COMMENTARY: Gritty Vandals get first-round bye and home playoff game

If you would have told me that the Idaho Vandals would go through four quarterbacks and four running backs this season on top of losing most of their star players from the previous year, I would’ve said that even making the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs would be a slim chance at best.

Nope.

Not even close.

Idaho learned Sunday that it will be hosting a home playoff game in the P1FCU Kibbie Dome for the second straight season.

Top-8 seed in the FCS playoffs? Check.

First-round bye in the playoffs? Check.

Hosting a home game in the playoffs? Check.

Idaho coach Jason Eck and his battle-tested Vandals (9-3) are the No. 8 seed and will host the winner of ninth-seeded Richmond (10-2) and unseeded Lehigh (8-3) at 6 p.m. Dec. 7 at the Kibbie Dome.

With starting quarterback Jack Layne playing just his fourth game of the season and co-starting running back Nate Thomas back after missing a pair, the Vandals trounced their in-state rival Idaho State 40-17 on Saturday in Pocatello.

Layne went 17-of-22 passing for 234 and three touchdowns, Thomas racked up a career-high 171 rushing yards and the UI defense limited the Bengals to just two touchdowns in front of their home crowd.

Throw in Andrew Marshall’s 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown, and it was a complete game for UI in all three phases.

The victory not only kept the inaugural “Potato State Trophy” (previously called “Battle of the Domes”) in Moscow, it also meant the Vandals get to play in the Kibbie Dome at least one more time.

That’s huge news for an Idaho team that is undefeated in the Dome this season (5-0) for the first time since the mid 1990s.

“Really excited to get the first-round bye,” Eck said Monday. “I think that’s really where you want to be in this tournament — to be one of the top-8 teams. I know the committee has a really tough job to put together everything, so we’re very appreciative to have the bye.”

Not many FCS teams had a tougher schedule than the Vandals this season. According to the Massey Ratings, the Vandals boast the sixth-toughest slate in the FCS this year.

Idaho’s three losses this season came to No. 1 Oregon, the top team in all of college football; Big Sky champion and top-seeded Montana State; and fifth-seeded UC Davis.

“I think our schedule was as tough as anybody’s,” Eck said. “You look at it and there’s only two (undefeated) teams left in Division I football — Montana State and Oregon — and those are two of our three losses.”

How about this fun fact: Idaho played two FBS teams this season — the Ducks and Wyoming. The Vandals lost to the Ducks by 10 points — the fewest of any team not named Boise State, Ohio State or Wisconsin.

And UI beat Wyoming 17-13 on Sept. 7 — the exact same score that BSU defeated the Cowboys by on Saturday. That’s a BSU team that is 10-1 and currently projected to get its own bye in the College Football Playoff.

The gritty Vandals held on and won the games when they mattered most. The only real goose egg was their 38-7 loss to then-No. 3 Montana State on ESPN2 on Oct. 12. But every team is allowed one mulligan a season, especially when considering the injuries the Vandals have endured.

Idaho went 1-1 in the postseason in 2023 and lost their opener in 2022.

The path through the playoffs won’t be any easier this season.

A victory against the Richmond-Lehigh winner could pit UI against MSU in a rematch.

But for now, UI will focus these next two weeks on getting healthy and ready for another game in front of their home fans.

That’s already enough to be thankful for this turkey season for the black-and-gold clad faithful.

Wiebe may be contacted at (208) 848-2260, swiebe@lmtribune.com or on Twitter @StephanSports.