The Idaho Vandals are the intercollegiate athletic teams of the University of Idaho. They participate in NCAA Division I - FBS (formerly I-A) in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC).
The football team will become an FBS independent in 2013 due to an upcoming major wave of departures from the WAC that will strip that conference of all but two of its football-playing schools. Idaho will return its non-football sports to one of the school's former conference homes, the Big Sky Conference, in July 2014.
In addition to football, the intercollegiate athletic program fields two teams (men's and women's) in the following sports: basketball, golf, tennis, cross-country, and track (indoor and outdoor). Volleyball, soccer, and swimming are varsity sports offered only for women.
The university's official colors are silver and gold, honoring the state's mining tradition. Because these metallic colors in tandem are not visually complementary for athletic uniforms, black and gold are the prevalent colors for the athletic teams, with an occasional use of silver, similar to Colorado, whose official colors are also silver and gold. When Idaho moved out of the Big Sky to the Big West in 1996, the yellow "Green Bay" gold was changed to metallic "Vegas" gold. Yellow gold and black were the colors used by the most of the varsity teams from 1978–96, initiated by first-year head football coach Jerry Davitch's new uniforms for 1978.
Read more about Idaho Vandals: Conference Affiliations, Facilities, Mascot, Athletic Directors