The Front Row with MARK NELKE Feb. 10, 2013

Much has changed about Moscow and the University of Idaho since Paul Petrino last worked in these parts, as a Vandal assistant football coach from 1992-94.

The Vandals have long since departed the I-AA Big Sky Conference in football, the weight room and the Kibbie Dome have been upgraded, the worn-out grass practice field has been replaced by artificial turf ...

And Petrino, then a lowly-paid assistant, no longer has to rely on the local Chevron station for late-night dinners from under the heat lamp at a discount.

"The Chevron's still there," Petrino said the other day in Cabin 5 at The Coeur d'Alene Resort, prior to a booster function to showcase his first recruiting class with the Vandals. "I still stop there in the morning. Coach (Ronnie) Lee couldn't remember which one we used to go to (Lee was also an assistant at Idaho in the early 1990s), so I took him there and showed him where it was."

AS AN assistant on his brother's football staff, Paul Petrino said his older brother, Bobby, often would assign him duties that a head coach would normally handle - as a way of training Paul for when he eventually became a head coach.

Two months into his first head coaching gig, with the Idaho Vandals, Petrino barely has had time to come up for air.

"It seems like you're busy from sunup to sundown, then you lay in bed and think there's a million things you didn't get done," said Petrino, 45. "But it's been real exciting. I'm real happy with the staff that we put together. It's been great getting around the players and seeing them start to understand how we're going to do things. I think their work ethic's been good ... it's been a great time so far."

His wife and three children are still in Arkansas, and plan to move to Moscow once the kids finish the school year.

After 10 coaching stops in 23 years, Petrino is determined to see his two oldest children — freshman twins — graduate from Moscow High.

One thing Petrino doesn’t want to talk about the recent past — that the program has had just one winning season, and five different coaches, since 1998.

He speaks of looking forward, with a quiet confidence of someone who has had success as an assistant coach at some much-bigger programs, such as Arkansas, Illinois and Louisville.

“There’s no question in my mind, in three years we’ll be really good,” Petrino said. “(But) we need to start being good this first year.”

Petrino, a native of Butte, Mont., touched on several topics, including:

• Evaluating the current players. He said despite the busy recruiting season, he’s tried to be around them at least one day a week, sometimes two. They obviously can’t practice until spring, but he’s been able to watch tape on them, and observe them in the weight room and in the running they’ve been able to do outside.

“I haven’t got to see ’em live in pads, but I’ve got to see ’em move and do speed and agility work ... so I think I’ve have a pretty good feel for what kind of athletes they all are,” he said.

• Selling Idaho, despite the Vandals playing as an independent in 2013 ... and perhaps beyond. He said first he sells the position coach to recruits, then the coordinator, then the head coach.

“And then you sell, it’s a safe place to go play,” Petrino said. “It’s a chance to play Division I football but still be in a smaller atmosphere where you get more one-on-one in the classroom, more people that know who you are around town and on campus, (you) still have the ability to play big-time football but in a smaller, safe community.”

Petrino didn’t want to dwell on the negative recruiting other schools would use against Idaho, noting, “most people that negative recruit don’t have a very good opinion of their own program.

“The only thing they had to get on us was ... a lot of people would say that we weren’t in a league,” he said. “I just said (to recruits), ‘Hey, we’re going to go out and put a great program on the field.’”

Petrino said he thinks Idaho might have to play as an independent for one season, “two at the most.”

“We’ve had four or five Sun Belt teams calling us because they were short a game because some teams from the Sun Belt went to Conference USA,” he said. “So the teams are going to move around. There’s going to be leagues that need a team. We’ve just got to go out and have a great season, show that we’re making progress and put a good product on the field, and we’ll end up in a league — there’s no question in my mind.”

• On the advantage of recruiting with a new staff, offering a fresh start:

“I think that always gives you a new thing to sell,” he said. “You can sell that it’s new, things are going to change. No matter where you are, that usually helps. You look back, talking with my brother (Bobby) the other night, our first year at Louisville and our first year at Arkansas were probably our best two recruiting classes. Because I think when you are new, the newness helps you sell, and also you’re scrambling and you’re working so hard and you’re going off what you see on film ... when you have a whole year, sometimes you over-evaluate and maybe you turn down a kid or two.”

• Idaho staying in Division I, or dropping a level to the Big Sky in a year or two:

“I wanted to be the coach here regardless (of whether Idaho stayed D-I or not). But we want to stay Division I. ... that’s what we’re going to work hard to do,” he said.

