An Idaho odd couple on the football field

For some peculiar reason, any Idaho football player - or any UI athlete or associate, for that matter - who enters apartment No. 2 at University Village claims to notice an irregularity in the dwelling where standout linebacker Ed Hall and long-snapping amigo Alex Boatman reside.

"People keep saying they see a tortilla shell hanging in our apartment, but I don't see it," Boatman maintained.

Then he turned to Hall, "Do you see it?"

"Nope," Hall concluded.

Hall's mother, Lorine, spilled the beans, though: "They're so proud of themselves. They got this tortilla shell to stick in the corner of their living room, and every time someone asks, 'Hey, you know there's a tortilla?' They go, 'No, I have no clue what you're talking about.' "

For the sake of comedy, surely - it's just another notch in a five-year line of shenanigans, sustained by two players, so divergent in their positions, demeanors and backgrounds, that it'd be difficult for the cursory viewer to understand it, much less expect it.

"They're almost like twins; they have their own language. You just sit and listen to 'em and crack up. We call Ed our other son, the good son," Boatman's mother, Ellen, said with a chuckle. "And we love his parents. Really, those two are brothers from another mother."

Truly, although "polar opposites," they acknowledged, these guys are the best of friends.

And it doesn't stop there for the three-year starting will 'backer and the centerpiece of Vandal fourth downs, both fifth-year seniors and former walk-ons.

"Friendship" isn't the only theme - although the tomfoolery is quite hilarious. It seems as if fate had something to do with their chance meeting and eventual bond that's sprung potential business prosperity right out of college, a Boatman/Hall family link and, of course, stories by the oodles.

"(We met) day one, fall camp (in 2014)," Boatman said. "Our rooms were next to each other in the tower. Then, there were 15 walk-ons. Now, it's just us two."

When move-in day came, Hall and Boatman found themselves both in the Wiley Wing, albeit three floors separated. As 2014 advanced, they joined each other at mealtimes, along with eventual roommate and current grad assistant, Colton Thrasher.

"Strange is probably an understatement for them," Thrasher said. "Apart from each other, when one's home and one's gone, chill guys. When they're together, you always gotta be on your toes."

So the fellowship was off to a swift start. But rewind a bit, because the fact they both enrolled at UI simultaneously is incidental in its own right.

Hall, who lived in Georgia for 10 years before moving to Chugiak, Alaska, only knew of UI because a friend, Jeavante Dunn - a former Vandal receiver, also from Eagle River High - had mentioned it.

Being inquisitive as he is, Hall weighed his options by educational promise.

"I looked into Idaho and realized it's a good engineering school, so I put it on my list," Hall said. "And it just ended up happening."

For Boatman, who "proudly" stated that Ellen still takes care of his laundry, "it's a pride thing." He's from Lewiston, played football there for 10 years, starting in the Clearwater Football League and leading to a career as a Bengal lineman/snapper. He said he's "probably the eighth member of my immediate family to go here."

But originally, he pondered a break from the mold. He was even extended a bid for a walk-on spot someplace else.

"Guess where he wanted to go," jested Hall.

"No, Idaho State was just where my first walk-on offer was," Boatman clarified. "When I got a chance to walk on here, it fit perfectly with everything I've ever wanted."

After training with Chris Rubio, the premier long-snapping coach in the country and a Lewiston resident, Boatman - who was presented a scholarship his junior year at an L-C Valley event after subsiding on academic scholarships - found himself following his aspiration as a college football player.

Now, they're two of the oldest Vandals, "the big dogs," Hall quipped. They've traversed a rugged path and "seen it all, the FBS and FCS, from one-win seasons, to bowl rings," recalled Hall, whose sister, Chaunti, is a UI athletic training grad assistant.

"We've just been really lucky to be on the same journey," said Boatman, who also co-hosts a podcast with former UI kicker/punter Austin Rehkow. "It's all worked out as far as being walk-ons and getting scholarship spots. We always joke around that we can't move away from here, 'cause we can't live without each other in certain aspects of goofing around."

