Idaho earns No. 8 seed, first-round bye to FCS playoffs

MOSCOW, Idaho – Mission accomplished.

With a 9-3 record, Idaho managed to secure a first-round bye in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, although it was close as the Vandals received the final bye as the eighth seed.

However, entering their second season in the playoffs, they are riding a wave of momentum with a five-game winning streak and awaiting Dec. 7 to host the winner of the Richmond-Lehigh first-round game.

“There were 129 teams playing FCS football this year. To be one of eight byes in the first round is a tremendous accomplishment,” Vandals coach Jason Eck said at a watch party Sunday morning.

However, Eck and some of the vandals hoped they would be named sooner.

“I was expecting to be in the six or seven range,” redshirt junior guard Nate Azzopardi said after the ESPN selection show. “But all you can ask for is a seat at the table.

“Eck told us at a team meeting that the national champion comes from the eighth seed or higher.”

Vandals’ linebacker Jaxton Eck, who made 15 tackles as Idaho ended its regular season with a 40-17 win over Idaho State on Nov. 23, said: “You really need a week off to go deep into the playoffs.”

The Vandals will play at the Kibbie Dome on Dec. 7 at 6 p.m., and their coach expects they will likely face the Colonial Athletic Association champion Richmond Spiders, and that’s not a team that takes Idaho lightly shoulder, as it is last year’s CAA champion, Albany, who ended Idaho’s season in the quarterfinals last year.

“They knocked us out of the tournament. We have to take this very seriously,” he said of the Vandals’ opening game.

However, the tournament selection committee did Idaho no favors. If it gets past Richmond, it will face Montana State in the quarterfinals. The Big Sky Conference champion Bobcats defeated Idaho 38-7. Also lurking on this side of the bracket is UC Davis, which handed Idaho its other Big Sky loss, 28-26.

“We have to get their No. 1 spot,” Eck said of a potential rematch with MSU. However, Azzopardi envisions a return trip to Bozeman. “This is a chance to recoup one of those losses,” he said. “The guys in the locker room are looking for that opportunity.”

The Big Sky Conference is well represented in the playoffs. In addition to No. 1 seed Montana State, fifth-seeded UC Davis and Idaho, the Big Sky also has Montana, seeded at No. 10, and Northern Arizona, seeded at No. 16, on the other side of the rankings. The Grizzlies host Tennessee State in a first-round game and the Lumberjacks face Abilene Christian in the first round.

In the regular season, Idaho defeated both NAU, 23-17, and the Wildcats, 27-24.

With two weeks to go before the next game, Idaho hopes to get key players back from injuries. Among them are running backs Elisha Cummings, Deshaun Buchanan and Art Williams, as well as elite defensive end Keyshawn James-Newby, who has 9.5 sacks this season despite a lingering shoulder injury.

“It helps me to have a really disruptive lineman,” Jaxton Eck said. If they had to account for James-Newby as a pass rusher who blew up running plays, offensive linemen couldn’t immediately try to cut off linebackers, he said.

The Vandals can lean on their coach’s experience heading into the playoffs.

“This is my ninth straight year in the FCS playoffs,” Eck said, three straight at Idaho and six before that at South Dakota State, where Eck served as an assistant coach and offensive coordinator. He said he learned to monitor each player individually to determine their workload before the playoffs. But the most important lesson he learned, he said, came in 2013 when he was an assistant at Division II Minnesota State Mankato. The Mavericks were probably good enough to win a national championship that year, Eck thought.

“We got a bye,” and the coaches reduced training to get the team fit again. But when they played St. Cloud State, “they beat us in a shootout 54-48,” Eck said.

“You really have to practice speed,” he said, and when the Vandals return from Thanksgiving, they will be operating at a pace they expect to use in the playoffs.

Eck also praised the NCAA for making the playoffs a truly national tournament this year.

“The 16th seed was a nice step to really make this tournament a national tournament,” Eck said. “They used to try to be local. It’s thanks to them that they made it through the 16th seed.”

Azzopardi views Idaho’s playoff seeding as a result of the entire Idaho program aligned toward a common goal.

Coaches and video specialists who prepare practice and game footage are “very dedicated,” he said. “Since this summer they have been staying until 10 or 11 p.m. at night.

“Everyone is doing everything they can to give us a chance to win.”