MOSCOW, Idaho — Between the Vandal's playoff wins from last season and the big win against Wyoming last week, there is a lot to celebrate in Moscow.
The win against Wyoming was the first time the football team has done that in over 100 years.
Also, University of Idaho's mascot, Joe Vandal turns 68 on September 22.
That leads to the big question, where did he come from?
They are the only Vandals in college sports, why the Vandals, and why Joe Vandal specifically?
First, we went to some former Joe Vandals.
Tyler Bennett was Joe Vandal from 2011-2013.
"Who doesn't want to be the mascot," Bennett said, "Joe seemed like a superhero to me, going to all the football games and having everyone excited to see him."
Harrison Funk was Joe Vandal from 2018-2019.
"It meant being able to represent our college," Funk said.
Carson Stauffer was Joe Vandal from 2011-2012.
"I mean, Joe's the mascot," Stauffer said. "He's a face for everyone to rally behind and kind of unite."
All of these former Joe's agree Joe is an icon, and to uphold that honor it takes a lot.
"Joe takes a lot of personality, a lot of over-exaggeration, a lot of hard work," said Bennett.
"Really, you got to do a good job of getting the engagement of the crowd," Funk said.
"No dance lessons, although, admittedly, I was an okay dancer already," Stauffer said.
All three also got to experience an old Joe Vandal mascot suit. Through sweat, cheers and drool, they said they loved every minute of it.
"The neck didn't stay up, so I was always told that you had to bite the neck in order to keep it upright," Bennett said.
"If you wanted to do stunts, or if you wanted to do like a cartwheel, or you wanted to jump up and down and hooray, you had to bite the neck," Funk said.
"You had to bite the neck and your drool would soak into the suit and drip down your chin," Stauffer said.
Through the highs and lows of embracing the universities iconic man, the history lesson about where Joe came from never made its rounds.
"That is a fantastic question, I have no idea where the Vandal persona or the mascot even came from," said Bennett.
"I don't actually know why he is called Joe Vandal, they didn't teach me that," Funk said.
"II can't say, I guess, yeah, I've always seen him as a Viking," Stauffer said. "I guess they chose to say Vandal instead of Viking. I don't know that history."
The people who embodied Joe Vandal did not know, so like a good student, KTVB headed straight to the library.
The expert we found is Dulce Kersting-Lark, the head of the University of Idaho's Library Special Collections Archives.
"The university is seated at Moscow in 1889 and we're kind of opening our doors in the early 1890s," Kersting-Lark said. "We've got students involved in athletics, pretty much from the start."
There were sports like football, basketball, and even a women's rifle team at the time.
"There really wasn't a name for the student-athletes," she said.
It took almost 30 years to find one.
"It all comes back to the 1918 basketball team," she said. "There's this sort of genius student journalist working for the Argonaut, which is our student newspaper. His name was Lloyd Jazz McCarty, and he had a flair for words."
She is right.
The team played so intensely that sports writers said they "vandalized" their opponents.
During the 1917 football season, Jazz used the term "wrecking crew" to describe the athletes.
Eventually the term "wreckers," turned into vandals.
From there, it stuck.
"This young student journalist Jazz McCarty, kind of single-handedly, creates the Vandal moniker that we are now using more than 100 years later," Kersting-Lark said.
Fast forward a few years, and we get baby Joe. It was the first artist's rendering of the Vandal.
By the 1940s, Joe looked more like a Greek god.
"We get this sort of classical-looking vandal," she said.
In the 1950s, the name Joe evolved and began to take a more similar shape to what we know now.
"This paper Mache head was created in 1956 by Bill Curry, who was the head yeller at the time, like, sort of like encouraging students to cheer at games," she said. "Bill and his mom paper Mache this Vandal head and convinced somebody to wear it with, you know, sort of the loincloth situation and Joe vandal was born."
The university recognizes Joe Vandal's birthday as September 22, 1956.
She said Joe has had a mixed bag of aging with an eye droop, then some plastic surgery with a facelift, but he has always been accepted by fans.
Well, that was until blow-up Joe came around for one year in 2001, however, that one didn't go so well.
"Yeah, not a fan favorite, and so he was retired pretty quickly," she said.
But why the name Joe specifically?
"Some students started calling him Joe, as students have a want to do, to name things and it stuck," said Kersting-Lark.
The rest is history. People can find former Joe Vandals everywhere, even in the heart of Bronco Nation, remaining brave and bold with their Vandal pride.
"I do have Joe tatted on my shoulder as well," Bennett said. "I love it, even after college."
"You have to embody it," Funk said. "That's the secret, you have to be Joe Vandal."
"I love Joe vandal, and all the performances I've seen from other Joes have been spectacular," Stauffer said.