TUESDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK: Don't call this season a failure just because the Idaho Vandals don't make the playoffs
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Nov. 11—COMMENTARY
The Idaho Vandals are in the first year of a rebuild, maybe a reconstruction or a renovation.
No matter which term you choose, the reality is that ex-Vandal and current New Mexico coach Jason Eck left last year. Eck revitalized the program into a contender each of his three years, and frankly, he took some of the Vandals' top talent with him.
This is Thomas Ford Jr.'s first year at the helm of the program. I mentioned last week that he is building a brand new culture. That is not something that happens overnight — it will take time.
It is incredibly easy to see one down year and say, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" However, if you view this year as a complete failure, you are surely mistaken.
Ford's multi-year plan is to build the Idaho football program up to be a perennial contender again and to use his own guys, the players that he recruits and the players that he chooses to transfer over to Idaho, to become a powerhouse again.
The Idaho headman said it himself in the postgame news conference on Saturday.
"Because I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon," Ford said. "I want to build this program the way I know it can be built, and I know we have a lot of key pieces that want to do the same in the era of the transfer portal. You get worried about a bunch of guys leaving, but I don't see that in this group. I think they want to stick together. They want to see this through, and they know how close we are to being a great football team."
Don't get me wrong, if you're a Vandal fan, you can totally be upset with the loss against UC Davis on Saturday, which took away the Vandals' chance at the playoffs. The offense struggled mightily, and Idaho simply failed to play complementary football again, where both sides were clicking.
Not making the playoffs sucks. It does. I'm positive that Ford, the coaching staff and the players are as upset, if not more upset, than you, avid Vandal reader and die-hard fan.
However, there are good signs already showing on this incredibly young Idaho team.
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This is a team that only returned one starter on defense, yet is third in the Big Sky Conference, just behind the major powerhouses, Montana and Montana State, in scoring defense.
They had an off week against Northern Colorado and were "punched in the mouth," Ford said. I was wrong about being wrong about this defense; this is indeed a top defense in the Big Sky, as predicted in the preseason.
Defensive Coordinator Cort Dennison has lived up to the title of "mastermind" given to him by linebacker Dylan Layne. His is a solid unit that held a top offense to just 28 points and just seven points in the second half last week.
On offense, quarterback Joshua Wood is a huge bright spot. If the Vandals can retain him this offseason, a more mature Wood, who is more comfortable in the offense, will be a game-wrecker for many opposing teams.
The offensive line has shown to be one of the most consistent units on this team, and the run game has had some success. Offensive line coach and run game coordinator Loren Endsley seems to have that on lock. They will lose sixth-year left guard Nate Azzopardi, who has been a leader and vital to that success, but the rest of the offensive linemen are juniors or younger, so the majority should return.
Ford has repeated that this end of the year will give younger players opportunities to get more reps, see more live football and simply get better.
"I think our young players have grown tremendously," Ford said. "I was actually talking with Hayden John and Matt Irwin, a couple of sophomore safeties for us, and they were like, 'Coach, man, just think about how much better we are right now than we were maybe Week 2.' And I say, 'Well, think about how much better you'll be in a year.' And so I think that those guys have really developed, not only from on the field, like physically, but mentally, probably even more so mentally, being able to handle tough situations, be able to handle adversity, battle back in a lot of ways."
Ford said that the Vandals went from an immature team that "didn't necessarily handle adversity well" to a team that has handled adversity much better, which showed in the overtime win over Northern Arizona.
In his weekly Monday news conference, Ford was clear that although obviously he does not want to lose, and that it is always disappointing, he's learned from his mentors that handling how you lose is the crucial part of losing. If you lose and don't learn anything, that's a failure, which leads to bad coaching and potentially a bad team.
"Probably the biggest thing that I've learned from the people that are closest to me in terms of mentorship is you only lose if you don't learn. If you keep (continuing) to make the same mistakes, well, that's coaching, and I think we're just making different mistakes," Ford said. "We're certainly not perfect, far from it. And obviously, this year has been disappointing in the aspect that we're not a playoff team. But I also look at our roster and see the growth that we've made. And I look at that kind of nucleus of guys that are second (and) third-year guys, those guys will all be back. The only difference this time is they'll have 500-1,000 snaps under their belt, depending on which kid it is. And I think we still have really put together a lot of key building blocks for the future of this program."
So yes, it's OK to look at this year and be upset that the Vandals didn't make the playoffs. But my tip is don't dwell on that feeling too long. Grieve the season for a few days, shoot maybe a week or two. But then start to look ahead. There is hope to be had when predicting the Vandals' future.
Junt can be reached at 208-848-2258, tjunt@lmtribune.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @TrevorJunt.
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