There’S No Place Like Dome
The last time a property sat vacant this long, ReMax knocked $20,000 off the listing.
Hey, could that be why the Idaho Vandals decided to have an open house Saturday night at the Kibbie Dome? Are they trying to sell the joint? Maybe get into something a little bigger in a better neighborhood?
Well, yes to the last question, of course. Still, it’s a quaint - nay, a radical - notion, this actually playing a game in an on-campus stadium. What could they have been thinking? Why, just 8 miles away in another state, there’s a perfectly adequate 37,600-seat outdoor stadium on somebody else’s campus that was available.
It’s a wonder the visitors from New Mexico State didn’t take umbrage at the disrespect of it all - being invited to the servants’ quarters and not the big house. Surely, there had to be some affront there. You know, like being a homecoming opponent.
But at least the Vandals had the good sense to take the plastic slip covers off the furniture and air out the joint.
Struggling to reacclimate themselves to their old surroundings, the Vandals absorbed another bitter lesson in option football and yet somehow managed to prevail 44-41 in double overtime. This kept them in the Humanitarian Bowl hunt and sent the Aggies back to Lost Cruces, where there is no SPF strong enough to ease the burn of losing football (27 seasons in the last 31).
This is, of course, the Vandals’ last chance at a HumBowl, a good news/bad news set-up if ever there was one.
You can never accuse Idaho athletics of being static. If the Vandals aren’t changing conferences and bowl grails, they’re fending off ever-nettlesome NCAA legislation that threatens their place on the football food chain, or they’re shuttling between stadia.
Expedience having dictated that they become squatters at Martin Stadium in Pullman, the Vandals hadn’t inhabited the Dome for a game since Nov. 14, 1998, against these same Aggies. Heck, they don’t even practice indoors but once a week, which brings up an obvious issue:
Why can’t this be Washington State’s indoor practice facility?
Idaho shares Martin Stadium, the Cougs share the Kibbie. Wazzu saves $15 million or whatever the price tag is these days on what has become college football’s equivalent to the trophy wife.
Sorry. Innocent digression.
You can argue forever whether it’s better to play in an artificial, even antiseptic environment that’s three-quarters filled, or in the half-empty (or worse) great outdoors. There really wasn’t all that much argument on Saturday night, with the temperature plunging toward the teens outside.
Indeed, one of the codgerish Vandals fans even unfurled a small sign just before halftime asking rhetorically, “Doesn’t this beat sitting in the snow?”
The sentiment received polite applause nearby. But then, even touchdowns in the Dome receive polite applause.
Oh, it got a bit louder when Ben Davis booted the field goal that finally ended the longest night since the polls closed in Florida - but not as loud as it should have been, considering a rather massive exodus of seat-holders after the Vandals had fallen behind 34-27 with 1:01 to play.
Hope those black-and-gold sweaters didn’t unravel in the rush to get out the door.
Of course, when Idaho sells its tickets, the customers are never going to be quizzed about their staying power.
And selling tickets is still what it’s all about. That much was driven home in a visit from Wright Waters, the commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference - Idaho’s football address come next fall, when the Big West becomes the late, unlamented Big West.
Waters and his Sun Belt brethren have offered Idaho sanctuary in its modest collective until such time as the Vandals can find company again in this part of the world. It’s not the ideal set-up - jumping in the rack with Middle Tennessee and Louisiana-Monroe and whatever other Barron’s College Guide refugees make up the Sun Belt, but it’s better than Idaho’s alternative, which is Gilligan’s Island.
“We’re comfortable with that,” Waters said. “We need to be in the business of promoting college football, not hurting it, and if you can help an Idaho, you do it.”
This is in direct contrast to the desperate denizens of NCAA Division I-AA, who recently tried to ratchet up the requirements for I-A membership to the extent that Idaho’s little arrangement with WSU and their somewhat artificial attendance gains of late could have been voided. Those proposals were tabled - Wright didn’t think there was much support - and Idaho and its fellow I-A bottom feeders soldier on to long-term matters of survival.
“Before we even knew about that, though, we had brought our athletic directors together,” Wright said, “and said, `Look, if we’re going to get better, we need to quit worrying about making our numbers by prostituting ourselves on the road for money and start making our own money by putting people in our own stands.
“We need to start figuring out ways to bring more attractive teams to our campus. We’ve already pretty much changed the philosophy of our league.”
In the Sun Belt, the first step will be to allow individual schools to schedule their nonconference games first - possibly spread out over the course of the entire season - and then let Wright fit the conference games where he may. The point is to allow flexibility - and make it so that an NMSU, for instance, won’t be in an 0-4 hole (with possibly a slew of starters hurt) after a September of body bag games to balance the budget.
But Wazzu hasn’t had a whole lot of luck getting the bigger draw opponents to Pullman; how is Idaho, with even a smaller constituency, supposed to do it?
“We don’t need to set our sights on bringing in a Colorado,” Wright said. “But there are WAC schools and Mountain West schools we can bring in that do have name recognition.”
Naturally, it means that the Dome will have to be forever reserved for November wind-chill games against Big West - sorry, Sun Belt - opponents. It means the Martin time-share will continue, despite whatever grumblings there are on campus or from the codgers - or columnists, for that matter.
Just as long as they don’t post a for-sale sign on the front yard.