Another hall of fame for Dennis Erickson; ‘This one is big,’ offers the legendary coach
Dennis Erickson today (courtesy Dennis Erickson)
Updated 7/26/2022 1:11 AM
(Editor’s note: The Oregon Sports Hall of Fame banquet has been postponed to Sunday, Oct. 9.)
Being inducted into a hall of fame is getting to be old hat for Dennis Erickson.
The celebrated college football coach has gained entrance into the Oregon State University Sports Hall of Fame, the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame, the state of Montana Football Hall of Fame, the Montana State University Sports Hall of Fame and, in 2019, the College Football Hall of Fame.
On July 31 comes another honor — induction into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame during a ceremony at Providence Park. Erickson joins basketball stars Fred Jones (Oregon) and Felicia Ragland (Oregon State), hockey’s Connie Madigan, baseball’s Dave Gasser, NBA referee Terry Durham, masters athlete and athletic administrator Becky Sisley and the Oregon Tech men’s basketball teams of 2004, ’08 and ’12 in the 2022 class.
Erickson coached only four years at Oregon State, but the second season was a colossus — an 11-1 record capped by a 41-9 dismantling of Notre Dame in the 2001 Fiesta Bowl.
Don’t think Erickson is taking his most recent honor in stride.
“This one is big,” the 75-year-old former All-Big Sky quarterback from Montana State said from his home near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. “What we accomplished at Oregon State was probably the greatest and most fun time of my career.”
Wait a minute, Dennis. Better than claiming a pair of national championships at Miami? Where over six years your Hurricanes won 63 of 72 games and were ranked among the nation’s top 15 every season?
Erickson celebrating with players from one of his national championship teams at Miami
“It’s the best along with my time at Miami,” Erickson said, semi-correcting himself. “The thing about Oregon State, it was a rags-to-riches story. I remember people asking, ‘Why would you take that job?’ In all honesty, that’s my type of job.”
Oregon State had gone through 26 straight losing seasons when Riley took over the head coaching reins in 1997. The Beavers went 3-8 that season but nearly got over the hump in ’98, capping a 5-6 season — the program’s first five-win campaign since 1971 — with an unforgettable 44-41 double-overtime win over Oregon in the Civil War.
A month later, Riley departed for a job as head coach of the San Diego Chargers. Erickson, fired weeks before after four years as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, replaced him. Over the next four years, the Beavers went 31-17 and reached bowl games three times.
Then Erickson left — for the San Francisco 49ers. And Riley, by then assistant head coach of the New Orleans Saints after being fired by the Chargers after three seasons at the helm, was re-hired. Over the next 12 seasons, the Beavers had eight winning seasons and went 6-2 in bowl games.
“Mike set it up good for us,” Erickson said, “and I set it up good for him. And he kept it going.”
Riley left Erickson a nucleus of talent in 1999, including quarterback Jonathan Smith, running back Ken Simonton, tight end Marty Maurer, receivers Robert Prescott and Roddy Tompkins, offensive linemen Chris Gibson, Keith DiDomenico, Aaron Koch, Jared Cornell, Jason White and Mike Kuykendall and a defensive group that included linebackers James Allen and Jonathan Jackson, tackle Shawn Ball, safeties Calvin Carlyle and Terrence Carroll and cornerbacks Keith Heyward-Johnson and Dennis Weathersby.
Over the next two years, Erickson added plenty to the roster, some through the JC ranks such as receivers T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Chad Johnson. In his first season, the Beavers went 7-5 and played in the Oahu Bowl, their first postseason appearance in 35 years.
The next season featured what likely is the best team in Oregon State’s 130-year football history. The Beavers went 11-1 to claim the Pac-10 co-championship. The only loss was 33-30 at Washington, with Ryan Cesca missing a 46-yard field-goal attempt to tie with 14 seconds left.
The Fiesta Bowl rout of Notre Dame put Oregon State’s program in its most high-profile position ever. The Beavers finished the season ranked No. 4 in the AP poll. Many pundits said they finished the season as the nation’s best team.
“That team was as good as I ever had,” Erickson said. “If there had been a four-team playoff system in place, we’d had a good chance to win it.
“We were a little shaky at the beginning of the year. We were fortunate to beat Eastern Washington (21-19), and New Mexico came in and gave us everything we could have (in a 28-20 OSU win). From there, we just got better and better. In all my years, that might have been the greatest year I ever had the opportunity to coach.”
The Fiesta Bowl finale in Tempe — with more than 30,000 OSU fans among the more than 75,000 in attendance at Sun Devil Stadium — placed Oregon State on a national stage against one of the most sacred programs. The week before the game, the Fighting Irish had given the Beavers what they perceived as some attitude.
