It’s been nearly a month since one of the most surreal nights of my life. It’s partly surreal because I can’t believe my Seattle-ite ass sat through 5-degree-feeling weather for four hours in Vans and survived to write about it.
It’s also surreal because the University of Idaho won nine football games and completely crushed the will of one of the Mountain West’s best programs to Win. A. Bowl. Game.
Now, it’s time for us to re-live it.
First, a question.
What do you need to be a real football program?
Unis? Uh. Check. Wins? Yep. A brand-name quarterback? I mean, come on. (How does four touchdowns on over 10 yards per attempt in a bowl game sound?)
Now, we have what every real football program really wants.
A rap song.
Before you laugh, actually listen to this shit. It’s actually pretty dope.
Reuben Mwehla, a reserve wide receiver from Bellevue, Wash., produced the track for Idaho’s season-ending highlight video.
Honestly, the flow feels natural and it doesn’t feel like he’s trying to force a lyrical narrative that isn’t there. The chorus is catchy and, much like the program itself, focuses on the team aspect rather than trying to single out players and make it rhyme that way.
Mwehla has one more season left in the program, where he will be called upon to have his breakout season with all of the targets Idaho loses to graduation. After that, hit me up to help produce that debut mixtape, Reuben.
The rest of the highlight video focuses on the bowl game, which a month after the fact surfaces emotions I didn’t even feel the night of the game.
Beating the living shit out of a team which was supposed to dominate us suppressed a lot of my emotions. What were supposed to be tears became delirium and laughing. It shifted from being unbelievable to being a fucking party.
But, this video does the perfect job of bringing back those emotions and pinpointing just how incredible this season was. Incredible not because it was unexpected, because it shouldn’t have been unexpected.
It was incredible because of how far this program has come, this university has come and how hard these guys worked in order to give us - the fans - this season. It surged up emotions of just how much this season meant to me in a year where I went through a major transition in life, and how these games and these wins helped me navigate difficult stretches.
Watch this. Watch it now.
Tubs at The Club 