Idaho locks in No. 8 seed, first-round bye for 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 a near thing, since the Vandals got the last bye as the eighth seed.

As they start their second season in the playoffs, though, they are riding a wave of momentum with a five-game win streak as they wait for Dec. 7 to entertain the winner of the Richmond-Lehigh first-round game.

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

Eck and several of the Vandals were hoping they would be named earlier, however.

“I was expecting to be in the six or seven range, “said redshirt junior guard Nate Azzopardi 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 finished its regular season with a 40-17 win against Idaho State Nov. 23, said “you really need a bye week to go deep into the playoffs.”

The Vandals will play Dec. 7 at 6 p.m. in the Kibbie Dome, and their coach expects they will probably face the Richmond Spiders, champions of the Colonial Athletic Association, and this is not a team Idaho is taking lightly, since last year’s CAA winner, Albany, ended Idaho’s season in the quarter-finals last year.

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

The tournament selection committee did Idaho no favors, though. If it advances past Richmond, it will face Montana State in the quarter-finals. The Big Sky Conference champion Bobcats thrashed Idaho 38-7. Also lurking on that side of the bracket is U.C. Davis, which gave Idaho its other Big Sky loss, 28-26.

“We have got to get their first,” Eck says of a possible rematch with MSU. Azzopardi, however, is envisioning a return trip to Bozeman. “This is a chance to get one of those losses back,” he said. “The guys in the locker room are looking for that chance.”

The Big Sky Conference is well represented in the playoffs. In addition to Montana State, the number one seed, U.C. Davis, number five, and Idaho, eight, the Big Sky also has Montana, seeded 10th, and Northern Arizona, the final seed at 16, on the other side of the bracket. The Grizzlies host Tennessee State in a first-round game, and the Lumberjacks travel to Abilene Christian in the first round.

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

With two weeks before it plays its next game, Idaho hopes to get key contributors back from injuries. Among them are running backs Elisha Cummings, Deshaun Buchanan and Art Williams and elite defensive end Keyshawn James-Newby, who has 9.5 sacks this season despite fighting a persistent shoulder injury.

“Having a really disruptive lineman helps me,” Jaxton Eck says. If they have to account for James-Newby as a pass rusher and blowing up running plays, offensive linemen can’t immediately try to cut off linebackers, he says.

The Vandals can lean on their coach’s experience as they head into the playoffs.

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

“We got a bye,” and the coaches scaled back practice to try to get the team fresh. But when they played St. Cloud State, “they beat us in a shootout, 54-48,” Eck says.

“You have really got to really practice speed,” he says, and when the Vandals come back from Thanksgiving, they will be working at a tempo they expect to employ in the playoffs.

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

“Seeding 16 was a nice step in truly making this a national tournament,” says Eck. “In the old days, they would try to be regional. It is a credit to them that they pushed one through 16 seeding through.”

Azzopardi sees Idaho’s playoff seeding as the product of the entire Idaho program focused on a common goal. Coaches and video specialists who prepare practice and game tape “have been so involved,” he says. “They have been staying until 10 or 11 at night since this summer. Everybody is doing all they can to give us a chance to win.”