Feb. 6—Exactly 49 days after he accepted the head coaching position with the Idaho football team, Thomas Ford Jr. announced a signing class of 33 players on the traditional National Signing Day on Wednesday, signaling he and his staff have been hot on the recruiting trails from Day 1.
Ford’s first class includes 10 of the 19 players UI signed in the early signing period in December when Jason Eck was still head coach and 20 players from the Pacific Northwest, including eight each from Idaho and Washington.
Twenty-three of the signees are high school athletes, seven are NCAA transfers and three are junior college transfers.
“I’m just really excited about the depth of (the class) and where we got the guys from,” Ford said. “One thing that’s really important to me is, in a given year, we really want to be about 60% Northwest guys. And when you look at this class, we’re right at 60% … and you see that number right in Idaho and Washington, being eight guys apiece from each state.”
Here’s a first look at the future of the Vandal football:
Kendrick’s Hewett sticks with UI, headlines eight homegrown Vandals
Of the 10 early signing period recruits to stick with their commitment, the most notable might be Kendrick football star Sawyer Hewett.
The speedy and versatile wide receiver will feel right at home in the Kibbie Dome, where he won four small-school state championships with the Tigers during a dominant prep football career.
“I think a guy like Sawyer — who’s such a productive player, even at a smaller school — you can’t let those guys get away,” Idaho offensive coordinator Matt Linehan said. “If he’s in your backyard, you got to take the best players that are in your backyard. And he was an exemplary player at that level.”
Idaho’s other recruits from the Gem State include running back Taeshaun Reese (Meridian High), linebacker Jack Giannini (Eagle High) and a host of defensive linemen: Shepard Fish (Meridian/Capital High), Austin Flaherty (Boise/Borah High), Caden Siegner (Star/Owyhee High), Nate Williams (Eagle High) and Mason Krahn (Nampa/Skyview High).
Fish, Krahn and Williams are all rated as three-star recruits by 247sports.com.
No QB in this class
Fans might notice there is no quarterback in this class.
The lone QB from UI’s early signing period — Toa Faavae of De La Salle High School in California — opted to follow Eck to New Mexico.
With UI starter Jack Layne also transferring to UM, Idaho currently has four quarterbacks on its roster, all sophomores — Jack Wagner, Nick Josifeck, Rocco Koch and Holden Bea.
Wagner and Josifeck contributed heavily at times during a 2024 season that saw the Vandals finish with their best record (10-4) since 1993, so UI still shows promise at the position despite its youth and a lack of new recruits there.
“Coach Linehan, I think, is pretty selective about that position,” Ford said about QBs. “We don’t want to take a guy just for the roster number. We want to take a guy that we believe in (and) can develop and be a starter here someday.
“So there’s a couple targets that we have out there that we’ve talked with and could still potentially get (in the future).”
UW, Boise State, Montana State transfers in the mix
The Vandals dipped into the transfer portal for a handful of recruits and emerged with some names from some familiar regional rivals.
Senior wide receiver Lonyatta Alexander Jr. of Montana State, graduate defensive lineman Maurice Heims of Washington, sophomore tight end Oliver Fisher of Boise State and redshirt freshman defensive lineman Kai Richardson of Oregon State are among the transfers.
Alexander played in 15 games, catching 22 passes for 264 yards for the FCS-runners-up Bobcats, who eliminated the Vandals in the second round of the FCS playoffs in December.
The 6-foot-3 senior could help fill the void left by departed wideouts Jordan Dwyer (TCU) and Mark Hamper (Wisconsin).
Alexander (Auburn, Wash./Kennedy Catholic High) is someone the Ford family has been familiar with since his junior high days, going back to being coached and trained by Ford’s brothers, Tracy Ford and Reggie Ford, in the Seattle area. So the familiarity was already there.
“My youngest brother Tracy, has been training him since he was probably in sixth or seventh grade. And my middle brother Reggie coached him at Kennedy Catholic. And so it’s almost like he’s been here for four years,” Ford said. “He’s a veteran guy that we kind of needed in that room. Needed a guy that’s played a lot of football, and obviously (he’s) played a ton of football.”
Other notes and quotes
Junior offensive lineman Howard Stedford, of NCAA DII Pace University in New York, is “just a big, physical, athletic dude” who is already on campus and impressing the coaches with his attitude.
Defensive line was a heavy emphasis with 11 total signees. In total, UI has 21 recruits on defense and 12 on offense.
Fisher didn’t see any action at BSU, but rates as a three-star recruit at tight end and was at one point the No. 3 prospect in Oregon (Sherwood High), per 247sports.com.
Ford on the challenges of a short recruiting window for his staff: “I think probably the biggest challenge was just trying to find guys that fit our program and doing it in such a short period of time. In a traditional year, we really recruit these guys over, like, a calendar year, you’re able to vet a lot of more of them in terms of their character, work ethic and those things. And so I think we did really rely on those past relationships that we had, either with the particular players or with coaches that had coached these guys.”
Looking ahead
Idaho begins spring practice March 24 with the annual spring game slated for 6 p.m. April 25 at the P1FCU Kibbie Dome.
Sports reporter Sam Taylor contributed to this story.
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