THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Tough year for coaches, as well as some teams

When we took our annual guess-timate in August on how our major college football teams would fare this fall, we didn't include an over/under on the number of coaches that would finish the season.

Maybe we should have.

Two of the four coaches (at Idaho and Washington State) didn't survive the season — and if you count the Huskies, it's three of the five.

And if you count Idaho State, that's four of the six.

Anyway, here's how the football seasons went — and in some cases, are still going — at Idaho, WSU, Boise State and Eastern Washington, compared to how we thought they would unfold.

Idaho: It wasn't the year of the Vandals — again.

We pegged Idaho to go 5-6 and the Vandals finished 4-7, 3-5 in the Big Sky Conference.

Idaho didn't make the FCS playoffs for the fourth straight year since returning to the Big Sky in 2018. Late in the season, the Vandal brass opted to do the proverbial "go in a different direction" and cut ties with coach Paul Petrino after nine seasons.

(That set up the bizarre season finale pitting Idaho at ISU — and Petrino and ousted Bengals coach Rob Phenicie sharing pink-slip stories at midfield after the Vandals' 14-0 win.)

Aside from perhaps losing a few too many conference games than he should have, Petrino did about as well as could be expected given the limitations (and the body-bag games) that come with playing in Moscow.

Now the question is, which will come first — the announcement of the new football coach at Idaho, or the first day of the early signing period, which is Wednesday.

Washington State: Years from now, when folks look back at the history of the 2021 Cougar football season, they'll likely scratch their heads when they read the head coach was fired in the middle of the season because he refused to get vaccinated.

Really?

That WSU went 7-5 (we thought the Cougs would go 5-7) and is still practicing, looking forward to playing in the Sun Bowl on Dec. 31 vs. Miami, is somewhat of a miracle.

(It's also somewhat the result of playing in a mediocre Pac-12. But hey, history might not paint that part of it that way.)

In any event, WSU did a relatively seamless job recalibrating after Nick Rolovich was fired and defensive coordinator Jake Dickert was promoted to replace him.

The Cougs capped the regular season by clobbering the Huskies in U-Dub's home stadium — which would have been cause for celebration even if WSU had not won any other games this season.

We get celebrating beating the Huskies for the first time in nine seasons — and for the first time in Seattle since 2007. We also get the symbolism of planting the WSU flag at midfield — though we wonder how effective that would be on artificial turf.

Boise State: Like WSU, the Broncos finished 7-5.

But the similarities — given how high the bar is set for the two programs — end there.

We pegged BSU for a 10-2 season, but apparently something was lost in the transition from Auburn-bound Bryan Harsin to new coach Andy Avalos, a former BSU player.

The Broncos lost three conference games — two more than they should EVER lose in a season — and two of those losses came on the vaunted blue turf.

Boise State didn't even qualify for the conference championship game — which should be the minimum requirement for the Broncos, who should annually be the cream of the Mountain West Conference. After all, when other conferences look to poach schools from the Mountain West, they aren't looking for Colorado State.

However, BSU did beat the team that went on to win the conference title game (Utah State), so go figure.

Eastern Washington: We had the Eags going 9-2 in the regular season and that's exactly what they did, proving even the blind squirrel finds the nut sometime.

EWU fans were miffed their lovable Eags didn't receive a first-round bye in this year's playoffs — then had to travel to Montana in the second round on a short week.

After all, EWU beat Montana during the regular season. But EWU also lost at home to Montana State, which made the playoffs, and Weber State, which didn't.

Maybe the FCS committee looked at all three games as part of the "big picture."

Maybe it looked at 24,065, which is what Montana drew to that quarterfinal matchup vs. EWU, vs. 3,845, which is what the Eagles attracted to its first-round matchup vs. Northern Iowa.

Who knows?

Besides, playing at home is no guarantee for EWU. Four times since winning the FCS championship in 2019, Eastern was eliminated in the playoffs on its home turf — in 2012, '13, '14 and '16.

All that is not to detract from another entertaining season in Cheney — highlighted by a 50-point beatdown of "rival" Idaho on the red turf. It's just to look at the other side.

The bigger question — will Eastern have a quarterback as dynamic as Eric Barriere ever again? The Eagles have had some outstanding QBs in recent years, but most have been pocket passers, none of them running threats like Barriere.

As we look forward to next season and beyond, wouldn't EWU vs. Boise State be an interesting nonconference game? Red Turf vs. Blue Turf?

It would have to be played in Boise because of the size of its stadium, unless Eastern could convince the Broncos to come up to Spokane and play at Albi Sta ...

Oh, wait.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.