John Blanchette

And the beat goes on with Mike Marboe

Senior Day is here for 19 Vandals, but it's once again time for Idaho to graduate from baby-step progress and figure out how to get it done in winning time.

The rules of player eligibility preempt the notion of a college football Cal Ripken Jr., or even a Bob Curtis – guys who carried on season upon season and couldn’t be dragged from the lineup by horse and hitch. Heck, even presidents get four more years.

Vandal seniors try to make one last memory at the dome

Just more than a month ago, Kyle Wiltjer carved out a blink – two, really – of viral fame on YouTube, where these things happen. One clip showed him making 70 of 75 shots from the 3-point line – astounding, if numbing – and the other was video evidence of a “world record,” a shot he launched from half court, behind his back, finding the bottom of the net. He even did it again as if to prove it, H-O-R-S-E style.

The sand-bagging was still in high gear mid-week, when Vernon Adams Jr. kept hedging – stoking the will-he-play-or-won’t-he mystery in the name of gamesmanship.

Mark Vaught, director of football operations at the University of Idaho, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer.

In the fall, the Big Sky Conference makes for a touchy subject at the University of Idaho. But turn a few calendar pages and the Vandals find the topic downright embraceable.

Some of the baggage and burden of Shawn Kemp Jr.’s basketball life has been assigned, and some has been courted. He didn’t pick his name, for instance – that came from his father, the former NBA superstar. But he did choose his dad’s game, and when it came time to pick a college, he elected to attend the University of Washington in the same town where the senior Kemp polished his star with the Seattle SuperSonics.

PULLMAN – There was nothing dramatic, nothing particularly ominous about the last pass of Connor Halliday’s college football career. Vince Mayle lined up solo to the left opposite a trips formation, ran a quick curl about eight yards downfield and collected Halliday’s offering. Washington State’s bullish senior receiver pivoted and drove ahead into a wave of USC defenders for a couple extra yards that were meaningless except for the effort required to get them.

It's deja Vandal all over again

MOSCOW, Idaho – The football losses may have piled up like leaves under an autumn maple at the University of Idaho, but there are happy hangovers in the tailgate lot today. And this new streak to chew on: Quarterback Chad Chalich is 2-0 at homecoming.

Chalich steps in, Vandals step up to snap 13-game losing streak

Idaho football: Tom Hennessey and the value of keeping on keeping on

The new coach had been on campus for only four months and likely hadn’t yet learned everyone’s name – never mind that of an undersized, non-scholarship walk-on. But Tom Hennessey had been around long enough for the both of them. He had three years’ experience in the grind – getting the least and last reps, doing the scout-team grunt work, showing the extra spark in drills, selling out on special teams.

Homecoming is Idaho's chance to break nation's longest losing streak

Vandals lose to Sun Belt leaders to fall to 0-6