Sep. 8—MOSCOW, Idaho — The season is young, but Idaho is already compiling a roster of players who have shown they can meet the moment and more.
The Vandals (1-1) are ranked eighth in the Stats Perform Top 25 and 10th in the American Football Coaches Association poll. Idaho quarterback Joshua Wood was named the Big Sky Conference co-offensive player of the week, along with Montana running back Eli Gillman, after Wood led the Vandals to the season’s first win, 37-30, against St. Thomas Sept. 6.
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Wood threw for 281 yards and three touchdowns and ran for another 96 yards, including a 59-yard sprint around right end where he outran every pursuer to the end zone, then hit tight end Jake Cox with a two-point conversion pass for the game’s deciding points.
He also propelled fans out of their seats with the breathtaking nature of several passes. Wood escaped a rush in the first half, slammed on the brakes at the line of scrimmage and put everything behind a 43-yard flat trajectory missile to Emmerson Cortez-Menjivar. He found Tony Harste with a 21-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter on which Harste made a sliding catch, and with a 37-yard high-arching bomb that Harste looked over both shoulders to track before hauling it in at the end of the third quarter.
The pass set up Wood’s 42-yard scoring strike to Ryan Jezioro for a 29-16 lead to open the fourth quarter.
In Idaho’s 13-10 loss to Washington State in the season’s first game, Wood ran for 101 yards.
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This is apparently fashioning a new standard. Idaho coach Thomas Ford Jr. says when Idaho faces Utah Tech Saturday in the Kibbie Dome’s 50th anniversary game, he is looking for Wood to put up “close to 300 yards passing and 80 yards on the ground. He’s a true double -threat quarterback.”
After the St. Thomas win, Wood said he felt more comfortable running the offense than he did against WSU. In the postgame media conference, Ford said “whenever you have a quarterback that can throw and run the ball it causes the defense lots of struggle, especially in just preparing for it.”
On the other side of the ball, Idaho has a force in senior linebacker Isiah King. He led the Vandals with 10 total tackles and a sack against WSU and followed with six tackles, a forced fumble that Vandals linebacker Will Cornelson recovered, and another sack that ended a Tommies scoring threat late in the fourth quarter. Wood ran for his touchdown on the Vandals’ next series.
King is listed on the Idaho roster as a linebacker, only because omnipresent is not a football position.
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“Sometimes, I don’t think he realizes how good he is. He has length, strength, speed,” says Ford.
King presses the line of scrimmage to wreck running plays. He can blitz inside or come off the edge, and he can cover receivers.
“The offense has to account for him wherever he is,” says Ford.
In addition, when Ford coached Idaho’s kicking teams in 2022 and 2023 King “was one of our best special team players. He was probably the best kickoff guy I ever coached,” Ford said.
King lets his play on the field do the talking, according to Ford.
“He is the most humble kid ,” Ford said. “He barely speaks two words.”
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King, from San Diego, says Idaho was his best offer out of high school, and the Vandals were the closest team to his family.
“It has been a good fit,” he says. “I like the small-town vibe.”
Against the Cougars, King deposited WSU quarterback Jaxon Potter on the turf with a perfect shoulder-in-the-chest-rising-blow-wrap-up form tackle that ought to be on instructional tapes to eternity.
Recalling it brought a smile to his face. Potter had the misfortune to be in the area he was covering and “I shot my shot,” King said simply.
“I was pretty excited. It was fourth down and got us off the field.”
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King would like to conclude his Idaho career with an all-Big Sky Conference award and a Football Championship Subdivision title for the team. Beyond that, “hopefully I can play at the next level,” he says. “That is the goal.”
