UNLV’s next opponent: A look at the Idaho Vandals

UNLV’s football team will try to bounce back from last Saturday’s 44-21 loss at Central Michigan and even its record at 2-2 with a victory against Idaho (1-2) at Sam Boyd Stadium on Saturday. Here’s everything you need to know about the Vandals:

■ WHO: Idaho Vandals

■ WHEN: 6 p.m. Saturday

■ WHERE: Sam Boyd Stadium

■ TV: UNLVRebels.com (streaming)

■ LINE: UNLV -13½

■ CONFERENCE: Sun Belt

■ SERIES HISTORY: Tied, 3-3

■ LAST MEETING: 2010, Idaho won 30-7 in Moscow, Idaho

■ 2015 RECORD: 4-8 (3-5 Sun Belt)

■ 2016 RECORD: 1-2 (beat Montana State 20-17, lost 59-14 at Washington and 56-6 at Washington State on Saturday)

■ HEAD COACH: Paul Petrino (overall record: 7-31, fourth year; school record: 7-31, fourth year)

■ RETURNING STARTERS: 8 offense, 6 defense

■ THREE PLAYERS TO WATCH: QB Matt Linehan, RB Aaron Duckworth, WR Deon Watson

■ FAMOUS ALUMNI: Jerry Kramer, former NFL player; Mark Schlereth, former NFL player and current TV analyst; John Friesz, former NFL player; Dan O’Brien, former Olympic decathlete; Sarah Palin, politician

■ ABOUT THE VANDALS:

— Before winning four games last season, Idaho went 5-42 the previous four years.

— In April, the school announced its intention to join the Football Championship Subdivision and play in the Big Sky Conference in 2018. Idaho, which cited a lack of resources for its football program as the reason for the move, will become the first program to voluntarily drop down to the FCS since 1982.

— The Rebels are scheduled to play at Idaho next season on Sept. 9, 2017, at the Kibbie Dome.

— Former UNLV football coach Tony Knap played for Idaho from 1935-1938. Knap, who died in 2011 at age 96, coached the Rebels for six seasons (1976 to 1981) and compiled a 47-20-2 record (.696 winning percentage). Still the winningest coach in school history, Knap guided UNLV as it moved up to Division I in 1978 and pulled off a stunning upset of then-No. 8 Brigham Young in 1981.

— The nickname, Vandals, originated in 1917, when Idaho’s basketball team played defense with such intensity that sports writers wrote it “vandalized” its opponents. Harry Lloyd “Jazz” McCarty, a writer for Idaho’s student newspaper, The Argonaut, subtly tagged the team with a new nickname, writing, “The opening game with Whitman will mark a new epoch in Idaho basketball history, for the present gang of ‘Vandals’ have the best material that has ever carried the ‘I’ into action.” By 1921, Vandals was officially adopted as the nickname for all Idaho teams.

Todd Dewey/Las Vegas Review-Journal