It’s been seven seasons since the Idaho Vandals have played in a bowl game, and six seasons since the Vandals have seriously threatened to play in one.

This year, with Idaho at 4-3 (2-1 Sun Belt) and with five games remaining to pick up two more victories to become bowl eligible, the Vandals are being mentioned in bowl projections. Saturday, the Vandals play at Appalachian State (4-2, 2-0) (12:30 p.m, ESPN3, 92.5 FM).

Two ESPN staffers have Idaho playing in the Arizona Bowl in Tucson on Dec. 30 — one has them playing Wyoming, the other, Nevada. Sports Illustrated also has the Vandals in the Arizona Bowl, against Texas-San Antonio. USA Today also has Idaho in the Arizona Bowl, against Colorado State.

In Idaho’s two bowl appearances since moving up to FBS in 1996, both have been in The Bowl Hosted by Boise, in 1998 and 2009. These days, that bowl pits the Mountain West vs. the Mid-American Conference.

Now, six wins does not guarantee a bowl bid, but with 40 bowl games to fill, it’s a good bet six wins would be enough.

Idaho coach Paul Petrino, whose Vandals won just six games total in his first three seasons in Moscow, welcomes the bowl talk. Bowl eligibility has been a stated goal of the program almost from the minute last yer’s 4-8 season ended.

“I think it’s great,” he said. “It’s great for our players, especially the ones that have been here for four years, and been through a lot of fights and struggles, and all that hard work.

“We got to keep one game at a time,” he said Tuesday. “It’s all about the process ... the most important thing is today’s practice, we’ve got to go out there today and get better.”

Recruiting Matt: With Idaho junior quarterback Matt Linehan coming off of the best games of his career in a 55-23 thrashing of New Mexico State in which he earned Sun Belt offensive player of the week honors, Petrino was asked again how he attracted Linehan to Idaho.

“I coached with Matt’s dad (Scott, a former Idaho quarterback and now an assistant with the Dallas Cowboys) years ago at Idaho, and we were assistants together at Louisville,” Petrino said. “I remember Matt when he was 3 years old. When I was with the Falcons and Scott was head coach of the Rams, I remember seeing Matt on the field before the game, he might have been a freshman then. When I got the job at Idaho he was a senior so I contacted him and got tape of him. Then I watched him play a basketball game, to be honest with you. I saw how competitive he was. He was a great basketball player; he was probably going to go play basketball in college before we started recruiting him. I just knew his knowledge of the game, and how much he’d been around the game, and how well he could throw it. It was very fortunate for us that we got him to come here.”