The Idaho Vandals haven’t exactly brought in tens of thousands of fans to home football games in recent years, when the team’s win tally clearly reflected some of the lowest-attended games in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
The Vandals attracted an average of 12,582 fans per game last season, a surprising 5 percent increase from 2011, when numbers dipped below 12,000.
While the term “bandwagon” doesn’t carry any precise definition, the Vandal “faithful” have been victim to the word more often than not during the past couple years.
At 0-2, Idaho returns to the Dome Saturday to joust with a Northern Illinois team predicted to win by nearly 30 points according to most betting agencies.
With a game that is supposed to be over by halftime, at least on paper, the most interesting statistic may be the one that depicts what percent of the Vandal nation has strapped up for the tumultuous ride that the Paul Petrino era has embarked on.
That ride has seen the Vandals allow their opponents to score 82 points, while managing just 16 themselves in losses to North Texas and Wyoming.
Even though it is early in the season, this is not quite the brand of football that Petrino guaranteed when he was announced as coach earlier this year.
Some hoped that change would happen overnight. Others realized the rebuilding process is daunting and lengthy, but necessary to scale the ranks of FBS prominence.
Those who fall under the latter category will be the ones filling the seats at Saturday’s home opener. The others will hide behind televisions and radio broadcasts, with boxes of pizza at their side, inactively awaiting the team’s resurgence.
Resurrection doesn’t happen with the simple waving of a wand. It happens with recruiting, coaching and a home venue at full capacity on any given Saturday afternoon.
Paul Petrino has reminisced the good old days, when a packed Kibbie Dome often coincided with Vandal victory.
“It was packed, it was loud, they were crazy,” he said. “There were a lot of good memories.”
A productive offense and stout defense can only go so far in recreating those memories.
The Vandal faithful are responsible for the rest.
— TL