THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Behind the breakout seasons of Idaho receivers Hayden Hatten and Jermaine Jackson — with some Tommy Hauser stories thrown in

Surely you’re aware of Idaho receiver Hayden Hatten’s stellar season in 2022.

But you probably haven’t heard the story about his backyard, a teammate and a deer.

More on that part later.

And you probably know of the impact Vandal Jermaine Jackson had as a receiver and kick returner last season.

But did you ever wonder if that name sounded familiar?

More on that later, as well.

HATTEN (6-foot-2, 205 pounds) caught 83 passes for 1,209 yards and 16 touchdowns and helped the Vandals return to the FCS playoffs for the first time since rejoining the Big Sky in 2018.

Jackson (5-7, 170) had 54 receptions for 1,049 yards and four touchdowns in 2022. He also returned a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns.

Both were named first-team all-Big Sky. Hatten was named first-team AP All-America.

“I’ve got to give it to him (Hatten) for sure, he helps me get open,” Jackson said last month at the Big Sky Football Kickoff in Spokane. “Of course Gevani McCoy and our offensive line do a great job, so it’s an 11-man sport; everybody plays a part in it.”

“I hope you know the feeling is mutual,” replied Hatten, sitting a few feet away from JJ. “It’s very nice having a counterpart like JJ. It really just makes it tough on defenses to know which one to double. It gets to the point where … it really puts defenses in a bind, if we line up on the same side of the field, or on separate sides of the field … are you willing to run Cover 2 on both sides of the field, or cloud both of us? It makes it really tough.

“You saw against teams like Portland State, that were backed up against us, we had people like (running back) Anthony Woods absolutely gash ’em,” he added.

Idaho, 7-5 last seasons, opens Thursday at Lamar in Beaumont, Texas.

WHEN JASON Eck was hired as Idaho coach shortly after the 2021 season ended, he watched tape of the returning players, including his two soon-to-be-star receivers.

Hatten missed much of the 2021 season with a shoulder injury, and Jackson was coming off an injury as well.

“We were excited about them, and I saw what kind of people they were right away,” Eck said. “JJ really impressed us; he was healthy the whole time, probably one of our hardest workers."

Hayden missed a lot of spring practice (in 2022) because he was coming off his shoulder injury.

“It probably wasn’t until the end of the regular season where he really got healthy and he really got comfortable with the offense. … he really caught his stride once we got to conference, and played tremendous for us.

“I think receiver’s a great strength of our team. We have two preseason (all-conference) guys and we have a few other guys who are very good players as well.”

Did Eck see a breakout season coming last year from Hatten and Jackson?

“I think we were ready for it,” he said. “We do a little exercise with our coaching staff on who are our best skill players, who are guys we have to get the ball to, and JJ might have been No. 1 going into last year, and the guys might have had Hayden a little lower, because they hadn’t seen them as much. But once you saw him in the heat of battle, I think we had a pretty good idea what kind of year they could have. They just fit really well in our offense.

“Coach (Luke) Schleusner (the offensive coordinator) does a great job of making it (the offense) flexible, and we can get the ball to our best players. They’re great weapons to have, and we’re going to use them a lot in our game plans this year.”

And if defenses adjust, the Vandals will be ready to adjust.

“So it’s kinda pick your poison,” Eck said. “And I think our tight ends should be licking their chops, because it will probably open up some opportunities for them as well, with all the weapons we have at other spots as well.”

FOLKS OF a certain age will hear the name Jermaine Jackson and automatically wonder …

“No connection,” Idaho’s Jermaine Jackson said of any possible tie to Jermaine Jackson of the Jackson 5. “My father, he passed away, rest in peace, he was Jermaine Jackson, so I was just named after him. I was supposed to be a junior, but I couldn’t be a junior, they forgot to put it on the birth certificate.”

Not that the subject didn’t come up while he was growing up …

“I used to hear about it all the time,” Jackson said. “Every day … ‘Tito? Where’s Tito?’”

However …

“He sings that good, too,” Hatten said with a laugh.

JACKSON TOOK the junior college route to Idaho.

From San Leandro High in Oakland, he played two seasons at the College of San Mateo in California. He transferred to Idaho in the summer of 2020, then was injured when the Vandals played their fall 2020 season in the spring of 2021 because of COVID-19. He came back and played four games in the fall 2021 season (catching eight passes for 93 yards), and used it as a redshirt year (football players can now participate in a maximum of four games in a season and still redshirt).

“That’s a big part of him having a good year (in 2022) was just being healthy,” Eck said. “And he practices his butt off, and keeps getting better.

“These guys (Jackson and Hatten) are not only two of our best players, but two of our hardest workers, and it’s a good sign of the leadership of our team, when your best players are your hardest workers.”

