Nine players began at Idaho, will finish Saturday
Out of the 19 seniors being honored prior to Saturday’s game against Troy, only nine of them have been with Idaho for their whole college career. While some arrived and redshirted in 2010, most contributed in 2011 — and it’s been anything but easy.
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Senior center Mike Marboe fights against a defensive lineman during Wednesday’s practice at the Kibbie Dome. The Vandals will play their last home game of the season at 2 p.m. Saturday against Troy in the Kibbie Dome.
The group endured arguably the toughest four-year stretch in the history of the Idaho football program. The players had three head coaches, played in two conferences and even spent a year with no conference as an FBS Independent. It all resulted in just five wins in four seasons.
“This group of seniors that has been here the whole time, I would take with me into a fight any day of the week,” senior offensive lineman Mike Marboe said. “It’s a tough group. We’ve been through a lot and we’ve fought and clawed our way to stay here. We’ve worked hard and been through some highs and some lows, and just never quit.”
With the turnover at head coach and the APR sanctions this year, players had multiple opportunities to abandon the program and transfer to a new school.
Senior defensive end Maxx Forde didn’t think twice about staying — he’s a Vandal through and through, he said.
“I’ve put in so much here and I’ve got good relationships with the people around here,” Forde said. “I didn’t want to just leave that and go somewhere where everything’s new … I don’t want to treat that like it’s nothing, because it does mean a lot to me.”
Despite the lack of victories, Idaho coach Paul Petrino said the nine seniors have all had great attitudes since he’s been here. He said they’re winners as people because they stuck around through all the difficult times.
“They’re going to be able to be successful in whatever they do,” he said. “As opposed to some people who change schools every other year … those are the guys that aren’t very successful and aren’t very happy later in life.”
Marboe didn’t just stick around through all of the off-field issues, but the senior from Wenatchee, Washington, hasn’t missed a game his entire career at Idaho. When he takes the field Saturday, it will be his 47th consecutive start.
Marboe said he’s had a few close calls throughout his career.
“Last year was probably the closest I came — when I broke my hand,” he said. “I was playing in a cast. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to go or not, but I fought through it and finished out the season.”
Marboe takes pride in playing through injuries and said he thinks of himself as a tough football player. When he started his first game in 2011, Marboe said he didn’t want to miss a single one.
“Some of these guys call me ‘Gumby’ because I’ve been rolled up on pretty bad but still manage to get up and come back out on the field,” he said.
Marboe said he wants people to remember the seniors as the class that put the program in motion. With the obvious improvement from a year ago, Marboe envisions multiple conference titles in the near future.
“They’ve meant a lot,” Petrino said of the seniors. “I think this senior class, there’s some really special guys in it … It will be a lot more emotional day this year, for me personally, than it was last year just because I wasn’t around some of those guys that long. We need to make them finish it right and walk out of this dome with a win.”
Korbin McDonald can be reached at [email protected]