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Idaho Football

Idaho notebook: Vandals slated for two national broadcast games, ranked No. 10 in preseason poll

Idaho wide receiver Emmerson Cortez-Menjivar runs around defensive back Jacob Skobis in the team’s spring game on April 25 at the Kibbie Dome in Moscow, Idaho. (Geoff Crimmins/For The Spokesman-Review)
By Peter Harriman The Spokesman-Review

MOSCOW, Idaho – Idaho’s football team has reassembled for summer workouts .

Coach Thomas Ford had some news for the Vandals when he addressed the team Friday. Idaho will be featured in two regular-season games broadcast by ESPN, on Sept. 27 against Montana in Missoula, and Oct. 31 against Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, Arizona. The NAU game is slated for ESPN2. The ESPN network for Idaho’s game against Montana for the Little Brown Stein trophy has not been announced.

“I wish we would have had at least one here (in Moscow),” Ford said, while acknowleding the increased viewership the network games bring to the program.

“It gives a lot of incentive to the players to know everybody in the country is going to be watching you,” he said.

“If you are watching ESPN those days, you are watching the Vandals.”

Ford added there will be a “heightened awareness on the practice field,” in anticipation to the matchups.

The Montana game will be Idaho’s third of the season following an opener on Aug. 30 at Washington State and a home game against Utah Tech on Sept. 13.

A tough stretch to open the season will give the Vandals “a really good idea of where we’re at,” Ford said.

The Vandals are ranked No. 10 in the HERO Sports preseason poll. Montana is tied with Illinois State for seventh place. NAU is 19th in the poll.

Ford said the Lumberjacks may still be ranked for their meeting on Halloween.

When Idaho beat Montana 30-23 in 2022 to capture the Little Brown Stein for the first time since 1999, former Vandals coach Jason Eck paraded the trophy around the UI campus and Moscow for days. Winning it seemed to make his year.

“It’ll make mine,” Ford said.

Ford was an assistant on the Idaho team that lost the trophy when the Grizzlies edged the Vandals 23-21 in Moscow in 2023.

“It was so frustrating,” Ford said, “because I knew we were not going to play in 2024.”

As they begin summer workouts and look ahead to preseason camp, the Vandals are still not sure who will start at quarterback. Redshirt sophomore Nick Josifek seemed to pull ahead of fellow redshirt sophomore Jack Wagner during spring ball, with redshirt freshmen Holden Bea and Rocco Koch trailing those two.

Following spring camp, Idaho signed redshirt sophomore Joshua Wood from Fresno State in the transfer portal . Ford said Wood may emerge as the starter.

“(Wood) has a leg up on talent and experience, and he has picked up our offense quickly,” Ford said.

In his first two days in Moscow, Wood had met with Ford and offensive coordinator Matt Linehan.

Whatever version of the Vandals’ two-deep roster comes out of preseason and the first two games will be sharply focused when Idaho prepares for the ESPN game at Montana.

“We are going to want to show the nation what we are doing here in Moscow,” Ford said.

• The Vandals’ No. 10 ranking in the HERO Sports Preseason Top 25 Media Poll, announced Wednesday, is the third consecutive season UI has been ranked in the top 10 .

The poll was formed with ballots from four of the foremost authorities in FCS Football – Sam Herder from HERO Sports, Kevin Marshall of FCS Nation Radio, Zach McKinnell of The Bluebloods and FCS Football Central, and Jamie Williams of FCS Fans Nation.

Other Big Sky programs ranked in the Top 25 include Montana State, second; Montana, seventh; UC Davis, 11th; Sacramento State, 12th; and Northern Arizona, 19th.