Idaho combats summer heat with high energy on first day of camp

MOSCOW, Idaho – Running around for 2½ hours in 90-degree temperatures Wednesday morning did not noticeably take much bounce from the Idaho Vandals’ steps for the first day of preseason practice .

“Everyone brings it on the first day,” senior tight end Jake Cox said. “It’s the same with this group.”

New Vandals head coach Thomas Ford Jr. agreed.

“I was most impressed with how sharp everybody was,” he said. “Seeing these guys play actual football was fun.”

Redshirt junior linebacker Dylan Layne got the year’s first practice award for “flying around, making plays and talking, making sure everybody was lined up,” Ford said.

Although “actual football” is a misnomer, since no one was in pads and won’t be until Monday, the effort as the Vandals did position drills, pass skeleton and 11-on-11 work didn’t seem to flag in the heat.

Ford said everyone running with the No. 1 offense and defense earned the position because of the work they put in over the summer, but he said nothing was cast in stone after the first practice.

Nonetheless, there were takeaways from the first workout.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Holden Bea seems to have earned a promotion. He was in a quarterback rotation with Joshua Wood and Nick Josifek that got all the reps with the leaders on offense, although Bea was roughed up in a pass skeleton period when he was intercepted by Kamari Baker and Jona Turagavou – who snagged a tipped pass over the middle – on back-to-back plays.

Josifek, who inaugurated a couple of spring scrimmages with a downfield pass to Emmerson Cortez-Menjivar, did the same thing with a 20-yard strike over the middle in a team period.

Wood tried the same thing, but Cortez-Menjivar was either tightly defended by cornerback Khalid Rawls – or held – and the pass sailed over his head. Wood came right back to hit him on an out route.

Wood, a transfer from Fresno State, took the majority of snaps with the first-team offense. Ford has said he would be surprised if Wood does not win the starting job, but the battle to back him up continues among Josifek, Jack Wagner, Bea and Rocco Koch.

An offensive line of Layton Vining at center, Leon Evans at right guard, Kiegan Henson at right tackle, senior Nate Azzopardi at left guard and Charlie Vliem at left tackle might well start against Washington State in the season opener Aug. 30.

Senior Elisha Cummings looked quick at running back. He has plenty of company in the backfield, though, as the Vandals can probably comfortably go five deep at the position.

Ford said he was pleased to see Cox, who missed most of last season with a knee injury, back at tight end.

“He’s our most experienced guy at tight end … He’s a playmaker,” Ford said.

Cox said he was like “a kid at Christmas,” getting up at 1, 3 and 5 a.m. before the first practice. He went through the workout without any protective equipment.

“There was no sleeve involved with the injury. I am 100% back,” he said.

Azzopardi, linebacker Isiah King and defensive tackle Zach Krotzer were named to the All-Big Sky Conference preseason team. King is gradually being worked into repetitions while recovering from an injury .

Krotzer, senior Sam Brown, defensive end Mitchell Jaskowiak and Mississippi Valley State grad transfer Donovan Parham got most of the first-team work on the defensive line. Lane, Will Cornelson and King look like they have a leg up at linebacker, and a new secondary of safeties Zach Wusstig and Hayden John, and cornerbacks Baker and Khalid Rawls may be forming.

Parham said he came to college as a freshman as a safety, grew through being a linebacker, and is an edge rusher with the Vandals. In looking for a place to play a final season, he said he was drawn to Idaho’s facilities, the 50-year-old Kibbie Dome, but mostly to Ford.

“He’s a people person,” Parham said. “It was a no-brainer to come here.”

While Parham toiled in Mississippi heat earlier in his career, he learned Wednesday that Idaho also gets hot. He had to drop out of several defensive line drills to have a trainer stretch out hamstring cramps.

“I got these tights on,” he said after practice. “I was trying to look cute.

“I know it now.”