Jerry Miller
Advisor to the Bengal
Idaho State’s football Bengals were once known as “The Throwin’ Idahoans” in deference to an always nationally-ranked passing offense. Although the Bengals still love to throw, they’re now a “run first” team, and last season was a good example why.
The Bengals opened the 2017 season with two running backs who still needed to prove themselves. Junior James Madison would’ve started the season opener against Western State, but he got banged up during fall camp, so sophomore Ty Flanagan got the call and responded with 100 yards rushing and a touchdown.
The following week, with Madison still sidelined, Flanagan ran for another 106 yards and a touchdown at Utah State. In Game three, ISU upset the Mountain West’s Nevada Wolfpack in Reno, 30-28, but Flanagan left the game with an injury in the 2nd quarter. Now it was Madison’s turn.
After Flanagan’s injury, Madison came off the bench to run for 84 yards, helping ISU solidify its first win over an FBS program in 17 years.
In the conference opener against Northern Colorado, still filling in for the injured Flanagan, Madison rumbled for 253 yards on 34 carries with two touchdowns.
Now the writing was on the wall. Both of these guys could run. And run they did. Rock and roll. Lightning and thunder.
By the end of the season, the two combined for almost 1600 yards, 5 yards-a-carry and 16 touchdowns, and they absolutely love each other. Head coach Rob Phenicie says each thinks he should be the starter, but you’d never get that from talking to them. Both are on the other’s bandwagon.
Madison was an offensive star at his California high school, but when he arrived at ISU, he was moved to defense. He eventually made it back to the offense and has been eating it up ever since.
At 5-feet-11-inches and 205-pounds, he’s built like a rock and plows through defenses like a tractor, and like many college football players, has a goal of playing professional football. But he’s also focused on mentoring his little brother Taron, who he says is a 4-star recruit back home.
“About ten offers,” Madison said. “He’s the guy. He’s not better than me but he’s the guy.”
Madison says Taron has a fistful of offers from Power Five schools including Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State and Arizona, along with Miami and Florida State.
“None of it matters,” he said. “Nothing that you’re doing in high school. All those ratings, rankings, none of it matters because you’ve got to perform.”
Flanagan, the other half of ISU’s one-two punch, moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas when he was eight.
Flanagan is now a 5-foot-10, 190-pound bundle of energy who talks as fast as he runs. His mom was single with four kids and worked multiple jobs, but she never quit on her kids.
“She never gave up on us and always pushed us to do better,” Flanagan said.
When he was a junior in high school, he received an offer from San Diego State and talked almost every week with other schools like Boise State, Washington and Colorado. Then, during his senior year at Mojave High School, he injured his ankle midway through the season, and a lot of dreams disappeared.
“When that came, four colleges down the drain,” Flanagan said.
Flanagan was still talking to the Aztecs, but he also wanted a place where his mom could move to, and she was convinced the cost of living in San Diego was too high. It turns out his mom couldn’t afford to move to Idaho either. But Flanagan says she’s back in Vegas and is doing okay.
At one point, early on at ISU, Flanagan walked into assistant coach Steve Fiefia’s office and announced he wanted to go home to help his mom. But with guidance from his coach, and with his mom telling him he’d be making a mistake to quit and come back to Vegas, he reconsidered and remained a Bengal.
So why ISU? He’s still not exactly sure, but it turns out when Flanagan was a kid in Vegas he had a coach named Ben Arave, who was from Blackfoot. Arave did things for Flanagan that nobody else ever did, paying for his fees to play ball and paying for other things his mom could never afford. The Araves eventually moved back to Idaho and Flanagan says that’s meant everything to him since coming here.
“I used to fight a lot and all that stuff and he tried to make sure that I was right, always paid for stuff when I didn’t have it, you know,” Flanagan said. “They love me. They invite me over. They take care of me when I need help…always calling in to make sure that I’m good.”
He says they make all the difference.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of family members in my life that care about me,” he continued. “I’m blessed to have them regardless of the fact whether they’re blood or not.”
