Jason Eck's Idaho team beat an FBS team, but can it become the best of the FCS?
Barry Alvarez wanted to help his team bond, so he decided to throw a formal dance.
The 1996 Wisconsin Badgers were told to find dates and put on suits. This being a group of 18- to 22-year-old football players, what happened next was less senior prom and more You Got Served. A dance contest broke out.
Jason Eck went into that night as an unassuming redshirt freshman offensive lineman. After making the final three of the dance battle against future NFL players with far more rhythm, Eck walked out a legend.
“For a big white guy,” Eck said, “it was a very solid performance.”
The wider college football world found out Saturday what those Badgers have long known. Because after Eck’s Idaho team beat Wyoming 17-14, Eck got down.
Eck, 47, has taken the long road to becoming one of the nation’s buzziest coaches. His first full-time coaching job was as Idaho’s offensive line coach from 2004-06 (when Idaho was an FBS program), and other than those years and a two-year stint as Ball State’s offensive line coach, he’s worked at the FCS level since. Six years as an assistant at South Dakota State — the last three as offensive coordinator — helped Eck get the head coaching job at Idaho prior to the 2022 season. And now he’s trying to bring the Vandals to the level he helped the Jackrabbits reach.
Part of that rise is beating FBS teams when the opportunity presents itself. That opportunity presented itself in week one in Eugene, but the Vandals couldn’t finish the job. They gave Oregon hell, emptying the trick-play tank on offense and repeatedly stuffing the Ducks’ offense, before ultimately falling 24-14.
So Eck spent last week trying to keep his team from believing a loss was a win. When the Vandals got back to Moscow, everyone outside the program treated them as if they’d beaten Oregon. But Eck couldn’t let his players believe that. A loss — no matter how encouraging — is still a loss and therefore unacceptable.
“I did put them on guard,” Eck said. “We’re still building the culture and expectations at Idaho.”
A trip to Laramie (elevation: 7,215 feet) loomed. Eck and his staff had scoured video of Wyoming’s season-opening loss to Arizona State and reasoned that the Cowboys would be better against the Vandals than they were against the Sun Devils. Still, Eck knew his team could win even though the Vandals had to start their backup quarterback. Redshirt freshman Jack Wagner was making his first career start after Jack Layne went down in the Oregon game.
After watching Idaho’s rotation of 11 defensive linemen wear out Oregon’s offensive line, Eck felt confident the Vandals could turn Wyoming’s thin air against the Cowboys’ blockers by forcing them to constantly face fresh players.
It worked.
Edge rusher Keyshawn James-Newby had three sacks, including a sack of Evan Svodba with two minutes remaining that knocked the Cowboys out of field goal range and effectively ended the game.
Now Eck has to get his team ready to face Albany, the team that knocked the Vandals out of the FCS playoff last season. This will be Idaho’s home opener, and for those unfamiliar with the quirkiest venue in college football, Vandals’ home games are special.
They play in the Kibbie Dome, the smallest domed stadium in Division I. It holds 15,250, but Eck believes it only takes 9,000 people to make the place deafening. “It’s all wood,” Eck said. “So every noise just bounces back.” The goal posts aren’t planted in the ground. They hang from the ceiling. The walls loom just beyond each end zone, and visiting receivers sometimes shy away from fade routes lest they smash into one.
Some Albany players already know this. The Danes beat the Vandals in Moscow last year. Of course, the teams will look dramatically different thanks to the transfer portal. Reese Poffenbarger, Albany’s quarterback from last year, plays at Miami. Anton Juncaj, the Danes’ best pass rusher in 2023, now plays for Arkansas. Linebacker Xe’Ree Alexander, who broke out as a true freshman at Idaho last season, now plays for UCF. Anthony Woods, Idaho’s leading rusher last season, now plays for Utah.
Eck has seen plenty of coaches leave for six-figure raises, so he doesn’t begrudge players for doing the same thing. He has changed his recruiting strategy, becoming more regional with the hope that proximity to home might help convince players to stay maybe one season longer. He’s trying to rally local businesses to help with NIL deals, but these aren’t private jet travel or free leased car NIL deals.
What does an NIL deal at Idaho look like? One player signs autographs so that a local AirBNB host will allow the player’s parents to stay for free on game weekends.
The world also could be changing around Eck. He went to bed Wednesday night to news that Oregon State and Washington State were re-forming the Pac-12 by taking four schools from the Mountain West. Eck immediately knew the next logical speculation. Perhaps the Mountain West will try to backfill by taking Montana and Montana State, which could make Idaho the best program in the Big Sky Conference but also could devalue the conference.
Of course, if Eck keeps winning, he also might have the opportunity to move to the FBS whether Idaho gets invited back or not. He can’t think about that right now, though. Just as his team couldn’t treat the Oregon loss as a win lest it blow its chance to actually beat an FBS team at Wyoming, Eck can’t think about anything but the Danes. He remembers how it felt the last time Idaho and Albany played.
But if the Vandals have the Kibbie Dome rocking when Saturday’s game ends, expect Eck to be dancing again.