Vandals

Football at Idaho began as a campus activity in the university's earliest years and by 1893 had turned into an organised programme; the nickname that stuck to it, Vandals, only arrived in 1917. What Moscow, Idaho has built since then sits oddly with its size: a Division I program that has spent most of its history in the Big Sky Conference, home in the Kibbie Dome, a domed venue on campus holding just over 15,000.

The championship record is front-loaded and then thins out. Idaho took the Pacific Coast Conference in 1927, then went decades before the Big Sky era brought nine titles between 1965 and 1992, followed by one Big West crown in 1998. Three bowl wins followed that same shape of feast then quiet: both Humanitarian Bowls, in 1998 against Southern Miss and in 2009 against Bowling Green, and the 2016 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl against Colorado State.

Against Montana, the rivalry runs for the Little Brown Stein, a series going back to 1903 in which the Vandals lead 56–32–2 — a rare case of a small program holding the upper hand over the length of more than a century.

Of everyone who has come through the programme, Jerry Kramer is the name Idaho points to first: a Pro Football Hall of Famer.