But something they've also undergone during their time - besides 600-plus hours logged on the video game Rocket League, a curious addiction to the Hanna Barbera cartoon "Snagglepuss" and a few all-nighters pulled prior to 5 a.m. mat drills, one workout which Hall said was his "best one" - might end up as a lucrative undertaking. It also could keep them near, so their aim of being "nextdoor neighbors, with tunnels that connect underground with an ocular scanner," might come earlier than expected.

It's because of a business venture called the "Forever Shower," an invention by Chad and Maria Vorse that Boatman and Hall so happened to "fall into" by way of a spring-semester class Boatman took only because it "fit my schedule."

After the Vorses pitched the concept of a water-recycling shower - the water pressure and temperature in their house often fluctuated - Boatman then pitched himself.

"Chad's an electrical engineer at Schweitzer and Maria's a law student, so they needed a business person (Boatman earned his bachelor's in organizational science with a business minor last spring)," Boatman said. "They said, 'We need an engineer,' and I said 'Hey, my roommate's an engineer.'"

In the past, Hall and Chad Vorse had taken an engineering course together, and Hall said he remembered Vorse because "on the first test, it seemed like everybody did poorly on it, but Chad and I did well."

Four business competitions and over $25,000 raised later, it's "definitely something we're going to try to pursue, because we're young and don't have much at stake in our lives yet," Boatman said. They've also been offered upwards of $200,000 by various investors, which they've declined for time-management purposes.

It may come later, rather than sooner, however - Boatman graduates at the end of this semester while Hall will stay on campus through spring. So Boatman hopes to follow a career in athletic administration, a passion of his. He's already applied to Arizona and Elon.

"(Alex) is so well-versed in athletics," said Ellen, who also noted her nudging of Boatman to audition for "Jeopardy," "He did an internship with Tom Morris, the Learfield Sports guy, then he did one with Tim Mooney (UI's associate athletic director)."

And putting in time on the shower is "pretty much nonexistent right now" for Hall, given football and the arduous mechanical engineering class load for the academic all-district (3.83 GPA) and All-Sun Belt player, who's also been put on the watch list for the William V. Campbell award (the "best football scholar-athlete in the nation").

He's also working on a catheter redesign for his senior capstone to prevent hospital-born illnesses, urinary tract infections and to save millions of dollars and countless lives, "as crazy as that sounds," Hall admitted.

Boatman recalls Hall's enthusiasm with the delivery of a box-load of catheters for study, and, as Hall poured out six onto the table, observed that "catheters have wandered into our house. If anyone wants a catheter, they know where to get one. We're the catheter plug."

They've plugged in each other's relatives, too. "The Boatmans are family," Hall's father, Carey, said emphatically.

And just like Hall and Boatman, "Carey and Mark call themselves brothers from another mother," Lorine said, despite about a 9-inch height difference and 2,400 miles between them (the Halls still reside in Alaska).

"The Boatman embraced Ed, and they embraced us," said Lorine.

As for Corner Club shuffleboard champs Boatman and "KnuckleEd," as Boatman called him, they've embraced their time at UI - the travels and the bowl win especially, where the two picked up some cherished memorabilia - are apprehensive to see it coming to an end, but still have a little time left to ironically line up next to each other on punts.

"Out of the whole field, they put us right next to each other," Hall laughed.

Boatman will always remember the fact that he notched the final tackle for UI at the FBS level last season at Georgia State, and on that note, Hall recalled another fond memory between the two.

Against Coastal Carolina last year, Boatman logged his first career takedown, and was met with chants of "Boatman got a tackle!" from Hall, which baffled Chanticleer players.

"That was great. I was dying," Hall said.

Colton Clark may be reached at cclark@lmtribune.com, on Twitter @coltonclark95 or by phone at (208) 848-2260.