The Post spoke with The Argonaut, Idaho's student newspaper, to discuss the game and media relations.
In honor of the season opener against Idaho, I spoke with Korbin McDonald, the manager of Vandal Nation — a subset of Idaho’s student newspaper, The Argonaut.
To keep it brief: a lot has taken place out in Moscow, with storylines on and off the field.
Paul Petrino, Idaho’s coach, had a quarrel with some journalists, leading to a crackdown with media availability at football practice.
But Vandal Nation has taken a firm stance on subject, choosing not to go to access because other media outlets have not been invited. This has led to sports media attention around the country.
This is a brief portion of my chat with Korbin on Ohio’s first opponent, media access and what to expect Thursday night in the Kibbie Dome.
Charlie Hatch: How did the whole media access scenario pop up? What are your thoughts on the situation as a whole?
Korbin McDonald: So you know about Petrino lashing out at a reporter. After that, (the Idaho athletic department) came up with new media policies and sent out an email. Then a couple reporters, including myself, received a phone call saying, ‘You guys have obeyed media relations in the past. You guys can come into practice one day a week, just let us know 24 hours in advance.”
Another reporter and I went to a practice and got to talking and we filled each other out and then we went back to our respective editors and made a decision that way.
Especially being a student journalist, you’re always asking for other people’s opinions … so we took it all in and of course it was the decision me and my editor agreed to do, and that’s the direction we went.
CH: With the season kicking off Thursday night, what the big talking points out in Idaho?
KM: It all starts with at quarterback. Last year Matt Linehan had a few costly interceptions in the fourth quarter (against Ohio). He’s just talked about he’s trying to cut down on his mistakes. And if he can cut down on his mistakes and interceptions … I think he’ll be a lot better.
Of course he needs to get protected by his offensive line, and that’s a big “if” these last two seasons.
And then on the defensive side of the ball I think it’ll be the secondary and a lot of big plays.
(Ohio running back A.J. Ouellette) last year put that to a test and made an example out of us because we couldn’t stop him to save our lives.
CH: The team went 1-10 last year … is it optimistic now or is there a lot to still work on?
KM: I think there’s a lot of optimism, especially to the reporters who are at practice when we’re able to go. You can definitely see a lot of players getting bigger, faster, stronger. And they’re doing well. But they’re doing well against their teammates--an Idaho team that has gone 1-10 last year, and I think only two wins under Petrino. So we need to wait to make predictions until they play Ohio to see how much they’ve improved.
{{tncms-asset app="editorial" id="9aa2f8fc-51c1-11e5-91c6-ab92d3d54f0f"}}
CH: Prediction for the game?
KM: I’m gonna predict an Idaho Vandals win, and there’s a couple reasons that go into that. Jace Malek. He had cancer and coach Petrino stuck with Malik’s offer and he’s now taking classes. He’ll be with the team the whole game and I think it’s going to be really inspirational.
With everything that’s going on with the media, I think the players are going to come out hyped up for the first game for the “Dome” crowd. I think it’s going to be a tough victory because Ohio looks good.”
