5, 2020.