‘Whatever it takes’: Coach Jason Eck brings in former mentor John Stiegelmeier to inspire his Idaho Vandals football team

John Stiegelmeier, “Coach Stig,” went out on top and retired after leading South Dakota State University to its first Football Championship Subdivision championship in 2022.

University of Idaho coach Jason Eck, whose Vandals reached the quarterfinals of the FCS playoffs last season, brought his former boss to Moscow last week to watch practice, attend coaches’ meetings and address the team. It is the second year Stiegelmeier has offered preseason insights to Idaho, and his visit had the feel of a program that is close enough to greatness to look for the understated advantages that will help it take the final strides to a national title.

Eck also plans to bring former Vandal and three-time Super Bowl champion Mark Schlereth back to campus Aug. 16-18 to glean his insights and inspire Idaho’s team.

“I hope our players know we are going to do whatever it takes,” Eck says.

In Coach Stig’s case, Eck says he wanted the Vandals to get a dose of the optimism with which Stiegelmeier approached his job.

“He would always say ‘when we win a national championship’ not ‘if’ recalled Eck, who was the Jackrabbits’ offensive line coach in 2016-19 and offensive coordinator from 2019 to 2021, before becoming head coach at Idaho.

“He is a program builder. He knows what a championship team looks like and how to build one,” Eck said.

Stiegelmeier coached SDSU for 26 season and retired as its winningest coach, with a 199-112 record. He took the Jackrabbits to the playoffs 12 times.

He amplified Eck’s characterization. “At this level of football, you are building a program not one class,” Stiegelmeier said. A basketball coach friend told him while college basketball in 90 % recruiting and 10% coaching, the proportions are exactly reversed in football, he added.

At practice Sunday, Stiegelmeier was rocking some black and gold Vandal gear as he moved between the position groups and took notes.

He said when he looks at Idaho he sees “they are highly organized. They are really good teachers as coaches. They are efficient on the football field. They are not standing around. They are a well-oiled machine.”

When he talked to the players, Stiegelmeier said he tried to deliver “some universal principles” that reflected what Eck said exemplified the optimism that prevailed in Brookings, South Dakota, during Coach Stig’s tenure.

“What do you choose to believe before there is proof?” Stiegelmeier asked. “The great teams I have been part of had great student leaders.

“How good is the culture? Is everyone committed to the team more than to individual wants?”

In his brief time with the Vandals “I get a sense they are very committed,” said Stiegelmeier.

He remembers Eck with the Jacks as “an idea guy. In staff meetings with the coaches, I wanted to hear their ideas, well thought-out ideas they could defend. Those guys are going to be good head coaches.”

Eck said he brought Stiegelmeier to Moscow “to coach the coaches” even more than to address players.

“He made me a better coach in my six years there,” Eck said.

Stiegelmeier may also have been able to deliver a useful insight to the Vandals about resetting program goals. Idaho returned to the Big Sky Conference and FCS football in 2018 after an only intermittently successful 22-year venture into the Football Bowl Subdivision. The Vandals dominated the Big Sky through much of the 1980s to the mid-1990s but did not begin to reclaim that level of success until Eck arrived in 2022.

SDSU, when Stiegelmeier was coach, went the other direction. In 2004 the Jacks left the North Central Conference and Division II football and embarked on a five-year journey to gain full acceptance from the NCAA as an FCS program. He said of that time “the biggest thing was we had a chance to start over, a chance to recreate the history of SDSU athletics. SDSU was better than it was in the North Central Conference. That was mind-boggling.”

While that fresh start ultimately allowed the Jacks to dethrone perennial FCS powerhouse and traditional rival North Dakota State University 45-24 in the 2022 national championship game, Stiegelmeier said it never overshadowed a larger goal of coaching.

“An 18-year-old kid comes to you at one of the most influential times of his life, and that is a great responsibility,” he said.

“My greatest victory never happened on the field. It was when an alum comes back to campus, married, with two kids and says ‘Coach, you can’t believe how much of a role SDSU football has played in my life.’”

The degree to which Idaho builds on its encounters with Coach Stig and Schlereth will not be determined for months. But it might be a subtle boost that lifts a good team to a great one.

“I think we’re a contender,” says Eck. “I hope we can say that every year. But going from one of the top eight teams to four, from four to two, and then winning the championship is quite a few steps to take.

“But I like where we’re at.”