UI’s ‘97 Schedule Painfully Familiar

Idaho’s 1997 football schedule is fairly similar to this season’s.

There are five home games and six away, just like the current one. The ‘97 Vandals will visit Air Force of the Western Athletic Conference, California of the Pac-10 and Division I-A independent Central Florida in the first four weeks. UI opened this season with losses at Wyoming and at San Diego State, two WAC schools.

“Well, I hope Cal’s not as good as San Diego State,” UI coach Chris Tormey joked. “Air Force is traditionally one of the best teams in the WAC. San Diego State has beaten Cal two or three years in a row. Cal will probably be a lot like San Diego State.”

Idaho’s move into the NCAA Division I-A Big West Conference has prompted the Vandals to schedule so-called “money games” against high-caliber opponents, in part to pay for additional program costs. One future schedule has UI traveling to Louisiana State for a big paycheck.

Interim athletic director Kathy Clark wouldn’t reveal the payouts UI will receive from Cal and Air Force. She did say both are above $100,000. It’s believed Cal will pay more than $150,000.

Vandals running back Joel Thomas has enjoyed facing San Diego State and Wyoming.

“We should have won at Wyoming,” he said. “For a lot of us, we were overlooked players, not good enough to be at the big-time programs. It’s a matter where we can prove we’re a good program and we want that respect.”

Idaho’s 1997 home games will be against Portland State of the Big Sky, UC Davis (homecoming), and Big West games versus North Texas, Utah State and Boise State. Central Florida is expected to come to Moscow, possibly in 2000.

“I hope we don’t ever have more than two California- or LSU-type teams in one season - at least for the next couple years, until we can get our scholarship numbers up to 85 and improve our facilities and those kinds of things,” said Tormey, who is operating with 72 scholarships this year.

“But there’s an upside to everything and the upside to playing California and Air Force is that the kids get excited about going into a program that’s going to play the best competition. We can go into California this year and recruit and say, ‘Hey we’re playing Cal-Berkeley next year.’ That’s going to help us a lot in recruiting.”

The Vandals will need faster players to become more competitive at the I-A level, Tormey said. “We’ve got a lot of talented athletes, but we don’t have very many 4.4 guys and that’s what you need on both sides of the ball. We’ve got a handful; I imagine San Diego State has about two dozen.”

Tormey’s long-range goal is to “get the program to the point where we could be like the San Jose State teams of a few years ago, where we could go compete with anybody.”

Big West notes

Utah State’s Abu Wilson became the Big West’s all-time rushing leader with 3,378 yards. He ran for 139 yards in Utah State’s 57-27 win over Cal State-Northridge.

Nevada had opportunities but couldn’t pull off an upset of Oregon on Saturday. The Wolf Pack had drives stall at Oregon’s 8 and 5 in a 44-30 loss. Nevada used two quarterbacks, Eric Bennett and John Dutton (shades of Chris Vargas and Fred Gatlin), who combined to pass for 434 yards. Receivers Geoffrey Noisy (12 catches, 162 yards), Damond Wilkins (9-117) and Trevor Insley (6-119) all surpassed 100 yards.

Idaho has a trio of receivers averaging more than 100 yards per game in Robert Scott (121.5), Antonio Wilson (108.5) and David Griffin (102).

Gametime for the Idaho-Nevada duel in the Kibbie Dome on Oct. 19 has been switched from 3 p.m. to noon to accommodate TV in the Boise area.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: 1997 UI schedule Home games all caps *-Big West game Aug. 30 at Air Force Sept. 6 PORTLAND STATE Sept. 13 at California Sept. 20 at Central Florida Sept. 27 bye Oct. 4 NORTH TEXAS* Oct. 11 UC-DAVIS Oct. 18 at Nevada* Oct. 25 UTAH STATE* Nov. 1 at Eastern Washington Nov. 8 at New Mexico State* Nov. 15 bye Nov. 22 BOISE STATE*