The enduring truth of the Big Sky Kickoff is this – one hotel ballroom in Spokane is much the same as another, regardless of whether it’s at the Davenport Grand or across town at the Northern Quest Casino. This year’s edition, in point of fact, was at the jaw-droppingly sprawling labyrinth of the Northern Quest just outside of town – not that it mattered much on the last Monday morning of July, when everything fell back into routine: the same questions, the same catching up, the same logo backdrops behind the tables and carpet on the floor.
The only thing that changes from year to year is ephemeral – the weight of expectations in the air, the subtle shifts in fame and fortune as bright and vividly flashing as any neon on the casino floor.
No one made that clearer than the Idaho Vandals, whose wide receivers Hayden Hatten and Jermaine Jackson – if you have two returning 1,000-yard receivers, it appears, the conference is willing to relax the custom of bringing one offensive and one defensive player to the Kickoff – rocked up in slim-fitting, shiny-lapeled tuxedos straight out of the Conor McGregor catalog, looking like NBA draft picks on their way to the podium to hug Adam Silver rather than FCS stars about to do one interview after the next.
In this game, one year can take you from irrelevant to in demand, particularly when it’s a year as good as the Vandals had in 2022. In head coach Jason Eck’s first season, they beat Montana in Missoula, minted a superstar in Hatten and a galaxy of lesser stars in Jackson, linebacker Paul Moala and freshman quarterback Gevani McCoy, and spectacularly snapped a string of sub-.500 campaigns under the deposed Paul Petrino by going 6-2 in conference (7-5 overall), making the playoffs and finishing the year ranked 18th.
This year, the Vandals bring back Hatten, Jackson and McCoy, plus running back Anthony Woods, defensive back Marcus Harris and kicker Ricardo Chavez – all made the preseason all-conference team – and are ranked eighth in the country heading into the season. That explained the steady stream of reporters stopping in front of Idaho’s table, drawn to the catnip narrative of a once-proud program resurrecting itself as surely as a fish to a lure.
Eck, the former South Dakota State offensive coordinator, loves sitting back and holding court, whether it’s behind the table on Kickoff Monday morning or lounging at the Northern Quest’s cigar bar late Sunday night. If the Rat Pack tuxedos weren’t enough, Eck’s slick confidence sent the message: Idaho is welcoming the attention – and the expectations.
“I think it’s exciting,” Eck said. “I think it’s a challenge that we have to embrace, because we’re not going to sneak up on anybody. And I think everybody’s going to be excited to play Idaho this year, which maybe hasn’t been the case over the last few years. So it’s gonna be a challenge, but it’s a good challenge. It’s something you want your program to grow into.”
Of course, this year won’t be so easy. A repeat of the slightly above-.500 record and first-round playoff loss that made the Vandals the newest darlings of the conference media would be bitter disappointment this time around.
Bobby Hauck, sitting a few tables to Eck’s right, could give the Idaho coach some advice on dealing with the crowd that comes with high expectations. A year ago, Hauck and the Montana Grizzlies were the must-stop interview on media day after being picked first in the conference in both the media and coaches polls.
That didn’t go away this year – they’re still the Montana Grizzlies – but the spotlight turned down a few notches after they suffered through three straight conference losses, were blown out by Montana State in the regular-season finale and fell meekly to North Dakota State in the second round before losing All-Americans Patrick O’Connell, Justin Ford and Robby Hauck to graduation in the offseason.
This year, they were picked to finish third in the media poll and sixth in the coaches. And Montana will attack the season once again with a transfer quarterback (or two) among its primary signal callers, a trend now in most of Hauck’s 12 seasons at the helm.
That’s probably to the preference of Hauck, who, after handling the rote questions with equal parts grace and resignation last season, seemed happy with the slightly slower pace and genuinely glad to talk football and football players this time around without the need to comment on where his team enters the season ranked.
“It’s always the competition,” Hauck said. “I mean, if you’re playing or coaching, you love the competition, or you shouldn’t be doing it. And so you get excited, we get 11 guaranteed games in the fall, and each one’s vitally important.”
Hauck’s motto has always been that the games themselves are more exciting than whatever narratives surround them – a position that’s hard to hold on to when you’re coaching Montana, a prestige program that draws plenty of outside attention no matter what – but some of the other programs in the league sucking up all the oxygen in the conference room might make it easier for him to drive that point home in the locker room.
Sitting in between Eck and Hauck, the renewed Little Brown Stein rivals, was the man who’s managed expectations better than anyone in the league. As opposed to Hauck, who’s come up short multiple times since his return to Missoula, or Eck, who still has a long way to go to truly contend, Brent Vigen’s Montana State Bobcats have actually played for a national title in the past couple years.
In Bozeman, expectations inside and outside the program have aligned since that run to the title game two years ago in Vigen’s debut season with the Bobcats – and they’re nothing short of challenging North and South Dakota State for national supremacy again this year.
That’s the conundrum for the Bobcats, however. They have been better than everyone else in the Big Sky Conference since qualifying for the semifinals for the first of three straight Final Four trips back in 2019. When it comes to the bitter rivalry with the Griz, MSU has won five of six. Yet Montana State has gotten destroyed in Fargo (twice) and Frisco (in the 2021 national title game) by NDSU and in Brookings last season by the reigning national champion Jackrabbits.
The height of that task hasn’t appeared to shake the Bobcats’ stoic, professional confidence, demonstrated by Vigen but also by his players.
“We would love to win a national championship, but, I mean, that’s our goal,” senior quarterback Sean Chambers said. “I don’t know if those are our expectations. You know, expectations are to go out there and compete every single day and give it your all every single day. So I would say, you know, our expectations are one thing, but our goal is to win a national championship.”
That feels a bit like a Jedi mind trick – it’s not our expectation, it’s our goal – but the Bobcats managed the pressure just fine last season, going undefeated against FCS competition all the way up until the national semifinals, when South Dakota State ran them off a frozen-solid field.
The Kickoff was the first Big Sky event since that SDSU-MSU game marked the end of the 2022 Big Sky season. Nothing has happened on the field since then, but six months was enough for plenty to change nonetheless.
All eyes will be on Idaho. Fewer will be on Montana. Montana State has the toughest task of all, made even more difficult with road games at No. 2 South Dakota State, No. 13 Weber State, No. 10 Sacramento State, No. 8 Idaho and No. 14 Montana in the coming months.
And how all three age-old rivals deal with that reality might go a long way towards writing the story of this season.
“It’s good to have higher expectations,” Eck said. “I think it’s needed in a program just like Montana, Montana State had all those years where expectations are really high and the fan base is excited going into the season. I think we did a good job last year of, we were picked low, but we still kept our confidence and developed the confidence of our team throughout the year. So, you know, we can’t just feel good because we’re picked higher this year, we have to put in the work.”
