Idaho defense leaves footprint on day one of camp

MOSCOW – There was a time when Kaden Elliss could beat out most of his defensive buddies at Idaho in a footrace.

And now? Elliss, a junior linebacker who was perhaps the most productive player for the Vandals on defense last year, considers himself a snail among cheetahs.

“I went from winning a couple of races to losing them all,” Elliss said Tuesday after Idaho wrapped up the first day of fall camp in Moscow.

That’s not because he’s lost a step, either. Everyone around him has just picked up the pace.

The Vandals, especially those adorned in white defensive jerseys, did seem to hit a new gear during the first day of camp and the general consensus – from the head coach to the starting quarterback to the visiting TV reporters – was that Idaho looked a touch faster Tuesday evening.

“Everybody,” Elliss said. “The DBs, the D-linemen, the linebackers.”

Just how contagious has team speed been for the Vandals?

“Even the long snappers,” Elliss said. “Everybody’s gotten faster and you can give a lot of that credit to our strength coaches. … We wanted to make this a special year and we knew one way to do it is get faster than ever.”

Special or not, it will be Idaho’s last in the Sun Belt Conference and as an FBS-affiliated program. The Vandals matched the best record in program history last year, going 9-4 while claiming an emphatic 61-50 win over Colorado State in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

But the banner season, nor the fact that the Vandals return a fourth-year starter at quarterback, Matt Linehan, and more than half of their defensive starters, did Idaho much good when preseason media polls were released. The Vandals were picked to finish sixth in the Sun Belt.

“I think the chip on the shoulder remains,” Linehan said. “I don’t think any of that’s changed. Our mentality remains the same. We feel like we’ve been disrespected by a large amount of the country. I think we’re going to continue to do what we do to show people what we’re about.”

Linehan, who’s on pace to break nearly every Idaho passing record this season, mostly saw new faces when he looked across the line of scrimmage while operating the No. 1 offense Tuesday evening. The Vandals bring back just one of their top five receivers from last season, and only two starting offensive linemen.

Which makes it all the more important to have a 35-game starter running the show behind center.

“He’s a four-year starter,” Idaho coach Paul Petrino said of Linehan. “Anytime you can get a four-year starter at that position – he just understands the position so well, he’s a great leader, everybody believes in him and he understands what I want on the plays. I expect him to have a super senior year.”