Idaho quarterback Nathan Enderle sat in silence while a room of classmates erupted in laughter.
It was another joke about the Vandals football team and Idaho's propensity for losing, this time told by a professor during the first week of class."You really didn't have much of a defense, so you just took the joke and smiled it off," Enderle said this week. "What could you say? The truth is we always were losing."Perhaps before. But not anymore -- at least not this season.Idaho (7-2, 4-1 Western Athletic Conference), which hosts Fresno State (5-3, 4-1) on Saturday, has essentially ensured itself a bowl berth for the first time in 10 years with this season's most dramatic turnaround in college football.Of the eight teams nationally that had two wins or fewer last season, only Idaho is bowl eligible."They're not joking about us anymore," said Enderle, who leads the WAC with an average of 267.1 passing yards per game. "It's just a great feeling around here now. Everyone around town is happier."Spearheading the Vandals' turnaround has been a confidence once nonexistent in the program, but quite contagious these days.Credit Idaho's four close wins, all decided by four points or less, for fueling that self-esteem.Idaho's latest nail-biter was a 35-34 win against Louisiana Tech."We just have a confidence and swagger in us now," safety Shiloh Keo said. "You get used to being in that tight situation. It isn't tense anymore. It just feels normal."This team will not fall apart and crumble. That wasn't always the case."Before this season, Idaho football was a joke that extended beyond the confines of the Moscow, Idaho, campus.Since joining the WAC in 2005, the Vandals had gone 2-9, 4-8, 1-11 and 2-10 overall. They had won one conference game in the past two seasons combined.On top of all of the losing, the Vandals kept losing head coaches.Two weeks after Enderle signed with the Vandals, he found out that the coach who recruited him, Nick Holt, had left.Holt, who coached two seasons at Idaho, became USC's defensive coordinator.The Vandals did seem to find a gem of a replacement when veteran coach Dennis Erickson decided to come to Idaho in 2006.Erickson, who previously coached at Idaho from 1982-85, seemed content to make rebuilding Idaho the final challenge to an illustrious career that included a national title at Miami.But after one season, Erickson left to coach at Arizona State."You kind of become cynical about college football," Enderle said. "You start seeing it only as a business, because that's how our other coaches approached it."In search of some sort of stability, Idaho turned to then-Washington State defensive coordinator Robb Akey, who knew the recruiting area and brought the energy and enthusiasm the Vandals so desperately needed.Most of all, Akey assured the players that he was committed to turning around the program and providing a family atmosphere.Still, some players didn't believe him."I know they were thinking 'How are you any different than the other coaches?' " Akey said. "We had to earn their trust. And trust starts by showing them you're going to be there for them through the good times and the bad times."We went through a lot of bad times."Trust has since been established. The bad times seem to have stopped. And so have Idaho football jokes.