UI can stay home for home games

After nearly a decade of battling NCAA Division I-A football attendance requirements, recent legislation appears to cut Idaho a break and probably ends the Vandals’ need to rent Washington State’s Martin Stadium.

Beginning this fall, the NCAA has approved two options – averaging 15,000 paid (ticket sales) or actual (fans in the stands) attendance once over a rolling two-year period. Previously, the latter was the only option.

Drawing 15,000 actual attendance would have been challenging for Idaho, but athletic director Rob Spear is confident UI can reach 15,000 paid attendance by utilizing corporate ticket packages and perhaps reinstituting the dormant 12th Man program (purchased tickets that are donated to area grade school students).

“It’s a great deal for us because it takes the guesswork out of scheduling and where we’re going to play,” Spear said. “It really helps us plan for the future.”

Idaho has played nine “home” games, not counting its annual date with Washington State, at Martin Stadium since 1999 attempting to satisfy attendance requirements. The new rules should allow Idaho to play all its games in the Kibbie Dome, unless a highly anticipated matchup emerges that would significantly exceed the Dome’s 16,000-seat capacity. Under those circumstances, Idaho would consider playing at a neutral site, Spear said.

Existing rules allow tickets purchased at 50 percent of face value to count toward paid attendance, but those could be altered, Spear said. Actual student attendance also counts, Spear said.

The NCAA adopted the new rules after seeing the effect on attendance by Mother Nature, specifically hurricanes in the south last year.

Tentative WAC schedules

The new-look Western Athletic Conference will have nine schools, which makes basketball and volleyball scheduling difficult. Nine doesn’t divide evenly by two. Rather than adopt “odd-man out” or “travel partners” scheduling models, the WAC settled on a mix of both versions.

That means Idaho and Boise State are sometimes paired up, but not always. Same goes for Fresno State-San Jose State, Utah State-Nevada, Louisiana Tech-New Mexico State. Travel costs will be higher, but no school will be left as the odd-man out. Every school except Hawaii and New Mexico State will have some split weeks – one home game, one away in the same week.

The basketball schedule could change because of ESPN’s Big Monday and the Bracket Buster event.

“Really by a lot of pencil and eraser, we tried to come up with something that made some sense,” said Jeff Hurd, WAC senior associate commissioner and schedule-maker. “There are some inequities in the schedule and some are affected more than others, but for the most part we were able to address most of the issues.”

For basketball and volleyball, games are usually Thursday/Saturday with occasional games on Wednesday and Monday. The Vandal men’s basketball team, for example, entertains Hawaii on Wednesday, Feb. 22, and then visits New Mexico State on Saturday and La Tech on Monday. Idaho’s men are at Fresno State on Jan. 18 and home to San Jose State three nights later.

“Some weekends are going to be very difficult for you, some won’t,” Idaho men’s coach Leonard Perry said. “It all evens out. I think they did the best they could.”

Idaho volleyball, an NCAA Tournament participant the last two years, has one split week (at Nevada on Nov. 10, home vs. Boise State on Nov. 12).