“They were late to or didn’t show up to several events through the week,” Erickson said. “Basically, they kissed us off, treated us like we weren’t on their level. Our guys took offense at that.
“Everything was about Notre Dame. They got all the press. It was not going to be a football game. I brought that up in meetings quite often through the week. We talked about it a lot.”
And to the media, OSU players said they had it wrong, that the Beavers were going to roll to victory.
The result, Erickson said, “was what may have been the biggest win in Oregon State history.”
Oregon State won the total offense battle 446-155, holding Notre Dame to 17 yards rushing. The Beavers also displayed plenty of attitude in the game. They totaled a Fiesta Bowl record 18 penalties for 174 yards, perhaps the most ever sustained by a college team that won the game by 32 points. Linebacker Darnell Robinson, who epitomized the cocky swagger of the Beavers, took home the Defensive MVP trophy.
Wrote the AP in the lead paragraph of its game coverage: “The brass, belligerent fifth-ranked Beavers backed up their pregame boasts and then some Monday night in a 41-9 thrashing of Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.”
Erickson shrugged at the penalty count.
“The only thing that bothered me is if it costed us a chance to win a game,” he said. “That game was so far out of hand … we had a chip on our shoulder that day. We had the edge you need to play with intensity and play well.”
Erickson’s Miami teams always played with swagger. Some called them renegades.
“They weren’t,” he said. “The bottom line, is, during my time at Miami and Oregon State, it was about winning and having fun. We had some guys at Miami with some attitude, but football was extremely important to them. And they were very good players. To an extent, we took that culture with us to Oregon State. Some of the guys we recruited had watched some of those Miami teams when I was there. They knew what it was like and had fun doing it.”
A dozen members of that team went on to play in the NFL: Simonton, Johnson, Houshmandzadeh, Dwan Edwards, Nick Barnett, James Allen, LaDairis Jackson, DeLawrence Grant, Terrell Roberts, Terrence Carroll, Dennis Weathersby and Richard Seigler. The last nine played on the defensive side of the ball.
“Very similar, the same type of teams,” Erickson said in comparison of the 2000 Beavers to his Miami teams. “Strong on defense and wide open on offense.”
Miami’s 1989 squad finished 11-1, losing only to Florida State 24-10, and beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl 33-25 to win the national championship. The defense featured linemen Cortez Kennedy, Jimmie Jones, Willis Peguese and Greg Mark — all picked in the first three rounds of the 1990 draft — and Russell Maryland, who went on to play 10 NFL seasons.
The 1991 Hurricanes finished 12-0 and beat Nebraska 22-0 in the Orange Bowl for the national title.
Quarterback Gino Torretta won the Heisman Trophy. Defensive tackle Leon Searcy and D-back Darryl Williams were both first-round draft picks. Searcy, Williams, linebacker Darrin Smith and placekicker Carlos Huerta were all first-team All-Americans. Two other members of that Miami team: defensive tackle Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and offensive tackle Mario Cristobal, the latter familiar to the state’s sports fans as Oregon’s former head coach.
“The thing Miami taught me was the culture down there,” Erickson said. “From the players there I learned a lot.”
The Seahawks went 31-33 and failed to make the playoffs during the Erickson era (1995-98). That provided the burr in Dennis’ butt that led him to leave Oregon State after the 2002 season to take over as head coach at San Francisco. The 49ers went 7-9 and 2-14 in two seasons before Erickson was fired.
He returned quickly to college coaching, spending at year at Idaho before five seasons at Arizona State, where his teams were 31-31. Erickson was Pac-10 Coach of the Year honors his first year there, leading the Sun Devils to a 10-3 record and a Pac-10 co-championship in 2007. He is the only coach to have earned the award at three schools, winning also at Washington State in 1988 and at Oregon State in 2000.
Erickson, whose career college head coaching record was 179-96-1, has often called leaving OSU the biggest mistake of his coaching career. He continues with that theme today.
“That was the dumbest move any human being could have made,” he told me. “That was me wanting to get back to the (NFL) to prove I could do it. The time in Corvallis was the most fun I ever had. I wish I’d stayed longer. But Oregon State has continued with a strong program, and I’m proud of that.
The thing about Beaver fans when I was there, they loved our program. There was never a lot of bitching. People were in the stands, even when we were losing. A lot of places, you lose one, they’re all over you. There’s a great deal of loyalty with the alums there. I feel bad I left. But at least they got Mike back.”
Erickson’s last coaching job was in 2019 as head coach of the Salt Lake Stallions of the Alliance of American Football. The Stallions were 4-4 when the professional minor league folded.
