Paul Petrino might be disappointed in what the Kibbie Dome has become these days.
The Dome he left in 1995 was home to a nine game Vandal winning streak, and a 17-2 record over the three seasons he roamed the sidelines as an assistant.
The Dome he returns to in 2013 has seen only two wins since the 2011 season, with many embarrassing losses. Attendance has dwindled and so has the noise.
He’ll have five opportunities to turn that around this season, the first of which on Saturday against Northern Illinois.
“Any great program wins at home, I was lucky enough to be a part of a great winning streak here back in the early 90’s … we won at home, we defended that turf and we had a great time,” Petrino said. “Anytime you have a great program that’s what you’ve got to do. We’re going to get fired up we’re going to get excited and we will have a great winning streak at some point in those dome, no doubt in my mind.”
Northern Illinois’ Heisman-worthy quarterback might have something to say about that.
Lynch was 25-of-41 for 275 yards and three touchdowns in the Huskies’ 30-27 win at Iowa two weeks ago. He racked up 56 yards rushing.
Those numbers are tame in Jordan Lynch standards. If the Vandals can hold him to those type of numbers then they should consider Saturday a defensive success. The 6-foot, 220 pound quarterback won’t shy away from contact, making him Idaho’s biggest concern.
“It’s all about him,” Petrino said. “Their whole team is built around him in my opinion because he’s a great leader and they rally around him and he plays hard and he’s tough. Those are the kind of guys you like to rally around.”
The game
Northern Illinois at Idaho
Kibbie Dome
2 p.m.
Media: Our broadcast will be on KUOI 89.3 fm in Moscow.
Essential links:
Here is our football story from the Argonaut today
Here is staff writer Holden Nelson’s piece on tailgating
Here is Theo Lawson detailing what Idaho should do to defend Jordan Lynch
And finally be sure to check out our Fall Sports preview, the Vandal Nation tab, including my story on the football team
Key match-up:
Idaho’s offensive line. The bottom line is that Jordan Lynch and the Huskies will score. If Idaho has any chance to compete it will have to be because the Vandals can get something going on offense themselves. That will come down to the offensive line unit doing what it can to protect Chad Chalich and Josh McCain. The problem is injuries and a lack of continuity. Left tackle Cody Elenz and left guard Dallas Sandberg sat out portions of practice this week. Larry Dugan and Calvin White saw action when those two were out.
Offensive line coach Jon Carvin addressed the problems: “Challenge wise, it’s just playing with great technique, playing with great pad level, something we work on everyday out here, and I’ve got to better job. There’s no question, it’s all on me, I have to do a better job of getting these guys ready to play the game and be successful. So that’s the focus right now, it’s the low man wins, that’s really what it comes down to in the game of football, especially in the trenches so that’s really what we’re working on right now and we’re getting way better.”
Another challenge has been center Mike Marboe and his snaps out of the shotgun. This year is a change for him, in that Idaho operates almost exclusively out of shotgun formations. It was an errant snap that led to Chalich’s fumble in the first quarter at Wyoming.
“Usually when the snap is bad it’s just a little tiny thing, he doesn’t bring his elbow straight back,” Carvin said. “He bends his elbow when he snaps it, and that’s what causes it. And we’ve worked on that, worked on that, worked on that. He’s a kid who takes pride in doing it well and doing it right so that’s what he’s going to make sure he corrects from this point forward.”
Dual quarterbacks
The Vandals will continue to work with a two quarterback system. Redshirt freshman Chad Chalich will continue to be the starter, Petrino said, but McCain would continue to be involved coming in to make plays with his legs. Look for his role to expand in the passing game as well.
“Chad and Josh they both have the same type of ability, sometimes I forget who’s at quarterback when I go off and run routes,” wide receiver Dezmon Epps said.
Petrino’s homecoming
Once upon a time the Dome was thunderous and loud. That mostly had to do with the fact that the Dome was packed, and the Idaho football team was good.
Thunder sticks helped.
“They all had the things that bang together and make the noise, everyone was going crazy,” Petrino said. “I’ll be honest, I don’t think I coached a game in the Dome when I was an assistant that wasn’t completely packed. It was packed, it was loud, they were crazy, we were really good. There’s a lot of great memory, every week in practice it was like ‘we’re better than this team, we’re gonna woop em.’ There was maybe once a year were it was like ‘these guys might be as good as us.’ Those were easy, fun years, we have to get back to those years.”
More quotes!
Paul Petrino on getting the Kibbie Dome back to the way it was the last time he was here:
“It’s just about showing them passion, showing that we play the game right, showing that we’re good people around town. Showing that we know what’s right from wrong, showing that we treat people right. If you do that, and then you have to play good. But you do those things too, you have to show that you’re good people. And you meet people on campus, and the other students like you and they come watch you play. And then you have to go out there and play your tail off and put on a good show. And I think people understand that we’re in a process of turning it around. If we go out there and play with unbelievably effort and fight from start to finish, then people will come. Then as it gets better and better more and more will come. And then when we will start rolling people up and get after it it’ll be packed again.”
Wide receiver Dezmon Epps on offensive struggles on third downs:
“There’s nothing hard on third downs. It’s been us killing ourselves. When defenses have been going against us, they haven’t stopped us, we’ve stopped ourselves mentally. Just one assignment mistake, if one position messes up then that’s the whole play right there. That’s been the main thing is us killing ourselves.”