THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Vandal coach Ford on O-line coach Endsley, recruiting Idaho and the Montana effect (part 4)

Second-year Idaho head football coach Thomas Ford Jr. met Loren Endsley years ago, when Endsley, a Lake City High graduate, was an assistant coach at Dakota Wesleyan and Ford was at Simon Fraser.

“We recruited Western Washington pretty hard and it seemed like every kid we offered, coach Endsley’s offering at Dakota Wesleyan,” Ford recalled. “It’s like, it feels like he’s following me everywhere.” 

When Ford was an assistant at Idaho a few seasons ago, Endsley was an assistant at Ohio. One summer, Endsley visited the Idaho campus, and talked football with the Vandal coaches. 

Last year, after Ford took over as head coach at Idaho, he hired Endsley as the Vandals’ offensive line coach. 

“Obviously you never really know until you get the chance to work with him, but I’ve always known him to be a real detail-oriented guy, really hard worker, and he’s definitely that,” Ford said recently, while in town to attend an Idaho football recruiting function at The Coeur d’Alene Resort. “He shows up to work every day, and I think he really believes in the things that we’re preaching as a program. I would say he’s as bought in as any coach that I could have. He's definitely a guy I love having on the staff.” 

Ford said Endsley had a “huge impact” in his first season as the Vandals’ O-line coach. 

“I thought coach Endsley did a phenomenal job with that group,” Ford said. “That was really the most consistent group on our whole team all season. We improved in all the major statistical areas you want to improve in — rushing yards, rushing yards per attempt, number of sacks allowed ... we minused that number by almost 15 from the year before.  

“I think he’s done a great job of instilling a mentality in that group. It’s important to those guys, especially the mental side of the game. Those guys get together on their own, even in the winter, twice a week. I think that group has been a very, very bright spot in the program moving forward.” 

ON WHAT FORD COULD TAKE FROM MONTANA STATE WINNING THE NATIONAL TITLE 

“Just continuing to believe in high school recruiting, knowing that sometimes the in-state guys may take a little longer, but having that patience to develop guys, you see that with them,” Ford said of the Bobcats. “They have a lot of Montana kids on their roster that they didn’t just throw away after two years. Those guys stayed in the program, and they have a lot of fourth- and fifth-year guys playing. So I think they do a really good job with high school development ... they just play a physical brand of football. I think if you’re going to win in December, you’ve got to be physical, and that’s definitely something we want to continue to do.”   

ON WHY MONTANA AND MONTANA STATE HAVE MANY MONTANA KIDS ON THEIR ROSTERS 

“I think there’s a couple of advantages,” Ford said. “In Montana there is no Boise State, there is no bigger school, so those two schools are the biggest schools in the state, so unless a kid gets an offer from a Boise State, or a Wyoming or a Nevada, why would you leave the state when you don’t have to? I think they’ve done a really good job with that market, understanding that they’re going to take a ton of those guys and some of those guys aren’t even scholarship players to start. But they care about their programs, they want to represent their state, and I think there’s a lot of merit to what they’re doing with a lot of those kids.” 

It’s not that simple in Idaho. 

“There was a couple guys last year, we felt really good about them, and then, at the last minute, Boise offers them, and now we can’t get them,” Ford said. “It’s really tough to recruit in-state kids against those guys.   

In this past year’s class, Ford said most of Idaho’s top players ended up at FBS schools.  

“I think we’ll continue to find the guys, and find guys that might not be ready right now, or maybe there’s a kid in Arizona who’s a little better right now, but this kid hasn’t had that much development,” Ford said. “We still want to find those guys.” 

Even if they’re a bit off the beaten path. 

Last year, Sawyer Hewett came to Idaho as a preferred walk-on from Kendrick High. This year, his former high school teammate, Nathan Tweit, is headed to Moscow. 

“That kid is going to be an absolute stud,” Ford said of Tweit. “But he didn’t play his junior year (due to injury), he’s playing eight-man football, probably not a lot of schools stop by Kendrick. But we did. Coach Endsley and I went to Kendrick and saw him in person, and met him in person, and we’re going to take him. Because he’s a guy, again, maybe there’s some kids that we watched as juniors last year that were better, but this kid is going to develop, and could be better long-term.” 

ON WHAT FORD LEARNED FROM LAST SEASON THAT WILL HELP IN HIS SECOND YEAR AS HEAD COACH 

"This year’s staff is a little more complete from a leadership standpoint,” Ford said. “Bringing in Ian Shoemaker on offense is really big. He’s a guy that’s been a head coach, he’s done this for a really long time, he’s a veteran guy, and so I think I can be a little bit more of a true head coach where I don’t have to spend as much time with the offense. Which at times I knew I had to do a little bit last year. ... So that’s a big one, spreading my time out a little more, being able to help out a little more on defense, and special teams, than I did last year.  

“And then just having the understanding of expectation. I think last year I probably put expectations that didn’t match our experience (in what turned out to be a 4-8 season). And so really focusing on the process this year ... Let’s not worry about a Big Sky championship, let’s not worry about a playoff appearance, let’s worry about getting better.” 

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.