Saturday: The University of Idaho’s football team is in the L.A. Coliseum today to face the eighth-ranked USC Trojans. The Vandals are six-touchdown underdogs. A close game might be perceived as victory. Yet, in reality, nothing that happens today will be considered a win. Not even if they pull off the season’s biggest upset.

The Vandals have already lost something more important this week. They lost their soul.

On Friday, the University identified a couple of players captured on video allegedly taking more than $250 worth of items from the VandalStore last month. The school released a statement based on viewing the video from the security cameras. One player, Isaiah Taylor, is no longer on the football team. The other, Dezmon Epps, shouldn’t be.

Epps was scheduled to play against the Trojans. (He made the trip and suited up, but didn’t play.) Idaho would have lost the game with or without him. But he did play when Idaho opened its season against Ohio, a team it had a chance to defeat. The Vandals didn’t, but not because of the play of Epps. The senior caught 15 passes for 160 yards, both team highs and more than half the team’s receiving yardage. But that’s also only half the story.

Petrino must have known it was Epps who was on the security tape. He must have known back in August, when he talked with the folks who run the store. After all, he knew enough to track down the ill-gotten goods and have them returned. The players who were involved, UI said then, would be punished internally. No names were released and the matter was swept under the rug. Except it made a big enough bump to still trip over.

Epps has tripped over a lot of bumps in his time in Moscow. Two years ago the 5-foot-10, 175-pound wideout led the Vandals with 79 receptions for 980 yards, more than double what any other UI receiver was able to amass. He seemed poised to have another breakout season last year but he never took the field.

In April of 2014 he was arrested for misdemeanor DUI. Three months later he was charged with stealing $37.72 worth of groceries from WinCo Foods. At the time, that was enough for Petrino. He dismissed Epps from the team, stating “Our student-athletes will understand that there will be discipline in our program. They will learn the responsibility they have in representing themselves, the football program, and the University of Idaho in the right manner. We will hold our student-athlete’s accountable for their actions at all times as character and integrity will always be a priority in our program.”

Petrino has a heart. He understands college kids screw up and part of his responsibility as a head coach is to try to help them learn from their mistakes. So when Epps, a California kid, stuck around (despite not playing during the 2014 season) and showed he was willing to follow rules, Petrino relented, reinstating Epps last spring.

There’s nothing wrong with giving a college kid a second chance, even if, technically, Epps had already used his do-over with the DUI and the theft. Then, over the summer, Epps was jailed for two days for driving without a mandated interlock device. That was chance No. 3. If Epps was going to be held “accountable for (his) actions at all times,” it didn’t seem to be that time.

Then came the incident at the VandalStore Aug. 16. The incident itself, if not the players involved, became public knowledge almost immediately. The merchandise was returned. But the act of theft is sort of hard to ignore, don’t you think? And one of those involved turned out to be Epps. Strike four.

But not enough to send Epps to the bench. Not then, not now. Petrino did issue a statement yesterday, stating, in part, “… Part of my responsibility to our players is to call them out when they make mistakes, hold them accountable, and help them to learn and move forward as people who are equipped to make good choices.”

But what happens when a player doesn’t seem to be learning, when the same mistakes are repeated again and again? What part of player accountability are we missing? And where is Petrino’s accountability?

In yesterday’s statement, the coach mentioned Taylor and stated the defensive back did not follow the requirements set down after the incident. That’s why he’s no longer on the team. Epps, however, is following them, according to Petrino and “as long as he continues to abide by these requirements, there is a place for him in the Vandal family.”

Weren’t these requirements, or similar ones, insisted upon after the 2014 DUI arrest? After the first theft? After he was reinstated to the team? After the interlock incident? Second chances show compassion. Third and fourth chances can be construed as weakness – and a lack of conviction.

At the least, Epps’ actions should have merited something along the lines of a game suspension, and not after the university identified the players involved. After all, his identity was already known within the program. By allowing Epps to play against Ohio and then slapping his wrist before the USC game, it looks as if he is not being punished for the action itself but for the revelation of the action.

And where is athletic director Rob Spear and university president Chuck Staben in all this? The school’s brand has taken a few hits recently due to their football coach’s actions and Staben, for one, has been eerily silent. The Spokesman-Review attempted to give the president and athletic director a chance to support their coach yesterday and neither returned calls – or even released a statement. That’s in marked contrast to the recent incident between Petrino and a Moscow-Pullman Daily News reporter. Spear was prominent in his support then, issuing a joint statement the next day, backing Petrino’s view of the event if not his language. On Friday, nothing. Interpret that how you will.

Epps traveled with the team and was on the sidelines in Los Angeles as the Vandals played the Trojans. The outcome didn’t matter, but the tally from the most recent referendum on the program’s reputation has already been determined. It’s a loss. A big loss.