1999_Idaho_Vandals_football_team
1999 Idaho Vandals football team
American college football season
The 1999 Idaho Vandals football team represented the University of Idaho in the 1999 NCAA Division I-A football season. The Vandals, led by fifth-year head coach Chris Tormey, were members of the Big West Conference and went 7–4 overall and 4–2 in conference play.
They played their home games at Martin Stadium on the campus of Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, eight miles (13 km) west of their campus in Moscow, Idaho. Martin Stadium was used to satisfy NCAA attendance requirements for Division I-A status.[1][2] The 16,000-seat Kibbie Dome, an indoor facility on campus in Moscow, was not used for any Vandal football games this season. For the first time in thirty years, the Vandals did not play any games in the state of Idaho.
In the Battle of the Palouse with Washington State, the Vandals won for the first time since 1965, breaking a fourteen-game losing streak to the Cougars that lasted more than three decades.[1][3]
Standout defensive lineman Mao Tosi missed the last two games due to a neck stinger;[4] in the finale for the conference title,[5] the Vandals were soundly defeated by rival Boise State in Pullman.[6] This was the beginning of the current losing streak to the Broncos, which reached twelve games in 2010 before the series went on hiatus. Tosi was selected in the fifth round of the 2000 NFL Draft and played two seasons with the Arizona Cardinals until a neck injury ended his playing career.
This was the final season for alumnus Tormey as head coach; in December, he left for Nevada,[7] which was moving to the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). A few days later, former Vandal offensive lineman Tom Cable was hired for 2000.[8]
