Sometimes it takes a 2-10 season to realize that football isn’t everything, and in Moscow that message should have been ringing loud and clear all semester as Vandal athletes have performed well in a variety of arenas.
Instead of watching the football team drop four games by 7 points or less, you could have witnessed the men’s golf team win the Jim Colbert Intercollegiate tournament in October, or senior Jared Bossio come home with victories from the Washington State Amateur in June and the Palouse Collegiate in September. On the women’s side of the links you could have seen Kayla Mortellaro claim two tournaments for Idaho in her senior season.
That’s just the beginning.
Tennis doubles teammates junior Marius Cirstea and senior Andrew Dobbs went to New York for the National Indoor Collegiate Championships in November. And they aren’t the only Vandal student-athlets who did some extra traveling to represent Idaho, as sophomore Hannah Kiser found herself at the 2011 NCAA Cross-Country Championships. Kiser was the top performer of a women’s cross-country team that won its second consecutive WAC championship.
But because none of these teams were in Moscow, often Vandal fans trickled to the Kibbie Dome where the football team obtained one victory this year against the University of North Dakota.
Vandal fans saw live victories outside the dome on Guy Wicks Field, where the soccer team went 5-3 at home. Idaho soccer made its second appearance in the WAC championships in as many years and its first match victory in school history.
Vandal volleyball 2011 left its mark on the record books with a second place seeding into the WAC tournament after winning 10 of their last 12 matches.
Fall sports season should be about performances like these. Not the fact that the football team didn’t qualify for a bowl, but that this school’s athletes are performing on a high level and some of them don’t wear helmets and shoulder pads.
There were murmurs near the end of football season that Vandal fans could not wait for football to be over so basketball would be upon us — but what then?
If the basketball teams struggle through the season and Cowan Spectrum empties earlier every night come January and February, will we be grateful that spring football is right around the corner?
When spring arrives who will we be rooting for? The offense struggled all year long and by now fingers have got to be pointed directly at Offensive Coordinator Steve Axman.
The defense, on the other hand, stepped up at times and scored more points than the offense. But does Mark Criner keep his job? And with a leader like Tre’ Shawn Robinson graduating, if he does keep it, will it stay that way?
Then there is the issue of how long coach Robb Akey has to bring a winner to Moscow. That contract isn’t going to last forever and when it is up are we still “gonna love it?”
If the football team wins, even in next year’s watered-down WAC, this 2-10 year will be a distant memory. New faces — players and coaches alike — can remove some of the sting this tumultuous season left, but if even that doesn’t happen Vandals will excel in other, less conspicuous venues.