THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Sunday, December 6, 2015

We underestimated the Vandals and Cougars, gave Boise State too much credit, and were pretty close on Eastern Washington.

In other words, another year of trying to predict how the area’s Division I football teams might fare.

Idaho: After years of drinking the Latah Creek wine (figuratively, of course) and picking the Vandals to win more games than they did, we toughened up and picked Idaho to finish 2-10.

So they showed us.

The Vandals finished 4-8, their best season since 2010. And if they hadn’t coughed up a couple of big leads on the road in back-to-back weeks, Idaho could be sitting at 6-6 and poised for its first bowl berth since 2009.

And with nine starters returning on offense and roughly half the starting defense back, the Vandals should be even better next year.

Question is, where?

The Sun Belt has the option to boot Idaho (and New Mexico State) after this season. The commish said winning would be one criteria used whether teams stay or go.

Maybe Texas State, Troy and Louisiana-Monroe, who each lost to Idaho and who each finished below the Vandals in the Sun Belt standings, should be kicked out instead.

Next year, anything short of becoming bowl-eligible will be a disappointment for the Vandals — and when was the last time anybody said that?

Boise State: Boy, talk about getting caught up in the thick bacon at JB’s in Meridian.

We thought the Broncos would finish 13-0 and, if a lot of things fell in their favor, could be in the running for the College Football Playoff.

Instead, they finished the regular season 8-4. They went 0 for 2 in Utah. Boise State, the bullies of the Mountain West the past few years, also shockingly lost two conference home games in back-to-back weeks.

They’ll still go to a bowl game — just not the glamour one their faithful envisioned at the start of the year.

On the bright side, they likely found their quarterback for the next three years in Brett Rypien, the ex-Shadle Park star and nephew of you-know-who.

Washington State: We had the Cougs going 6-6, and beating the Huskies in the Apple Cup to become bowl-eligible.

WSU did better than that, going 8-4, despite getting trampled in the Apple Cup. The Cougs find out today where they are headed for their second bowl game in three seasons.

And to think, a couple months ago, there were questions whether Mike Leach was indeed going to be the Cougars’ saviour.

WSU lost its opener at home to Portland State of the FBS, and had the Cougs not rallied the next week to win at Rutgers, would have started 0-2 again and could have been headed for a second straight disaster of a season.

But WSU turned it around, with victories at Oregon and UCLA among the most impressive ones.

And now Leach knows what he’s doing again.

Eastern Washington: We thought they’d struggle a bit without Vernon Adams at quarterback, but not THIS much.

We picked the Eagles to go 8-3, but EWU finished 6-5 — starting 0-2, then losing its final three Big Sky games, including a bludgeoning at Montana, to miss the FCS playoffs.

Adams’ replacement at QB played well at times but then struggled, and lost his job. As explosive as Eastern’s offense can be, its defense continued to give up points at an alarming rate — in nine of their games, the Eagles allowed 34 or more points. No matter how good your offense is, that’s too many points to allow.

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@CdAPressSports.