Arkley is beginning a series of articles on the upcoming foes this fall, starting with Idaho.
http://tinyurl.com/p6n6xra

It is interesting to see the extent to which Paul Petrino has gone the JUCO route. He brought in 16 JUCOs last year, and 12 more this year. On the one hand that can provide a quick boost, but on the other hand, it means a shortage of young players moving up through the system.

If you take too many JUCO players, you eventually can have trouble getting to 85 players on scholarship. As an extreme example, if you took 25 JUCO players a year, all with 2 to play 2, you'd have only have 50 guys on scholarship at any given time. Worse, none of them would have more than 1 year in the system, so they would all be learning the system, and getting used to each other. Maintaining continuity is difficult this way.

Akron has gone this route, too, but to a lesser degree. It definitely can give you a quick fix, but is it a lasting fix? When I see a program take this route, I watch to see what happens. Often they get a 1-2 year boost, then by year 4 they are back where they started, or worse. Of course, if they coach can get a new job by then, it is someone else that has to deal with the problem.

It was also interesting to learn that the Idaho field is indoors, in a fascinating building known as the Kibbie Dome, which also is their basketball arena. It only seats 16,000, the smallest in FBS, but the "dome" is actually an engineering marvel, an arched structure spanned with wood joists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbie_Dome

I'm assuming Petrino is most likely doing the JUCO thing with more of a "win now" attitude rather than build the program up. I can't imagine that's where he's looking to set up shop for a while.

The guy loves the JUCO route period.

Considering they're 43-136 (.240) over the past 15 years, I don't think anybody at Idaho really cares whether he's building a long-term program. Plus, he's in the third year of his contract, and I imagine the pressure is building to win -- especially given his 2-21 record the first two seasons.

Miami lost a lot from last year. They have been recruiting better, but my feeling is that they are probably still a year or two away. They are a unanimous pick for last in the East, for what little that is worth. We'll see what Arkley has to say when he gets to them.

Could one of the mods find and post some photos of the Idaho dome -- both inside and out? I appreciate the verbal descriptions, but as that old Chinese proverb says, "A picture beats a thousand words."

The more I think about your description, it sounds like an IPF with some seating down the sidelines. Is it high enough inside that punts won't hit the rafters?

ETSU's seating in that facility is opposite of how Idaho's is. ETSU's main grandstands are/were parallel to the end walls. Idaho's seating is down along the sides of the facility with the end zones up against the end walls.

In thinking more about it, the Juco route can work well. You may not have as much depth, but you don't need as much depth. Part of the reason you need 85 players when working with Freshmen is that most Freshmen aren't ready to play yet, so there are a lot of guys on the roster who won't be playing.

After looking into it, I think that the bigger problem for Idaho isn't the large number of JUCO players, it is that they may have picked the wrong JUCO players.


First let's look at Ohio, which has done pretty well with JUCO players in recent years. Here are their JUCO players the last three years:

2013 - McLeod, Tautuaiki
2014 - Layton, Bonnstetter, Boland
2015 - Robbins, Cooper, Anderson

McLeod is graduated (but was a starter), while Robbins hasn't arrived yet. Of the other six, four are starters (Tautuaiki, Layton, Bonstetter, and Anderson) and one is a backup (Cooper). Only Boland isn't on the top two strings (and he was hurt). All told, of the 7 players who have arrived, five are, or have been starters, while six have made the two deep. That is 71% starters, and 86% on the two deep, which is a very good success rate, certainly better than their success rate in the 2005-2010 period.



Now lets look at Idaho, first the 2013 class, which may have been pattially recruited by Petrino's predecessor: Epps, Milan, Rice, Westlake, Cable
The 2013 class was very good. There are three starters (Epps, Milan, Westlake), and one backup (Cable), while Rice is gone. [The Freshmen recruited in 2013 were also very good, by the way. Of 17 Freshmen from 2013, there are five starters and 7 second teamers).]

Now the 2014 class, which was not very good at all. It has 17 players: Antoine, Ayers, Edwards, Fawkes, Hampton, Hatcher, Johnson, Martial, Olson, Penny, Perry, Peterson, Rufas, Steele, Sule, Torrence, Travillon
From these 17 players:
1. Two did not qualify in 2014, and were re-recruited in 2015 (Hampton, Peterson)
2. Three starters (Edwards, Fawkes, Penny)
3. Three backups (Antoine, Ayers, Johnson)
4. Three others are on the roster, but not on the 2-deep (Martial, Sule, Travillon)
5. Six are not on the roster, so they are either no-shows, or have left the program (Hatcher, Olson, Perry, Rufas, Steele, Torrence).

Then there is the 2015 class, not all of whom are on campus yet, but which appears to be better than the 2014 class already. There are fourteen JUCOs, Donaldson, Erbes, Fletcher, Hampton, Hazewood, Hightower, Jones, Peterson, Smith, Stuart, Taylor, Trotter, White, Wiltz.
From these 14 players:
1. Three starters (Hazewood, Erbes, Trotter)
2. Three backups (Hightower, Taylor, Wiltz)
3 Five more are on the roster, so presumably were in the Spring camp, but did not make the two-deep (Fletcher, Hampton, Peterson, Smith, White)
4. Three are not on the roster yet (Donaldson, Jones, Stuart)

Excluding the 3 players that haven't arrived yet from the 2015 class, there are 25 JUCO players in the 2014-2015 classes. Of those there 6/25 or 24% are starters, and 12/25 or 48% are on the two deep.