Idaho’s Jason Eck has agreed to become the head coach at New Mexico, a person close to the negotiations told The Athletic on Saturday. The 47-year-old led Idaho to three consecutive FCS playoff berths in three seasons in which he went 26-13.
Idaho went 10-4 this season and was eliminated from the playoffs on Friday night against No. 1 seed Montana State, 52-19. The Vandals, which dropped from the FBS to the FCS in 2018, had five consecutive losing seasons before he took over.
Eck is a former Wisconsin offensive lineman whose Vandals nearly upset Oregon, the lone undefeated FBS program, in the season opener. Idaho was within three points of the Ducks, who were 45 1/2-point favorites, midway through the fourth quarter before losing 24-14.
The day after the Oregon game, Eck explained to The Athletic how even though he’d been a head coach for only two-plus seasons, the job had changed quite a bit in that time — as it has for all college coaches, especially those in the bottom half of the FBS and in the FCS.
“It’s definitely gotten harder than when I took this job, and I got hired in December 2021,” Eck said after losing his top players as transfers to Oregon State, Cal, UCF and Cincinnati in the offseason. “NIL had just become legal. You wouldn’t have thought guys would be getting recruited off your roster like it happens. It’s just a balancing act of trying to do right by the kids because for some, it’s life-changing money.”
Before becoming a head coach at Idaho, Eck won the AFCA FCS Assistant Coach of the Year award for his work as the offensive coordinator at South Dakota State.
At New Mexico, Eck will replace Bronco Mendenhall, who left the Lobos after one season for Utah State. The Lobos went 5-7 this season, making it eight years in a row with a losing record.
(Photo: Ali Gradischer / Getty Images)
