Off-Season Mismash

As we wait for more hard news, beginning with the opening of the spring signing period for basketball next week (April 14), here are some tidbids to nibble upon....Idaho State's women's team will have at least one more scholarship to offer for next year than Coach Seton Sobolewski anticipated, with the news that freshman shooting guard Brea Matthews is leaving the program, along with walk-on teammate Rayneiqua Edwards. Matthews is reportedly transferring to a school in California and does not intend to play basketball....Air Force's women's team is still under contract to come to Pocatello next fall, but it turns out the Bengals won't be facing their former coach, Ardie McInelley (above), who was fired with two years (and about $355,000) left on her contract. Ardie's last two Falcons teams failed to win a conference game. She finishes her Air Force career with a 57-201 record overall, just 12-124 in Mountain West Conference play. Two former Bengals, ISU Hall of Famer Holly Togiai and Cassie Bro, were on Ardie's staff at the Academy, as was current Bengal assistant Angela Munger.....There has been no confirmation out of Weber State yet, but rumors are flying on the Wildcats message board that swing-man Franklin Session, the Big Sky newcomer of the year, is transferring. This will be a story worth watching...As I've noted many times in the past, a lot of things can happen in the off-season, and most of them (trouble with the law, transfers, academic issues) are bad. The University of Georgia, who will host Idaho State on Nov. 6, is having one of those off-seasons. The Bulldogs recently kicked linebacker Montez Robinson off the team following his arrest for battery, and then suspended freshman quarterback Zach Mettenberger, one of four contenders for their starting quarterback job, from the opening game of the season after his arrest on DUI and other related charges...Former Idaho State offensive coordinator Bruce Barnum, one of the really good guys in coaching, is back in the Big Sky Conference as coordinator at Portland State. Word is "Barney" is introducing the "pistol offense" to the Vikings, which his new head man, Nigel Burton, is bringing with him from Nevada...As expected the State Board of Education approved increases in fees for the three state universities this week, thereby raising the cost of athletic scholarships to athletic departments. The board approved a nine percent increase in Idaho State fees for next year. According to figures ISU submitted to the State Board of Education in February, the athletic department anticipates spending almost $1.7 million on student aid in this fiscal year....Gus Johnson, one of my favorite NBA players to watch as a kid and a former Boise Junior College Bronco and University of Idaho Vandal, was elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame, it was announced this week. Johnson was one of the first great leapers in the game, and he made his name shattering backboards with thunder dunks. Before his pro days, he played three years for the Vandals after a season with then-Boise JC in the early 1960s. While in Moscow, he displayed his great jumping ability at the Corner Club, a local night spot, where he leapt from a standing start and touched a spot on the rafters 11 feet 6 inches off the floor. The owner of the Corner Club put a nail in the rafter where Johnson reached the appex of his leap, and for years athletes and wanna-be's came from miles around to try to touch the nail. Reportedly, even 6-11 UCLA All-American Bill Walton failed in an attempt to hit the nail from a standing start. The nail remained untouched until, ironically, a junior college basketball star named Joey Johnson, who also happened to be a world class high jumper, hit it on his third try while visiting the bar on a trip to a game at North Idaho College in the mid-1980s. Here's the great irony in that: Joey Johnson's father, former Celtics guard Dennis Johnson, was also inducted into this year's Hall of Fame class. Sadly, both Johnsons, Dennis and Gus, have died, Gus of brain cancer at 48, and Dennis at just 52 years of age.

--Brad B.

Assistant Coaches: Unsung Nomads

Assistant football coaches are the backbone of most collegiate football programs. They study hours of tape on opponents and develop game plans. They kiss the rear ends of dozens of high school and junior college kids during what has become a year-around recruiting process. And they serve as buffers between the often volatile head coaches with big egos and the sensitive players with similarly-sized egos.

They also get paid relatively little, usually have no job security, and can pretty much count on uprooting their families half-way cross the country every three or four years. Sounds like a great job, eh?

In the 15 years I've been broadcasting Idaho State football, I've had the pleasure of getting to know a lot of Bengal assistant coaches. Every Thursday during the season, I've sat down with my play-by-play partner and the offensive and defensive coordinators and discussed the game plan, injury status and scouting report on that week's upcoming opponent. And in travelling with the team during that time, I've also gotten familiar with a number of position coaches. It's one of the real perks of the job, getting to know these guys and having the opportunity to pick their brains about football, recruiting and coaching.

So I thought it would be fun to take a look at what's happened to some of the assistants I've been privileged to meet over the years. Not surprisingly, some have made it big since they left Idaho State. Few bigger than James Franklin (above), officially named "head coach in waiting" at Maryland who, reportedly, is guaranteed a $1 million payout if the school doesn't honor that commitment. Franklin served just one year on Larry Lewis' Idaho State staff in 1999, as wide receivers coach, before moving on to Maryland. He's been an offensive coordinator at Kansas State and Pitt, too, before returning to the Terps program.

"Big Timers"

Some of the other "big timers:" Marvin Lewis (1981-84), head coach, Cincinnati Bengals, where he's joined by Mike Sheppard (1980-81) as wide receivers coach; Kevin Gilbride (GA at ISU 1974-75, and a "co-coach" of the ISU women's basketball team), now offensive coordinator for the New York Giants; Kyle Whittingham (1988-1993), head coach, Utah; and Gary Andersen (1988-93), head coach, Utah State.

Others haven't been so fortunate. I haven't been able to find links to a number of the assistants I knew back in the 1990s, so I'm assuming they are out of football. Others have suffered the fate of being let go with fired coaching staffs, and having to take a job where they find one. Mark Rhea, for example, moved from defensive line coach at Toledo to defensive coordinator at Tiffin University, a D-II school in a small town in Ohio. Rhea coached the d-line for Idaho State from 2000 to 2005.

Here's a summary of former ISU assistants I was able to locate, and what they are doing now:

James Ward, former Bengal defensive coordinator (1999-2002), is now coaching cornerbacks at Nevada; Keith Uperesa, ISU offensive coordinator (1999-2000), offensive line coach at UNLV; Chris Ball, ISU defensive coordinator in 1999, now secondary coach at Washington State, after holding the same position at Pitt and Alabama; Jeff Banks, former running backs coach and recruiting coordinator (2001-2003), holds the same posts at UTEP, where he is joined by Aaron Price, former ISU quarterbacks coach (1999-2000) now performing the same functions; Bruce Barnum, who served as both offensive and defensive coordinator for the Bengals (1997-2005), is on the offensive side of the football at Cornell, where he's joined by former ISU quarterbacks coach Joe Borich (1999-2005); Rob Bolks, defensive coordinator (1994-96), is coaching the secondary at Missouri State, where he's joined by former Bengal quarterbacks coach Rob Christophel, who is working the same position; Johnny Nansen, who coached on the defensive side of the football at Idaho State (2001-2003), is tutoring defensive linemen at Washington; Rob Christoff, who coached linebackers for the Bengals (2007) has moved to the same position at Idaho; and Mike Orthmann, the Bengals' offensive coordinator the last two seasons, has landed in the same role at Arizona Western.

--Brad B.

And thanks for being a Bengal fan -- it ain't always easy, but it's always fun.