After a season filled with close losses and growing pains, head coach Thomas Ford Jr. believes that his team is better equipped and eager to begin a brand new season.
A year ago, Thomas Ford Jr. was trying to rebuild Idaho football from the ground up.
The Vandals finished 4-8 in Ford’s first season as head coach. a difficult task to follow three consecutive trips to the FCS playoffs under former coach Jason Eck. Idaho entered 2025 with a young roster, a new quarterback and only one returning defensive starter from the previous season’s playoff team.
Four of the Vandals’ losses came by one possession, including three games decided by three points.
Ford is not interested in carrying that record into the new season.
“Obviously not really looking backwards at all,” Ford said during Idaho’s weekly press conference. “We know this is a brand new group with a fresh slate.”
That does not mean Idaho has forgotten what went wrong.
The Vandals spent much of the offseason addressing the problems that surfaced during Ford’s first season. They added 21 transfers, brought in the highest-rated recruiting class in the FCS, replaced coordinators on offense, defense and special teams, and returned a much more experienced core than the one that took the field last fall.
The result is a team that looks different from the one Ford inherited, but one that still has enough continuity to make 2026 feel like the beginning of the next phase rather than another rebuild.
At the center of it is Senior quarterback Joshua Wood, who returns for his second season in Moscow after producing one of the best rushing seasons by an Idaho quarterback in more than three decades. Wood passed for 1,898 yards and 14 touchdowns in 10 games last season while completing 58.5% of his passes. He added 589 rushing yards and seven touchdowns, giving him 21 total touchdowns and nearly 2,500 yards of total offense despite missing time for his sprained knee.
Wood is also one of Idaho’s four captains for the 2026 season, joining senior center Layton Vining, Redshirt Senior linebacker Cruz Hepburn and Senior safety Zach Wusstig. Ford said each received at least 65 votes from teammates.
“Our four captains this year are all guys that exemplify what it means to be a Vandal,” Ford said in announcing the group. “They’re tough, hard working guys that truly care about their teammates.”
The group reflects what Ford hopes will be one of the defining characteristics of this year’s team: experience.
Wood is entering his second season as Idaho’s starting quarterback. Vining has started 29 games in his career. Hepburn is the Vandals’ leading returning tackler after recording 71 tackles last season, and Wusstig returns after making a huge impact and tallying 49 tackles in his first season at Idaho.
That experience extends across the offensive line, perhaps Idaho’s most obvious source of continuity.
The Vandals started the same five offensive linemen in all 12 games last season. Four of those players return in 2026, including Vining, Seniors Kiegan Henson, Tyler Skinner and Charlie Vliem. The group enters the season with a combined wealth of experience and will be asked to set the tone for a new offensive system.
Offensive coordinator Ian Shoemaker’s offense is built around a philosophy that begins with the running game. He wants Idaho to attack the A-gaps, run downhill and force defenses to account for the run before opening up opportunities through play action, run-pass options and downfield throws.
“We’re going to be physical first,” Shoemaker said. “Physicality is going to be a paramount driver in what we’re doing.”
Along with Wood, Idaho has a deep group of running backs that includes Junior transfers Damonte Bias and Ferrari Miller, along with returning fifth year back Hayden Kincheloe and freshman Kenny Golston. Bias rushed for 835 yards and averaged 7.1 yards per carry at El Camino College last season. Miller ran for 1,123 yards and eight touchdowns at Diablo Valley College.
Ford said Bias, Miller and Kincheloe were among the backs who stood out most during fall camp.
“Kind of a three-headed monster,” Ford said of the group. “Those three guys really had great fall camps.”
Shoemaker is not ready to declare one of them the featured back. The competition, he said, will be determined by more than who runs the hardest.
“Who gets hot when we get into the season, who breaks tackles, who does a great job in pass protection, who does a great job catching the ball out of the backfield, all those might be different guys,” Shoemaker said.
The depth is similar at receiver.
Juniors, Ryan Jezioro,Marquawn McCraney, Tony Harste, and Sophomore Nolan McWilliams return after combining for 80 catches, 1,025 yards and eight touchdowns last season. Jezioro led the group with 27 catches for 347 yards and four touchdowns, while McCraney had 22 catches for 306 yards and two touchdowns. Nearly 60% of Idaho’s receiving yards from 2025 return this season.
Shoemaker said the group has grown significantly since spring.
“I think we’re much deeper,” he said. “I think we have six to seven guys that could really go in a game and play at a high level.”
