Idaho football coach Jason Eck jumped through a few hoops before awakening the ‘sleeping giant’ in Moscow

Lot of ways a story about Jason Eck can go. Most of them unpredictable.

How’d the son of a long-time college basketball coach get caught up in this football racket?

Why’d he pull an about-face on his mother’s wishes that he go to law school in favor of getting into coaching?

And what can a person learn from the nomadic existence of a coach, having served under 12 head coaches in his 22 years as an assistant?

(Well, mom tried to warn you!)

But first, the most obvious observation.

Jason Eck … whoa … big dude.

He was an offensive lineman at Wisconsin and looks the part. Even when former Big 10 linemen reach Eck’s age (47) they tend to remain prodigious.

So, the question asked of John Stiegelmeier, the legendary head coach Eck served under for six seasons at South Dakota State: Did he think Eck’s imposing physical presence helps him communicate his message to his Idaho Vandal players?

Some players, after all, might suspect Eck could still block them into next week if he needed to prove a point.

The premise was superficial, but Stiegelmeier’s answer was insightful, and probably exposed the core of Eck’s early success in Moscow.

Stiegelmeier explained that Eck’s commanding presence was not a function of his physical stature, but his authoritative and authentic nature.

“His presence is a head-coach’s presence,” Stiegelmeier said. “When he speaks to the team, he’s sincere and he’s real. He can be either serious or happy-go-lucky, and both are natural to him. He obviously cares for the student-athlete, and that is really the start to it all for a coach.”

Eck’s 16 wins in his first two seasons at UI (including two FCS playoff appearances) were the most in a two-year span for a Vandal coach since Chris Tormey’s 16-win stretch in 1998-99.

Eck actually predicted this. When he was hired in December 2021, Eck called Idaho a “sleeping giant” in the FCS Division. In Year Three, with the Vandals picked to finish third in the Big Sky preseason poll, Eck’s prediction is looking increasingly possible.

“Looking around the coaches’ table, I could see Jason had head-coaching ideas,” Stiegelmeier said. “Meaning they were well-thought-out and kind of visionary. He could see the bigger picture. Not everybody is meant to be a head coach. One of the characteristics is somebody who can kind of day-dream – to think of how we can improve the program and move it forward.”

Sounds almost as if Eck were born to it.

Jay Eck, his father, played basketball for Xavier and served as head coach at Wisconsin-Stevens Point and Toledo, with assistantships at Bradley, Pittsburgh, Loyola (Chicago) and Towson State.

“His being a basketball coach had a big effect on my life,” Jason Eck said. “He always enjoyed going to work. As a kid, I enjoyed when I got to go with him to the office and hang out at the gym all day. It left a positive impression about coaching at a young age.”

The young Eck, though, was cut from the basketball team as a freshman in high school. “I was at that conversion point of losing weight for basketball and gaining weight for football,” he said. “I figured it was easier to gain weight.”

And more fun, of course.

On the Rose Bowl-winning Wisconsin team of 1998, Eck came home and signed up for the LSAT.

“My mom saw the negative sides of coaching, all the moving around, putting your livelihood in the hands of young men,” Eck said. “She kind of discouraged me from going into coaching. She thought I’d make a good lawyer. I paid my $85 for the test but ended up skipping out on it because I decided I wanted to be a coach.”

A three-year graduate assistantship under successful Badger head coach Barry Alvarez got Eck off on a solid start.

His first full-time position came at Idaho, under Nick Holt in 2004 and 2005, and Dennis Erickson in 2006. Erickson left after one season and Eck set off on a series of seven assistantships across the Midwest.

“It wasn’t really fun to go through in the beginning,” Eck said of the relocations, six times being on a staff when the head coach did not return. “It was tough on the family, but now it’s kind of turned into a blessing because I’ve seen a lot of different ways to do things. I’ve tried to take some of those things I thought were really good, and also learn from the places where they missed, and try to avoid those things.”

He was named the FCS national assistant coach of the year in 2019 at South Dakota State. Along the way, he’s been a student of what works, and also where it works.

What he saw in Idaho was similar to other teams having recent success at the FCS level (North Dakota State, South Dakota State, Montana and Montana State).

“They’re smaller, rural populations with more kids playing three sports and sometimes developing later, which is good for your athleticism and gives you more room for growth and refinement when you’re just playing one in college,” he said.

There are no Power 4 teams in their states, either, which helps with fundraising and facility investment, he said.

“And I liked that Idaho had past success with Dennis Erickson, Keith Gilbertson, John L. Smith and (Chris) Tormey,” he said. “Those factors convinced me Idaho had great potential.”

Asked of the new realities of college football that allow for significant player movement and payment, Eck relies on lessons from his itinerate coaching career.

“You have to be able to adapt and embrace change,” he said. “You’ve got to evolve with it and be fluid and try to find new, creative solutions to make things work.”

He was able to find humor in the fact that off of last year’s Idaho team, he lost five players and three coaches who each left for $100,000 raises.

“There’s been coaches who left Idaho for good raises, so it’s probably fair the players get some of that, too,” he said.

His approach: Trying to find potential talents from their own region, who will be more likely to stick around as they improve, and also target players who might not be strictly motivated by money.

“And we’re trying to get kids more (financial) opportunities here, too.”

The basics of the football Eck teaches will sound familiar.

“I think being really good on the offensive and defensive lines is universal good football. Great effort, hard work, toughness, diligence … consistency of staff, showing you believe in them and putting a lot of responsibility on them. This year, we’ve got four new coaches out of 10, so we’re going to have to keep developing good coaches.”

Another lesson from his peregrinations: The steadfast value of his wife, Kimberly. “She’s been the rock for me, getting through all those transitions. She’s kept the family together through all those moves. She’s a tremendous friend and partner and asset.”

The Ecks have five children, including Jaxton, a sophomore linebacker on his father’s team.

If Jaxton follows the family tradition, he’s liable to become a basketball coach.