Hatten, from Saguaro High in Scottsdale, Ariz., grew up roughly 150 miles from Flagstaff, home of Northern Arizona of the Big Sky Conference. But …

“I was not the most recruited kid coming out of high school,” Hatten said. “This (Idaho) was my only Big Sky offer. I visited NAU five times and they wouldn’t pull the trigger on me, being from Arizona.”

Hatten was always confident in his abilities, even if others — including the Big Sky school up the road from his hometown — weren’t.

As a sophomore in the spring 2021 season, he caught 43 passes for 613 yards and three touchdowns in six games, and was named first-team all-Big Sky.

Hatten’s numbers last year surpassed his combined totals (68 catches, eight for TDs) from his first three seasons in Moscow.

“It’s easy to be bypassed during that COVID year because, it was the COVID year,” Hatten said. “The following year I had a great game against Indiana (10 receptions for 94 yards and two touchdowns), and then I got hurt, and it’s easy to scratch somebody’s name off the list when they’re not playing. It just put another chip on my shoulder to go out and prove to everybody what I can do. The first couple of games of the (2022) season were break-in games for me and the whole team, and as I started to get more comfortable with the offense, the coaches started to get more comfortable for me. And it’s something I’m very thankful for. I was able to build trust with them, and they trusted me back, and guys like JJ and ‘Vani have helped the entire team be better. That was really important, for us to grow trust in each other.”

THE LOCAL angle in the Idaho receiving room is Tommy Hauser, a sophomore from Post Falls High.

As a freshman last season, Hauser saw action in three games, catching two passes. He got some run in the Vandals’ spring game, and could be in the mix for some playing time this fall.

But that’s on the field. Off the field …

“He was, like, hunting, and I guess a turtle bit his finger, and I thought that was pretty funny,” Jackson said.

Hatten shared a funny tale about Hauser.

“So I’m on the (golf) simulator, and I get a call — ‘Hey Hayden, I just went hunting this morning and I got a buck. I need to skin it, and I can’t skin it at my apartment, like in the front yard, or everybody’s going to lose their mind. Can I use your backyard?’” Hatten recalled.

Hatten, his brother Hogan, the Vandals long snapper, and their cousin Jack Hatten, who plays on the Idaho men’s basketball team, live in a house Hayden and Hogan’s parents arranged for them near campus in Moscow.

“I was like, ‘Yeah man, of course, bring a tarp I’m not helping you. Not that I’m against it, but I’m not going to go down there … you and Brent Tommasini can do it,” Hayden said. “Hunting’s the easy part; people don’t realize how hard it is to clean it, and butcher it properly. Yeah, it was hilarious. My neighbors thought we were crazy; just us out back there, hacking away at a deer.”

As far as Hauser on the football field …

“He’s developing,” Jackson said. “He played with us last year, the Eastern Washington game, we were down receivers and he had the opportunity to play. He stepped up, and caught one of the first passes of the game, a little comeback route. He’s improving every day. He works hard. I like Tommy Hauser in our receiving room for sure.”

Added Hatten …

“I think Tommy’s a great receiver. I think his best characteristic is something you can’t teach, and that’s between his ears. He’s a hard-working kid, he’s an absolute grinder. His brother is in the military, they’re a military family, and you can tell he was raised right, he is willing to put in the hours to get the results, and I think that is something that’s taken for granted nowadays. A lot of people just expect to get put on a pedestal, and they don’t want to do the work to get there, so I really respect Tommy for it. He’s got a different mentality, that’s for sure.”

THE TRANSFER portal being what it is, coaches have to “re-recruit” their players each year.

Following last season, a handful of stars from other Big Sky schools took advantage of the one-time “free” transfer rule (where a player doesn’t have to sit out a year) to take a shot playing at an FBS school.

Jackson and Hatten chose to stay put.

Hatten said Idaho taking a chance on him out of high school factored into his decision to remain in Moscow.

“I’m just appreciative of JJ, and Vani, and the offensive line that we have, and the coaches that we have,” Hatten said. “I have a great sense of pride being a Vandal, and it’s something that I will never take for granted, I’m very thankful to be able to say I wore the black and gold, and got to play in the Kibbie Dome, and I can’t wait to have a family and take them back and show them the Kibbie Dome. It puts a smile on my parents’ face, my face, We’re just proud Vandals."

“I’m sure JJ had people reach out to him, and I had people reach out to me, and I took it with a grain of salt,” Hatten added. “I knew that deep down inside, there’s not a monetary value that could replace the amount of love and passion the Vandals have shown me and my family.

“Those schools didn’t want us back then; why would we want to go to them now?,” Jackson added.

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.