That could be particularly important for Wood.
His first season at Idaho was interrupted by injury, and the offense frequently had to adjust to different receivers. Shoemaker said the summer gave Wood and his receivers the opportunity to establish the timing that was difficult to build during the spring and throughout last season.
Now the expectation is not simply for Wood to remain one of the Big Sky’s most dangerous dual-threat quarterbacks. It is for him to become a more efficient one.
“I just think being efficient, taking what the defense has given him,” Ford said. “Not having to rely so much on hero ball plays where he’s got to extend the play when he could have just thrown a boundary hitch, for example.”
Ford still wants Wood’s legs to be a major part of the offense. The difference is that Idaho wants the senior quarterback to make quicker decisions and operate more consistently within the system.
“The consistency and efficiency is really most important for him,” Ford said.
The defense enters 2026 with a similar combination of returning experience and new faces.
Hepburn is the most recognizable piece. After converting from baseball at Lewis-Clark State College and transitioning to linebacker, he broke into Idaho’s starting lineup in 2025 and recorded 71 tackles, six tackles for loss, a sack and a 63-yard fumble return for a touchdown against Northern Arizona. He now enters the season as the defense’s leading returning tackler and one of its primary leaders.
New defensive coordinator Lee Stalker sees something in Hepburn that goes beyond his statistics.
“There’s a sense of ease and a sense of calm when he’s in the game, when he’s in the middle of our defense, when he’s communicating to the front and the guys behind him,” Stalker said.
That communication is central to Stalker’s defensive philosophy.
Idaho spent much of fall camp emphasizing alignment, communication and recognition before the snap. Stalker wants his players to understand formations quickly, communicate adjustments and then play with urgency.
“You can never demand enough communication,” Stalker said. “Obviously pre-snap is the critical part.”
Stalker believes Idaho has something it did not have enough of last season: depth.
“I think you’ll see a number of guys at every position group rotating in that game, staying fresh and giving us a chance in the fourth quarter,” Stalker said.
That emphasis on depth is part of a larger attempt to build a defense capable of playing fast for four quarters.
It also speaks to the lessons Idaho learned last season.
The Vandals were competitive in several games but struggled to close them. Idaho lost 13-10 to Washington State, blew a 14-point lead at San Jose State and lost 23-20 at Sacramento State. The team went 2-4 in games decided by seven points or fewer.
Ford believes experience can change that.
In three of Idaho’s losses by three points, the defense had opportunities to get a stop late. Ford pointed specifically to the Washington State opener, when all five defensive backs on the field for the final two-minute situation had never experienced that kind of situation before.
“This year, we actually have players that have been actually on the field in that situation,” Ford said. “I think the experience will really help.”
The lesson has shaped how Idaho practices.
“We’re a little bit more of a veteran group,” Ford said. “So those guys are not just working on techniques they’ve already done. Right now they’re starting to build the nuance of their position.”
In 2025, Idaho often had to teach young players how to adjust to college football while simultaneously trying to win games. This year, Ford believes more of his players understand what is expected before they step onto the field.
The Vandals also have a clearer sense of what their program is supposed to look like.
Ford said the team has emphasized process over results throughout fall camp. Instead of dwelling on the outcome of a particular practice or game, he wants players to understand the decisions and habits that produce winning football.
The Vandals will play AP preseason No. 21 Utah and five teams ranked in the Stats Perform FCS preseason Top 25: Lamar, Abilene Christian, Montana, Montana State and UC Davis. Idaho State and Southern Utah also received votes. The schedule includes three games on linear ESPN networks, including the season opener at Cal Poly and the Oct. 2 home matchup against defending FCS national champion Montana State.
There will be little room for a slow start, but Ford does not want his players looking at the entire schedule, either.
“Really treating it as a championship matchup one week at a time,” Ford said. “In this league, you never know what game could be the conference championship since we don’t have a true conference championship and everybody in this league is good.”
Ford’s first season was about establishing the building blocks. His second season is about determining whether those pieces can fit together.
The new coaching staff has brought new systems. The roster has more experience. The offensive line has continuity and plenty of experience.
Ford has already seen signs that his recruiting approach is beginning to change the composition of the roster. Idaho’s 2026 recruiting class was the highest-rated in program history, with 17 three-star signees and nine players who held FBS offers.
The Vandals still have to prove they can turn close games into wins, avoid the inconsistency that plagued them last season and translate a physical fall camp into physical football against their opponents.