• On quarterback Chad Chalich and wide receiver Deon Watson, former Coeur d’Alene High standouts who redshirted last fall with the Vandals:

“I’ve been around them a lot,” Petrino said. “You can already tell that Chad’s a real leader. He works hard, he’s kind of a gym rat. He’s always around. You can’t help but see him all the time. It will be exciting to get him out there in spring ball, and he’ll have a great chance to compete and come out of spring ball as ... somebody’s going to come out of there as the starter. I’m sure in his mind, it might as well be him.

“I think Deon is really working hard. He’s got a nice body; he’s just got to continue to work on his quickness. But you can see flashes of it. This morning we were running 40s, and some change-of-direction things, and you see him, he definitely has a lot of talent. I expect them both to end up being real good players for us.”

• On the logjam at quarterback. There are six on scholarship — two junior college recruits, one freshman coming in to join the three returnees, senior Taylor Davis as well as Chalich and Austin DeCoud, who also redshirted last fall as a freshman. One of the JC QBs, former USC walk-on Anthony Neyer, will compete at spring practice with the three returnees. The other, Josh McCain, will join the team in the fall, as will high school recruit Matt Linehan. Petrino said Linehan will redshirt this fall.

“I think the more competition you can get, that it makes everybody better,” Petrino said. “Whoever’s 1 and 2 (coming out of spring ball), I see them competing against the McCain kid that’s coming in next fall.”

As for Chalich and DeCoud ...

“Any time you have two kids in the same class, a lot of times after spring ball one of them will leave,” Petrino said. “One guy will beat out the other guy and one will leave. At least (that has happened at) most of the places I’ve been. That happens a lot of times. To me, I looked at it as, yes, there’s two of them, but there’s a good chance there’ll only be one at the end of spring ball.”

Or one could switch to another position, he said.

“But that’s the No. 1 position where you need to have a great player. Not having recruited the other guys and seen a bunch of tape on them, I just wanted to make sure I had enough competition, and in the end we’d have a great player.”

• But still, isn’t six a lot of quarterbacks to have in a program, when only one can be the starter?

“Usually you have three or four,” Petrino said. “Really, to be honest with you, most of the places I’ve been, we’ve had less than most schools. Most schools probably had five, or four on scholarship. There’s been a couple of years where we’ve had three. That’s scary. One year we went to the Gator Bowl at Louisville, and Brian Brohm hurt his knee, so we were starting Hunter Cantwell, and if he’d have been hurt we’d have been in big trouble. We’d probably had to put (tailback) Michael Bush back to quarterback.” Bush came to Louisville hoping to play quarterback, but wound up playing several other positions, including running back.

Petrino said that might have factored some into his decision to be well-stocked at QB at Idaho.

“We’re going to have plenty of guys,” he said.

• On his relationship with the local high school coaches:

“I know (Lake City) coach (Van) Troxel real well,” Petrino said. “He was coaching in Montana when I was playing. He was head coach at Hellgate (in Missoula) when I was playing at Capital High (in Helena). It was when he first started out there. We won, (but) they had a good team.”

Toward the end of the recruiting season Petrino and Vandal assistant Patrick Libey visited several of the high school coaches in the Spokane-North Idaho area — including Coeur d’Alene coach Shawn Amos — mostly to say hello.

“Henry Hamill (former Coeur d’Alene and Lake City assistant) and my dad are real good friends,” said Petrino, who played for his father, Bob Petrino Sr., at Carroll College in Helena. “Henry Hamill sat in my front room and hung out with my dad plenty of nights. My dad’s brother coached with Henry when Henry won a state title in Glasgow. He was his defensive coordinator.”

• On having shorter, quicker receivers vs. big, tall receivers:

“I’m just into playmakers,” he said. “We’ve played with big receivers, and we’ve played with little receivers. I’d like to have a combination of both ... You definitely have to have a couple that have that shake to them and can change the game on a 6-yard catch, make everybody miss and go for a touchdown, or return a punt for a touchdown.

“You want to have a couple of big guys that are physical, that can hold the edge blocking ... you’ve got to have a couple of big guys to take care of your little fast guys, too.

“I think our offense has always helped us recruit good receivers.”

• Will the Vandals be a traditional passing team, or will they run read option, which is all the craze these days?

“Depends on who our quarterback is,” Petrino said. “We have a big menu (of plays). At Illinois we ran shotgun and read option. With Ryan Mallett and Tyler Wilson (traditional pocket passers) we didn’t do any of that. With Stefan LeFors we did a little of it. The same year at Louisville, Stefan LeFors and Brian Brohm played quarterback, and they were totally different guys.

“We have our bread and butter that we’re going to run, no matter what, and then there’s different things that we’ll adjust depending on who our quarterback is,” he said.

And with that, Petrino was off to prepare for the booster function, where the food was professionally prepared — a step up from the discount eats from the gas station.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.