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Steve Axman was stuck in a blizzard and late for his first coaches meeting, but he remained excited about his new job offensive coordinator for the University of Idaho football team.

“I’m sitting about 15 miles outside of Moscow,” said Axman, who spent the past fall as the quarterbacks coach for the University of Montana. “We haven’t moved but 10 blocks in an hour and a half.”

First meeting aside, Axman was excited about the opportunity to move back up the coaching ranks and rejoin yet another former assistant - Robb Akey was hired as the Vandals’ coach on Dec. 21 - on a staff. Akey coached with Axman during the latter’s tenure as Northern Arizona’s head coach from 1990-97.

“I had so many dang people working for me at NAU I’m not sure when it was,” said Axman, who had Akey on his staff from 1995-97. “He was with me when we really got things rolling. He was my defensive coordinator and really did a good job.”

Akey took the Idaho job on Dec. 21. Axman got a call from his former assistant not long after, and accepted the job offer early this week.

“I’m very excited about it, and I get a chance to work for a very good friend of mine, and get a chance to do my own thing a little bit - which is exciting because I haven’t been able to do that for awhile. And away we go.”

Axman last was an offensive coordinator for UCLA in 2003. He’s spent a majority of his time since leaving NAU as a quarterbacks coach.

It was a given that Axman, whose nameplate was gone from his office at UM soon after the Grizzlies’ playoff run ended, was bound for elsewhere. He said he wasn’t making a full assistant’s salary, though he certainly appreciated the chance to get back into coaching with UM head coach Bobby Hauck.

“It seemed to be such a great fit, but from a financial standpoint I wasn’t going to be able to do it much longer,” he said.

Hauck, who was Axman’s assistant in NAU in 1993-94 and coached with him at Washington, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Axman said Thursday he was up for a similar position at UNLV, and also had been in contact for an assistant’s job at Indiana.

“I was really excited to join a former assistant in a new job,” he said. “A lot like my short stay in Missoula. I just had a ball being able to coach with a good friend, really a good person and in a great program. There are a lot of comparables, but yet I get to come here and do my own thing a little bit.”

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