Idaho nearly upset Oregon on Saturday. If it weren’t for NIL, the Vandals might have pulled it off

When Idaho scored on its second trick play of Saturday night’s surprising showdown against No. 3 Oregon to pull to within three points of the Ducks midway through the fourth quarter, the Vandals looked poised to pull off the biggest upset in college football history.

The Ducks, who had beaten all of their FCS opponents in the past 20 years by an average score of 60-13, were a 45 1/2-point favorite. But dreams of a stunning upset for the Vandals were snuffed out after Oregon wide receiver Tez Johnson scored on a 12-yard pass from quarterback Dillon Gabriel to seal a 24-14 Oregon victory.

On paper, the Ducks dominated the game, outgaining Idaho 487-217 yards. But make no mistake: The Vandals gave the Ducks fits. Idaho limited an Oregon team many predicted would win the national title to under three yards per carry and without a play longer than 24 yards. More impressively, Idaho sacked highly-sought-after transfer QB Gabriel three times. Oregon only allowed five sacks all of last season.

“They won critical situations,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. “We didn’t score any points in the middle eight (the last four minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the second half), which is unique for us. I thought they also had a good plan: We’re not gonna get beat over the top with shots. We’re gonna tackle what’s in front of us, and we’re gonna make Oregon beat Oregon — not feel like Idaho had to beat Oregon. They stuck to their identity and did a good job of it.”

The real story of Oregon vs. Idaho, though, is about the realities of college football in 2024.

The Ducks, thanks in large part to mega booster Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, are viewed inside the sport as the gold standard of NIL due to their well-organized, well-funded school collective. Even Georgia’s Kirby Smart joked this summer that he “wished” he could get some of “that NIL money that he’s sharing with Dan Lanning.”

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Meanwhile, this offseason, the Vandals lost seven of their top players to FBS programs via the transfer portal. Five of them received NIL deals in the low six figures, Idaho coach Jason Eck said.

“If we had those (five) guys that got paid, I think we’d probably have beaten Oregon,” Eck said. “We got sacked four times. Our quarterback, who is now at Oregon State, can really evade pressure and extend plays.”

Quarterback Gevani McCoy, who transferred to Oregon State, was a 2023 Walter Payton Award finalist after throwing for 5,631 yards, 42 touchdowns and running for five more the last two seasons. McCoy went 9-for-10 in leading the Beavers to a victory over Idaho State last weekend. Cornerback Marcus Harris, a first-team All-American who left for Cal, set an Idaho record with 36 passes defensed to go with three picks in 2023. He had an interception in his debut for Cal, helping the Bears to a win.

Anthony Woods, a first-team All-Big Sky running back, who ran for 1,155 yards and 16 touchdowns, left for Utah. Linebacker Xe’ree Alexander, who led the Vandals as a true freshman with 75 tackles and two forced fumbles last year, left for UCF. Cornerback Ormanie Arnold, who had 33 tackles and two interceptions, left for Cincinnati.

“They’re well coached and they also do a good job in the portal of identifying guys,” Lanning said. “They went to (NAIA) Montana Tech to go find a player (top pass rusher Keyshawn James-Newby) and to (FCS) Weber State (DB-KR Abraham Williams). Eck does a great job.”

Eck, a 47-year-old former Wisconsin offensive lineman, took over a program reeling from five consecutive losing seasons. He led the Vandals to seven wins in his 2022 debut season before going 9-4 and No. 8 in the nation in the FCS last year. Even though he’s only been a head coach for just over two seasons, the job has changed quite a bit in that time — as it has for all college coaches, especially those in the bottom half of the FBS and in the FCS.

“It’s definitely gotten harder than when I took this job, and I got hired in December 2021,” he said. “NIL had just become legal. You wouldn’t have thought guys would be getting recruited off your roster like it happens. It’s just a balancing act of trying to do right by the kids because for some, it’s life-changing money.

“The one thing that we’re gonna try to do with some of ours this year is, especially guys who are younger players — and we started a lot of younger players in this game — is have that ‘one more year’ thought,” Eck said. “Our guys went to Oregon State, Cal, UCF and Cincinnati, they weren’t going to premier destinations. ‘Wait another year. Don’t go to a bottom-half Power 4 school.’”

