With 1 rivalry trophy already in their possession, the Bengals will travel to Moscow to play for another

POCATELLO — The Idaho State Bengals will play their final game of the 2025 season on Saturday, and a lot will be on the line.

ISU (5-6, 4-3) has a chance to finish with a record of .500 or better for the first time since 2018, the same year the Bengals posted their last conference winning record. They went 6-5, 5-3 under head coach Rob Phenicie that year, and with a win they would finish the 2025 campaign with a 6-6, 5-3 record under current head coach Cody Hawkins. But even more, a victory would be the first against the University of Idaho Vandals, their rival (4-6, 2-5) in five years.

And it would bring the Potato State Trophy to Pocatello for the first time in its three-year history – it would replace the Battle of the Domes Trophy, which was retired after the 2022 season.

“We know it’s important to play well in rivalry games,” Hawkins said Wednesday during his weekly news conference. “We’ve already done better from a conference standpoint, but now we have to do better from an overall standpoint and try to push to six (wins). We haven’t beaten the Vandals since I’ve been here, and there’s a lot to play for. Very few teams have the ability to win their last game, and we’re in a rare situation where we can do that.”

The Hawkins Bengals are riding a three-game winning streak, including a 31-3 victory over Weber State last week to retain another rivalry trophy – the Train Bell Trophy – and post consecutive victories against the Wildcats in 41 years.

Throughout what has been a season of progress, the Bengals have been inconsistent. But they created a competitive balance where there hadn’t been one for several years before Hawkins arrived.

ISU started the season with a one-score loss at UNLV, an FBS school. And after falling to 0-2 on a 22-point drubbing of Southern Utah, the Bengals were competitive again on the road against another Mountain West foe – this time New Mexico.

They beat Northern Colorado, then held on with Montana before falling big to Montana State. A 13-point home loss to Northern Arizona preceded the current three-game stretch, which began with an impressive win over a nationally ranked UC Davis team that will advance to the FBS and Mountain West next year.

Ending the season with a victory over a rival would go a long way for the program.

Hawkins talked about the boost this would give coaches as they continue to recruit travel during the winter.

“I knew the way we finished this season was going to be my most important moment as a Bengal,” he said. “As our administration, our team, our staff continues to work to elevate this thing, you have to take advantage of the momentum. Boy, that would definitely be a cherry on the cake heading into an offseason that will mean a lot to us.”

Rounding out his thoughts on hitting .500, getting that “icing on the cake” and building momentum for the future, Hawkins said the key to doing it all is staying focused on what the team can control, rather than letting the emotion of a rivalry game take over.

“”Do I have any personal feelings about wanting to beat the Vandals? Absolutely,” he said. “But that’s not how you achieve goals. You don’t win just by hating someone else. You win by attacking your process with more intention. If it matters, you sleep more, hydrate more, stretch more, watch more movies, take better notes. That’s how you win rivalry games.