Idaho Head Coach Thomas Ford Ready To 'Get After' Washington State This Week

On Saturday, the Washington State Cougars will welcome the Idaho Vandals for the first matchup of the 2025 campaign for both teams. For Idaho head coach Thomas Ford, the game has extra significance as his first in the role and his first as a Division I head coach.

It's also the latest chapter the century-old rivalry known as the Battle of the Palouse, with two head coaches in Ford and Jimmy Rogers looking to start new chapters on the right foot.

Watch Ford's full media availability below.

Highlights

-On the first matchup of the season: "I thought it was an incredibly competitive camp throughout all of fall and excited to start really getting after an opponent. You know, we got a little bit of early work with some Wazzu stuff over this past week and so trying to get a jumpstart on those guys down the road, but we're very excited for this matchup. Obviously, it's a storied rivalry. I think it goes back to like 1894. I think they played 93 times in that time. Hopefully 94 comes out with the Vandals on top."

-On previous interactions with Coach Rogers: "We've spoken before. I don't know coach Rogers well. Obviously, we have a lot of ties from the South Dakota State coaching tree, but we did get a chance to meet over the summer at [Avery Strong Showcase] out in Tacoma, one of the big kind of satellite camps in the Northwest. And you know, seems like a really good, good guy. Seems like a down-to-earth guy. We talked a little bit about doing stuff in the future just kind of jointly with dates with, you know, camps, Pro Days, things like that. So, definitely a good neighbor to have, but there's no neighbors that are too friendly when it comes to Week One."

- "I think you know we talked about the history earlier in the week just kind of what this series looked like. It's been a lopsided series obviously. I believe the last time the Vandals beat the Cougs was in 2000. They beat them back-to-back years '99 and 2000. So, we've talked a lot about that and just how much this rivalry means to both programs, but specifically us, how it can be a great measuring stick game and and what we want to do with our goals, right? We want to be, you know, a Big Sky contender, we want to be a national contender, well, you got to be able to beat FBS teams. And so, I think our guys are extremely motivated from that standpoint. And they definitely know the history for sure."