MOSCOW, Idaho – It’s been just one day of fall camp and eight months of preparation under a new regime with no wins or losses to show for it. But Idaho defensive end Maxx Forde noticed buy-in of Paul Petrino’s system started soon after the coach was hired in December. And now? There’s no question in Forde’s mind – about the coaching staff or his teammates’ willingness to listen.
MOSCOW, Idaho – Idaho quarterbacks coach Bryce Erickson says he’s never been on a coaching staff that works as hard. Offensive coordinator Kris Cinkovich sees the same thing he witnessed at Arkansas coaching alongside Bobby and Paul Petrino, and what he noticed from a distance when the Petrinos were at Louisville. It’s a work ethic that traces back to Bob Petrino Sr., who coached his sons (and Cinkovich) at Carroll College in Montana.
MOSCOW, Idaho – In the last six months, Rob Spear has hired a new football coach, found a conference home for the Idaho football program and, just this week, won approval for a 30-foot-wide, 50-foot-tall video board in the Kibbie Dome. Next, he’s prepared to tackle what he calls his dream construction project as UI athletic director: a proposed 6,000-seat events center just north of the Dome.
Former Idaho football coach Robb Akey has filed a lawsuit against the university and the State Board of Education in an attempt to claim a lump-sum media payment withheld from him when he was fired in October.
MOSCOW, Idaho – His first spring football as Idaho coach complete, Paul Petrino declared the Vandals an improved team from when they started on March 22. But more importantly, he said, they’re a tougher team, too. The quarterbacks absorbed hit after hit over the course of 15 sessions, and a new batch of junior college running backs and linebackers delivered blows with their physical styles.
MOSCOW, Idaho – Really, it’s just a dressed-up scrimmage four-plus months before the season. Yet Idaho is treating tonight’s spring football finale like a “real” game, with 15-minute quarters, clock stoppage and all. First-year coach Paul Petrino said he hopes to run 200 plays – or “as many plays as we can” – when the Vandals congregate at 6 p.m. in the Kibbie Dome. That’s only slightly more than the team chugged through in its second of three scrimmages two weeks ago.
MOSCOW, Idaho – When Idaho football coach Paul Petrino surveyed the offensive line he inherited, it was immediately obvious. Some of the returning linemen were “just too heavy, just too fat,” as he put it. So the Vandals coaching staff put six linemen through an intense cardio program over the winter. Mike Marboe ended up dropping 22 pounds and the five others lost at least 16 pounds each.
MOSCOW, Idaho – By his third day on the job, Paul Petrino had seen enough in the weight room and in running drills to make one definitive judgment: The Vandals badly needed junior-college running backs and linebackers. Idaho ended up bringing in five early JC enrollees to compete for starting jobs at the two positions. And after Saturday’s sun-splashed scrimmage, the first of the spring, Petrino said it was the best move he and his staff have made.
MOSCOW, Idaho – The University of Idaho needed a stable Football Bowl Subdivision home for its football program. The Sun Belt Conference needed to get to 12 teams so it could establish two divisions and a championship game. If you’re wondering why the Vandals and New Mexico State are headed back to the Sun Belt as football-only members, it’s really that simple.
PULLMAN – Ioane Gauta arrived here last fall weighing 320 pounds. He started every football game of 2012 at 305 pounds. Now he’s a svelte 286, not far from his weight during his volleyball-playing days in high school. It’s been quite a physical transformation for the Washington State nose tackle. And it started with a change in mind-set.
MOSCOW, Idaho – Paul Petrino’s first practice at Idaho was just how he envisioned: players zipping through drills, a herd of quarterbacks flinging nonstop passes, his assistants running to get in the face of anyone who dared slow down. The Vandals spent two-plus hours Friday afternoon in an all-out sprint, and Petrino could scarcely have been happier about his team’s start to spring football.
PULLMAN – The most rousing play on an afternoon that featured jarring winds, snow flurries and sunshine – just a normal spring day on the Palouse – came near the very end. Matthew Bock, a 266-pound defensive lineman, leapt to deflect a pass at the line of scrimmage. But Austin Apodaca’s throw settled into Bock’s hands, and the senior-to-be chugged 30 yards to the end zone, where he did a little jig with his teammates.
