THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Kudos to Eck for awakening the ‘sleeping giant’ at Idaho

Jason Eck spoke at length about the transfer portal early last week. 

He said he’d met with his Idaho Vandals players about the portal opening, as the Vandals were preparing for their FCS quarterfinal game at Montana State last Friday night. 

He knew some players were going to enter the transfer portal once Idaho’s season was over. As much as coaches hate to see players they recruited and developed leave and not finish their careers at that school, Jason Eck gets it. 

If a player really wanted to leave, he wanted to make sure it was for a better situation — if another school was offering six figures in NIL money, well, that’s life-changing money for most college kids, especially if college is the end of their playing road, and money that Idaho wasn’t going to be able to pay them. 

Little did we know that, by the end of last week, Jason Eck would be in a transfer portal of his own. 

IN ITS first four seasons since returning to the FCS level in 2018, Idaho had four straight losing seasons. 

So when Eck took over, after six seasons at South Dakota State, and guided the Vandals to a 5-2 start in 2022, there were already murmurs about how long Idaho could keep Eck in Moscow. 

But there wasn’t much talk of Eck moving on until last Friday night, just before the Montana State game, when FootballScoop.com posted on X that New Mexico was zeroing in on Eck for its vacant head coaching job. 

Then, just hours after Idaho’s season ended with the 52-19 loss to Montana State in Bozeman, Eck was announced as the new head coach at New Mexico. 

Eck went 26-13 in his three seasons in Moscow, guiding the Vandals to the FCS playoffs each year, including quarterfinal appearances each of the past two years. 

He awakened the “sleeping giant” that he said Idaho football was when he took the job three years ago. He brought an excitement to Vandal football that hadn’t been there — at least on a consistent basis — for nearly three decades. 

Since Eck had such an FCS background, at least recently — one year at Montana State before the time at South Dakota State and Idaho, he understood what it took to win at that level. 

You wondered if trying to win an FCS championship would be enough to keep him at Idaho. 

But, as he said Tuesday when he was introduced in Albuquerque as New Mexico coach, “I was not really trying to get out of Idaho ... this was an opportunity you can’t pass up.” 

At New Mexico, he’ll earn a little more than $1 million per year with a five-year contract, with incentives that could boost that total — compared to Idaho, with $175,000 in base salary, and media obligations and other incentives that could push that total over $400,000. 

FOR THOSE worried Idaho’s recent rise will end with the departure of Eck, remember what happened last time the Vandals were a regular in the FCS playoffs, with 11 playoff appearances in 14 seasons from 1982-94. 

Dennis Erickson started the run, then left after four seasons. But Keith Gilbertson (three seasons) and John L. Smith (six years) kept the train moving. 

Of course, Gilby and John L. were on Erickson’s staff when at Idaho, so that helped with the continuity. 

There is a push from current Vandal players — yes, there still are some players still at Idaho — for the Vandals to hire Thomas Ford, an assistant at Idaho in 2022 and ‘23. 

That push must have worked, because on Wednesday, the Vandals hired Ford to replace Eck.

Ford will have to deal with a roster which included several Vandals who entered the aforementioned portal in the past few days. I've counted 22 so far, including nine all-Big Sky selections. Some of the notables include starting quarterback Jack Layne, running backs Elisha Cummings and Deshaun Buchanan, wide receivers Jordan Dwyer, Mark Hamper and Emmerson Cortez-Menjivar, defensive linemen Dallas Afalava, Malakai Williams and Aamarii Notice, linebacker Jaxton Eck (go figure), defensive back Dwayne McDougle, and defensive back/kick returners Andrew Marshall and Abraham Williams. 

The Vandals lost several key players after the 2023 season to the portal -- but not this many -- and advanced to the quarterfinals for a second straight season.

As for the Vandal tenure under Eck, how does that saying go ... 

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. 

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 X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.