Vandals eye a payout — and a win?

Idaho at Nevada • Today, 4 p.m. • TV/Stream: SWX, Mountain West Network • Radio: 92.5 FM

By MARK NELKE

Sports editor

Money games are a necessity for many schools in college football.

The Idaho Vandals play one or two of them a year, with the check from the other (bigger) school helping fund the athletic department.

In recent years, Idaho’s biggest concerns with these money games have been 1) getting annihilated on the scoreboard and 2) getting decimated by injury.

But last year, neither happened in Year 1 under head coach Jason Eck — the Vandals led both Washington State and Indiana before eventually falling.

And their key players remained relatively intact.

That’s why Idaho, coming off its first playoff appearance since returning to the FCS level in 2018, is viewing today’s game at Nevada (and next Saturday’s game at California) as more than just a chance to pick up a large check for some three hours of work.

“This is a game that’s winnable,” Eck said earlier this week, in his weekly meeting with area media. “We’ll have to play very, very well, we may need some help from them, but I don’t think we’re coming in here as 40-point underdogs. Try to make it a fourth-quarter game, and see what happens.”

(The checks are nice, too. Idaho will receive $400,000 from Nevada, and $650,000 from Cal.)

Idaho (1-0) opened last Thursday with a 42-17 win at Lamar. Nevada (0-1) fell 66-14 at USC.

Eck noted that FCS schools went 0-42 vs. FBS schools in Week 1.

“I think the transfer portal is a big part of this,” he said. “Nevada has so many transfers from USC, Oregon, Cal, the starting quarterback is from Colorado … used to be those guys would have to sit out or transfer down to be able to play right away, and now they’re eligible right away.

We’ve got our transfers from Montana Tech and Lincoln University in Missouri, and Eastern New Mexico, so not quite like getting transfers from USC, Oregon, Cal and Utah. So it’s going to be a challenge, but with a challenge comes an opportunity.”

There’s also the 85 full-ride scholarships for FBS teams vs. 63 for FCS schools — and many of those are split up among additional players.

Still …

“Though they have some inherent advantages, it still comes down to those 60 minutes on the field,” Eck said. “The beauty of football is, it’s one game, it’s not a seven-game series.”

Idaho junior safety Tommy McCormick and his brother, senior safety Sean McCormick, grew up in Fallon, Nev., some 60 miles east of Reno.

Tommy said he’s attended several Nevada home games, but this will be his first time playing in the stadium.

“Very excited,” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to this game for many years, since I’ve seen it on the schedule. Going to have a lot of people there, a lot of family and friends.”

As for the chances of beating Nevada?

“We’re feeling really confident,” Tommy said. “We feel like we have an even better team than we had last year going in.”

Nevada, under second-year head coach Ken Wilson, went 2-10 last season, and has lost 11 straight.

Jamaal Bell caught eight passes for 121 yards and a touchdown last week. Quarterbacks Brendon Lewis (the Colorado transfer) and AJ Bianco combined to throw for 311 yards.

“It’s tough to look at their film from last week and garner too much from it,” Eck said. “I know this, they’re going to be fired up, I’m sure they’re looking at this as a get-right game.”

Eck said Idaho needs to run the ball more consistently than it did last week at Lamar, win the turnover battle (the Vandals lost it 2-1 last week) and cut down on pre- and post-snap penalties.

“The message in these games is, we’re going to play aggressive, going to play to win,” Eck said. “Not try to keep it respectable, but go for the win. I think you have to take some chances and be aggressive to pull off the upset.”