MOSCOW, Idaho – The first batch of spring practices under a new coaching staff is always important. But to head coach Paul Petrino and the University of Idaho football team, the next four weeks are especially critical. Simply put, Petrino has an intricate system. It involves a large number of base plays and packages – many more than the Vandals’ returners grew accustomed to under Robb Akey.
Either the Idaho Vandals are due, both to beat New Mexico State and advance in the Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament, or they’re bound to spend the offseason wondering what happened in close games. The answer will come at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, where No. 6 seed Idaho will tussle with third-seeded NMSU today at noon in the quarterfinals of the WAC tourney.
MOSCOW, Idaho – No Idaho men’s basketball player has played more games than Kyle Barone, and Saturday night was supposed to be his memorable home sendoff. It was all right, but maybe not in the way Barone expected.
MOSCOW, Idaho – The story is so familiar that it’s almost grown tedious for Idaho men’s basketball coach Don Verlin and his players to rehash afterward. The Vandals have no problem going blow-for-blow with the WAC’s best, as they did Saturday night. They’re also fully capable of building sizable leads, like they did in front of 1,132 at Cowan Spectrum.
MOSCOW, Idaho – Idaho men’s basketball coach Don Verlin couldn’t have asked for a better setup: four consecutive stops from his defense in crunch time, four consecutive good looks on offense. Yet none of the Vandals’ shots went in – and neither did Mike McChristian’s open 3-point attempt before the buzzer that would have sent the game into overtime Thursday night.
MOSCOW, Idaho – Before the first of his now 119 consecutive games for the University of Idaho, Kyle Barone was finishing a team meal in a Salt Lake City hotel when he got an abrupt message from one of his assistant coaches. “Hey, there’s a problem, Barone,” Mike Score hollered to the redshirt freshman. “You’ve got to go up to the front desk.”
MOSCOW, Idaho – The future defensive tackle who works out at the Seahawks’ posh training camp facility? The quarterback with a textbook throwing motion who grew up around NFL players? The running back who Nevada tried to lure away at the last minute? Idaho coach Paul Petrino concedes the Vandals probably would have missed out on all three of these players if they didn’t have UI ties. As it was, Zach Cable, Matt Linehan and Isaiah Saunders signed national letters of intent with Idaho on Wednesday, following the collegiate paths taken by their fathers.
MOSCOW, Idaho – Just over a minute into the second half, Idaho senior Wendell Faines – a 250-pound power forward who rarely strays outside the paint – stepped back and planted a 16-foot jumper. It was another pleasant development up to that point for the Vandals, who looked like they would breeze past San Jose State to earn a rare Western Athletic Conference home victory.
MOSCOW, Idaho – After the last regular-season matchup for the foreseeable future between two coaches – and two teams – who know each other like brothers, Idaho’s Don Verlin could scarcely have been more candid. “I got my butt outcoached tonight,” Verlin said after Utah State dispatched the Vandals 77-67 Thursday night at Cowan Spectrum. “They were way ahead of us all night long. No question about it.”
MOSCOW, Idaho – Kyle Barone hadn’t missed a shot Saturday night – 10-for-10 from the field – when he drove to the top of key with just over a minute left and Idaho in desperate need for something to go right. The Vandals were up by just a point and the shot clock was inside 10 seconds when Barone noticed two Texas-San Antonio defenders collapsing on him – and teammate Mike McChristian alone in the corner behind the 3-point line.
MOSCOW, Idaho – Connor Hill wouldn’t put the blame on his teammate. And Don Verlin didn’t criticize anyone but himself. But that didn’t lessen the sting of the last 3 seconds for the Idaho men’s basketball team in a 71-70 loss to New Mexico State at Cowan Spectrum.
MOSCOW, Idaho – Paul Petrino’s years as an assistant in the Southeastern Conference, Big Ten and Big East resonated with Idaho athletic director Rob Spear when the Vandals were searching for a new football coach. That experience has also served Petrino well in finalizing his coaching staff – and apparently assuaging recruits’ worries about Idaho’s football future.
