THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Up to Idaho to make Griz game must-see again

There is an old story out there somewhere — I couldn’t find it on the internet, and you should be able to find just about everything on the internet — about the little kid who pitches in an afternoon pickup baseball game with the other neighborhood kids at the local ball yard.

At the end of the afternoon, after the game is over and the kid goes home for dinner, his parents ask him how the game went.

“I had a no-hitter,” he said, somewhat forlornly, “until the big kids got out of school.”

This Saturday, the Idaho Vandals meet the “big kids.”

VANDAL FANS are understandably excited with the start of their football team, under first-year coach Jason Eck.

Playing a couple of Power Five programs — Washington State and Indiana — close in losses to open the season was an improvement over previous years, when Idaho was routinely pounded by the bigger schools, in exchange for a rather large check to help fund the rest of the athletic department.

Then, winning their first two conference games for the first time since 2009 added to the giddiness.

And rightly so.

When you’ve been a mostly losing program for more than two decades, you celebrate any optimism you can find.

However Montana, whom the Vandals play Saturday in Missoula, is not Northern Arizona and Northern Colorado.

The Griz are ranked second in FCS, and have had their way with Idaho since the Vandals returned to the Big Sky in 2018 — winning all three meetings by an average of 21 points. Montana welcomed the U of I back to the league by essentially rubbing its face in a pile of … mud.

THIS GAME will be the litmus test for Idaho, which was picked to finish eighth by the coaches, ninth by the media, in the Big Sky this season.

Sure, wins over NAU and Northern Colorado (the western version of UNC) were nice. But NAU was picked to finish seventh in the Big Sky. Northern Colorado was picked to finish 11th.

There are only 12 teams in the league.

Then again, Idaho had lost two of three meetings with NAU since rejoining the league, and lost its only previous matchup with Northern Colorado, so there’s that.

Montana, meanwhile, was picked to win a conference which sent another Montana school — the Bobcats of Montana State — to the national championship last year.

Idaho vs. Montana used to be a must-see game in the 1980s and early ‘90s, as Griz fans flocked to Moscow, and Idaho fans did likewise to Missoula. This year’s 2–2 start has Vandals pining for those good ‘ol days.

But unlike those days in college when the girl got away, or later on in life, when your beloved dog(s) crossed the Rainbow Bridge, it’s possible for these good ‘ol days to come back.

Eck, the new coach, has brought the requisite enthusiasm to the program — and perhaps just as important, his staff has brought in a number of high-impact players.

And some of the players from the previous regime are performing better this year.

Eck, an assistant the past six seasons at South Dakota State, knows what life is like near the top of the FCS food chain. The Jackrabbits made the playoffs each of those six seasons, including a trip to the national championship game in the spring 2021 season.

So he gets the last word on the state of the Vandals at this point.

“I don’t know if we’re a team right now that’s scaring the Webers, and Sac States, and Montanas and Montana States yet," Eck said before last week's game with Northern Colorado, "but I think if we can continue to get better, we could be a team that can scare those guys eventually.”

How soon that will happen, we’ll get an idea on Saturday.

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.