THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: As Idaho looks for next football coach ... can anyone win in Moscow again?

In the second half, as Idaho was getting humiliated 71-21 by Eastern Washington, on the red turf of Roos Field in Cheney last month, I glanced over to the Vandal sidelines while I was down on the field taking pictures.

There, off in the distance, near one end of the field, away from the players and coaches, was Terry Gawlik, Idaho's athletic director, standing next to a few other folks, all pretty much expressionless as EWU piled up the points on the Vandals.

At the time, I wondered what she — and they — were thinking about watching their "brave and bold" getting pummeled by a more-talented regional rival.

Now, we know.

Gawlik and the Vandals announced the firing of football coach Paul Petrino, in his ninth season, earlier this past week, just days before Saturday's season finale at Idaho State.

(Sadly, Saturday's "Battle of the Domes" football game between Idaho and Idaho State became the "Battle of the Dones," as Idaho State announced the firing of Rob Phenicie, its football coach, hours before kickoff.)

REACTION TO the Petrino move came from both sides.

Many players had good things to say about their coach — good father figure, and all that.

Others had not-so-good things to say about their experiences with him.

Years ago, early in his career in Moscow, Petrino got into it with the media over his perceived "negative" coverage of his team — and being angry with the media in this market takes some doing.

I was fortunate to get a few one-on-ones with him, and he was always open and honest and informative.

(Phenicie, for that matter, was entertaining to chat with the few times I met with him briefly at Big Sky media days in Spokane. He was engaging, told some great stories about former players and coaches from our area, and was the kind of person you root for to turn around a program that also seems perennially tough to turn around.)

But whatever you thought of Petrino (or Phenicie) personally, ultimately it comes down to wins and losses.

Petrino was 33-66 entering Saturday's game. (Phenicie, in his fifth season, was 16-34).

The man Petrino replaced at Idaho, Robb Akey, was about as likeable a coach as you could imagine. The media and fans loved him, he was the darling of ESPN with his interview at halftime of the 2009 Humanitarian Bowl, a bowl game the Vandals went on to win.

However, his teams suffered some beatdowns, some understandable in "money" games and some not-so-understandable in conference games, and he was ultimately let go late in his sixth season at Idaho.

Rob Spear, then the AD at Idaho, noted all those positive qualities of Akey when he announced the dismissal of his football coach in 2012.

"But at the end of the day," Spear noted, "he was 20 and 50."

At the end of the day, Petrino was 33 and 66 when the Vandals pulled the plug.

Petrino, a regarded offensive coordinator in college football before being hired at Idaho for his first head coaching gig, won some big games in Moscow. Idaho won three bowl games while in FBS; and Petrino was the coach for one of those victories, in 2016. He produced some NFL players.

But, since returning to the Big Sky Conference in 2018, there always seemed to be a game or two each season that Idaho needed to win to stay relevant in the FCS playoff conversation.

Under Petrino, Idaho beat Eastern twice in five meetings. Wins like that would spark hope, but then there would be another game or two later in the season the Vandals needed to win, but would come up short. Usually not by a blowout; either a come-from-ahead loss, or an excruciating defeat where Idaho might have outplayed the other team, but still fell short.

Montana, Idaho's "other" regional rival — some would say "only" regional rival — has handled the Vandals in all three meetings since 2018.

Montana State is 2-0 vs. Idaho — albeit by just eight points total, with both games in Bozeman.

Idaho is 2-1 vs. Portland State, but just 1-2 vs. Idaho State heading into Saturday's finale. The Vandals are 0-2 vs. UC Davis, lost their only matchup with Weber State, and were 10-19 in conference games prior to Saturday.

The Vandals have players to compete at this level — whether they have enough, or just need a different voice to guide them, is another question.

And for some games having your only available quarterback being a converted running back is either an unfortunate or unlucky situation, or an inability to recruit (or keep) enough quarterbacks so that doesn't happen, depending on which side of the fence you're on.

You may be surprised to learn that Petrino was Idaho's longest-tenured football coach — unless you count the combined 10 seasons of John G. Griffith, who guided the Vandals more than a century ago, from 1902-06 and from 1910-14. But either way, Petrino's 100 games coached in Moscow are the most.

When you lose, you are the butt of jokes.

People even ridicule the Vandals having to play indoors, in a dome, not in a "real" football stadium.

North Dakota State plays in a dome. North Dakota State wins FCS championships. Nobody jokes about North Dakota State playing indoors.

WHETHER ANYBODY can win at Idaho these days is a fair question.

After their "glory days" run in Moscow in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Vandals struggled after moving up (along with Boise State) to the FBS in 1996, with just five winning seasons in 22 years — and only two (the bowl seasons) since 1999.

Swallowing their pride and dropping back down to the FCS level in 2018 was supposed to be the magic elixir for the Vandals returning to those "glory days."

But four more losing seasons followed.

Petrino's Vandals showed they could compete (mostly) at this level; maybe the next hire can bring in the formula to get Idaho back to challenging for Big Sky titles and FCS playoff berths.

Or maybe we'll be having this discussion again in a few years.

IDAHO REFERRED to the coaching change as "parting ways," and in some ways, that's a pretty accurate description.

Petrino tried. Idaho tried. For years. But it just didn't seem like things were going to change, that the Vandals were going to make that next step.

It wasn't so bad that Vandal leadership would just stop the car at a red light, get out of the car and RUN. Or make the head coach just get out of the car and RUN.

It really was the proverbial time to "go in a different direction." For both sides.

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