Vandals tight end Jake Cox scored his team’s first touchdown in the third quarter. Photo: Ben Lonergan / The Red / USA Today

Idaho has a collective now and is hoping to get $100,000 raised by the portal opening in December, Eck said.

Eck knows that his team’s performance against the Ducks will likely draw more interest from a bunch of FBS programs looking for help. Defensive tackle Dallas Afalava, a 6-1, 290-pound sophomore, gave Oregon problems inside and had one sack; sophomore cornerback Andrew Marshall made nine tackles and broke up one pass. The 6-foot, 186-pound Southern California native was an under-the-radar recruit who the Vandals worried a Boise State or Colorado State was going to come back in late in the recruiting process. Now, there’s game film of him playing well against a top-five opponent with speedy receivers.

“He’s going to get attention, and our pitch may be, stay one more year (here) and then you might be able to get $500,000 (from a Power 4 school) — don’t just jump for $100,000,” Eck said, though of course there’s no guarantee of that. “They (Oregon) tested him early, tried to go deep on him. Couldn’t hit it. … He didn’t give up any big plays against all those receivers. They weren’t beating him one-on-one.”

Idaho cornerbacks coach Stanley Franks Jr. came to the Vandals from Washington State. He saw how the Cougars had scouting staffers perusing lower-tier ranks to study all-conference level players. For many FCS coaches or lower-level FBS coaches, it can be bittersweet to invest in recruits only to see them leave for bigger programs, but Franks understands that for many of those players, the chance to get life-changing money to help out their families is something they can’t pass up.

Before Harris transferred to Cal, he came into Franks’ office to speak with him. “He acted like it was a hard decision,” Franks said. “I said, ‘This is a no-brainer. Go bless your family.’ There was no doubt he could play at that next level.

“We use that as a recruiting tool. We have to recruit Mountain West-caliber guys: ‘Come here, get developed and play, and then bless your family your last couple of years of college.’ You want to educate these guys as much as possible. I tell them, we develop cats here. Why go somewhere else where I might sit on the bench just because of a logo? We flip it as a positive.”

Eck has always thought of Idaho as a developing program. He and his coaches talk about that with recruits, and in this new era, when you have a cornerbacks coach who has developed two players who, combined, will probably make $300,000 this year, he said, that’s a feather in his recruiting cap. At this level you have to be that way for coaches too, Eck said. Last offseason, they had three coaches leave for FBS jobs — two to San Diego State, one to Oregon State.

“That’s part of our sell: We gotta have that for coaches coming in here, too,” he said. “We’re gonna help you get better and get bigger opportunities. Same thing with players. Hopefully, not everybody wants to leave.”

Part of the pitch in hopes of retaining players is to remind them that if you can play in FCS, the NFL will see you. Former Vandal long snapper Hogan Hatten just made the 53-man roster of the Detroit Lions.

“I really do not think it helps you with the NFL,” Eck said. “As long as you’re an FCS school, every team still comes through here, scouting. But it’s tough to try to discourage a guy from even making $150,000 when his family doesn’t have any money.”

At Idaho, Eck thinks he can get his top players $10,000-$15,000 a year — nowhere near, of course, the six figures some Power 4 schools might offer. They were recently able to cover their players’ cost of attendance, providing around $2,500 a semester.

There’s one other potential player of interest Eck has thought about, a young player who had a big game against the Ducks who might’ve crossed on some FBS teams radar now: His son Jaxton. Jaxton, a linebacker, had a game-high 14 tackles, which included a couple of plays where he was able to corral dynamic Ducks receiver Johnson in space.

“Yeah, that’ll be interesting,” Eck said, laughing. One of the FBS head coaches he knows texted him after the game and mentioned Jaxton. “It might’ve been half-joking. We’ll see.”

(Image: Dan Goldfarb/ The Athletic; Photos: Young Kwak / AP; Brian Murphy / Icon Sportswire via Getty)