Big Sky coaches happy to have Idaho back in league

SPOKANE — Like a long-lost brother, Idaho’s football program was welcomed back into the Big Sky Conference by several of the league’s coaches Monday at the conference’s media day at the DoubleTree by Hilton in downtown Spokane.

“Really excited,” said Montana State coach Jeff Choate, who starred at St. Maries High, and later was football coach and athletic director at Post Falls High. “I’m sure it didn’t play out as they intended it to when they made the move to FBS football in the ’90s, but as a guy who grew up in St. Maries, and would drive over and see Kenny Hobart throw the ball around, and Dennis Erickson, and coach (Keith) Gilbertson and John L. Smith, all those years they were so great in the Big Sky Conference, it just seems right, and I think it’ll be a positive thing for our league, especially for some of the original Big Sky members, to bring back some of those regional rivalries that were so strong.

“I think in the long run, even though it’s been a bit of an interesting transition, I think it’ll be a positive thing for the University of Idaho’s football program.”

The Vandals played in the Big Sky from 1965-95, then moved up from what was then called Division I-AA to I-A, which was later renamed FBS. Idaho played five years in the Big West, four in the Sun Belt, eight in the Western Athletic Conference, one season as an FBS independent, and four more in the Sun Belt.

When they (and New Mexico State) were booted from the mostly southeastern-based Sun Belt following the 2017 season, Idaho officials made the unprecedented decision to drop back down to FCS (the old I-AA) and return to the Big Sky.

“It’s awesome,” Idaho State coach Rob Pfenicie said of Idaho’s return. “It’s where the Big Sky should be. You think of the days with John Friesz and (Dennis) Erickson and the wide-open passing attack that Idaho developed during the late ’80s, early ’90s, it’s awesome. I’m sure they’re not the happiest about it, but they’re back where they — and this isn’t meant to be taken the wrong way — but they’re back where they belong. It’s part of the Big Sky history.”

On Sunday, as part of some promo shots for television, Idaho coach Paul Petrino and Montana coach Bobby Hauck, who is making his own return to the Big Sky, posed for a photo with the Little Brown Stein — the trophy that goes to the winner of the Idaho-Montana football game.

The teams first met in 1903, and have played 83 times — but the last meeting was back in 2003.

“I think from a competitive standpoint, it makes it much more difficult to win the league,” said Hauck, who picked Idaho to win the Big Sky in coaches poll. “They’ve been recruiting to an FBS program for the last several years, and they’re going to be hard for anyone to beat. They’re our second-oldest rival; it was always a battle when we played them.”

Hauck played at Montana in the 1980s, and began his coaching career with the Griz in 1988.

Asked for any Vandal-Griz games that stood out, he recalled the 1988 game, when “we got em (26-17) in Missoula,” he said. “John Friesz threw the pick-6 when they were going in to get us. Keith Gilbertson was the head coach (at Idaho) and we worked together after that (at Washington), so we had a chance to revisit that a few times.”

Hauck was the head coach at Montana for the 2003 game, during his first stint, when “we didn’t have a quarterback and we sprung some things on ‘em, and we ended up getting the win (41-28).”

“Anytime you have a rivalry where you play a game for a trophy, it’s awesome,” Petrino said, “I used to love it when I was at Louisville, and we would play Kentucky (for the Governor’s Cup).”

Petrino was an assistant at Louisville in 2003 when the Vandals last played the Griz, but he still remembers that game.

“The last time they played it, my nephew (Kyle Samson) quarterbacked the Grizzlies to beat Idaho. Their top two quarterbacks got hurt, and they basically put in my dad’s option (Bob Petrino Sr.), and Kyle ran it to beat Idaho that day.

“When we played em (when Petrino was an assistant at Idaho in the early 1990s), there were a lot of great players on both sides of the ball. They had Dave Dickenson, the greatest quarterback ever there, and we had (Doug) Nussmeier. There were a whole bunch of really good players on both teams.”

Aaron Best, Eastern Washington’s second-year head coach, would like to see the Idaho-Eastern rivalry become like the EWU-Montana rivalry, which is often the game of the year in the Big Sky.

“The addition of Idaho is beautiful,” said Best, a longtime assistant at EWU before taking over as head coach. “It’s great for us and Eastern, selfishly, because it becomes a rivalry game for us in due time, but it’s also good for the conference. It enhances the conference brand. It’ll keep us honest in recruiting, because we’ll have to recruit against those guys too.”

In a way, Idaho rejoining the Big Sky cost EWU the chance to play the Griz every year. Because there are 13 teams in the Sky, and only eight league games per team, the league decide to designate two “rivals” for each school, two teams each team was guaranteed to play every year.

Idaho’s “rivals” are Montana and EWU. Montana’s other “rival”, naturally, is Montana State. EWU’s other “rival” is Portland State.

“It’s sad that they put the game on ice this year,” Best said. “We’ll go back in ‘19. I’d love to have a Montana-Eastern game every year. It’s always just a different week.”