Vandals recall abbreviated trip to Florida in 2014

Dorian Clark didn’t figure he was going to play in 2014, the last time Idaho visited Florida, when Clark was a true freshman.

But the cornerback from nearby Bradenton, Fla., wasn’t about to let his high school buddies on to that.

“I’m just leaving high school, all my friends think I’m a superstar, playing D-I football,” said Clark, now a fifth-year senior for the Vandals. “Everyone’s texting me, ‘can’t wait to see you score a touchdown, or get an interception.’”

It was Clark’s first college game. Sort of.

“We only played one snap, so I didn’t have to go through with those lies,” Clark recalled. “I kinda got saved by the weather in that game.”

The Aug. 30 game in Gainesville was scheduled to start shortly after 7 p.m. Eastern time. It was repeatedly delayed by lightning, and finally started after a delay of 2 hours, 48 minutes.

Then, on a rainy night, the aptly named Valdez Showers of Florida returned the opening kickoff 64 yards to the Idaho 14. The play took 10 seconds. But before the Gators could run a play from scrimmage, more lightning was detected, and the teams were sent back to their locker rooms. Some 50 minutes later, the game was called.

It was never rescheduled. Idaho was paid $975,000 by Florida for essentially 10 seconds of work. Saturday, the Vandals will receive a check for $1.2 million from the Gators for hopefully a full game of work.

Idaho wide receiver David Ungerer, also now a fifth-year senior, was also a true freshman in 2014.

“I was supposed to start the first two plays of the game, so that was a lot of the nerves I had going into the game,” Ungerer recalled. “Warming up on the field, it was a feeling like not many I’ve had before. ... this is where all the hard work pays off.”

He remembered “having to chill” in the locker room waiting for the delayed game to start. When it finally started, only the students remained on the Florida side, he recalled.

“It was still the loudest environment I’ve ever been in,” Ungerer said. “I’ve never been more ready to play a game. It was a short special moment, and I’m looking to play a whole game this time.”

In 2014, Paul Petrino was beginning his second season as Vandals coach. He’s wrapping up his sixth season at Idaho now.

(Florida, meanwhile, has had four coaches since that 2014 opener. Will Muschamp was beginning his fourth season in Gainesville, but he would be gone with one game remaining; D.J. Durkin was interim coach for the ’14 finale.

Former Eastern Washington quarterback Jim McElwain took over in 2015, but was gone with four games remaining last year; Randy Shannon was interim coach the final four games. Dan Mullan took over as head coach this season.)

“We just sat there forever,” Petrino said of that 2014 game. “We ordered something to eat (while they waited in the locker room through the nearly 3 hours of lightning delays). It was just kind of a crazy day. And then we got back on the bus, got back on the plane and came home. It was a pretty unusual day for sure.

“And it almost happened the next week at Monroe,” Petrino said of the game at Louisiana-Monroe. “That was a delay forever, too, and then we finally got to play that day.”