“I had so much fun,” he said. “Our players worked their rear ends with. They loved the game of football. There weren’t any egos. They were trying to get to the NFL. They were on stage every weekend. The NFL was looking at them on tape. There were scouts at games. The quality of play was darn good.”
Erickson said he misses the on-field part of coaching — teaching football, working with fellow coaches and the players. He said he wouldn’t enjoy being a college head coach as much these days with the rising prominance of the transfer portal and the name, image and likeness rule (NIL).
“The transfer portal and NIL are totally ridiculous,” Erickson said.
On NIL: “We have kids getting money before they put on a uniform. It’s not even college football — it’s pro football now. Do you think agents are involved in this whole thing? Come on. They’re telling kids, ‘You’re getting screwed.’ We heard that all the time when I was coaching. Well, they were getting a four- or five-year scholarship, and later on, a monthly stipend. That’s worth a considerable amount. The outside interests create more problems.
“I don’t know how the NCAA can keep track of it. How are they going to manage the money? What’s legal, and what isn’t? Some schools like USC and Oregon are going to see that a kid gets a million bucks. Not many schools can afford to do that. It’s hard enough at Oregon State and Washington State to be competitive every year, but now another school offers a guy they’re recruiting a million dollars? How do you compete with that? The playing field wasn’t level before; now it’s gotten worse.”
On the portal: “There are some pluses, but more minuses. If a program isn’t a good fit for a player, I can see that. If you’re not playing and you want to go somewhere where he’d have a better chance to play, I have no problem with that at all. But this makes it so easy to leave. Freshmen come in and don’t play right away and, boom, they’re leaving. Quarterbacks are the best example. A guy doesn’t play early, so now he’s going to transfer out. A kid is playing third team with older guys ahead of him, and he leaves after his first or second year, before he gives it a chance. That’s what really bothers me. That’s not how it should work. A lot of times, too, the grass isn’t greener on the other side.
“Every school has one or two guys on staff that all they look at is the transfer portal — what guys thinking about leaving, who can make (their team) better. They’re in charge of looking at a big board of guys who are candidates to transfer to their school. This isn’t what college athletics should be about. It’s all about cheating right now. The bottom line is, coaches didn’t promote this stuff. That was done by the NCAA and presidents of the universities. Coaches want to recruit their guys and develop them. But they have to do what everyone else does or they get left behind.”
Erickson wasn’t finished talking about the subject.
“I’m glad I came along before all of this,” he said. “It’s a lot more difficult to be a head coach now. I can’t understand how it got to this point. It happened so fast. The purity of college football now is the FCS level, where they’re playing for a national championship, for winning the conference. They have their scholarships — though not as many as the FBS schools — but they’re playing for what the games about. When I was at Montana State, the only they gave me was a free tab at the Haufbrau.”
Wait a minute, Dennis. That’s an NCAA violation. Did they really?
“Nah. If they did, I’d have brought all my offensive linemen in there.”
Erickson has opinions, too, on Southern Cal and UCLA leaving the Pac-12.
“They haven’t exactly dominated since it became the Pac-12,” he said. “There was a time when USC did. UCLA never did.”
From 2002-08, the Trojans won or shared every conference title. Since then, they have prevailed only once, in 2017. Oregon has six crowns, Stanford three, Washington two, Utah one.
Erickson said he considers UCLA and SC traitors for leaving the Pac-12.
“They’ve been with the conference for almost 100 years,” he said. “There is a lot of tradition there. I hate to see it break up like this.”
But he understands why.
“The Pac-12’s TV deal was ridiculously bad,” he said. “If it were better, (the Trojans and Bruins) would probably have stayed. They’re going to a conference where they can make so much more money.”
Erickson’s hope is the remaining schools to stay together in a new Pac-10.
“For me, the best result is that everyone else stays,” he said. “What remains is pretty good. With 10 schools, you can play a round-robin schedule in football and still have three non-conference games. They may have to go for San Diego State, though, to get that Southern California TV market. I get that you have to look at it financially.
“I hate to see (USC and UCLA) go. I would hate to see any other schools leave for the Big 12. We have to find a way to make the Pac-12 be what it should be. We have a new commissioner (George Kliavkoff). I’m hoping he can make good things happen.”
Erickson is living a life of leisure these days, entertaining his four grandchildren — the offspring of son Bryce, tight ends coach at Montana — at his home near Kidd Island Point on Lake Coeur d’Alene. He plays a lot of golf. He’s not breaking any records, he said.
“My handicap is so frickin’ high,” he said. “It’s right around the drinking age. I can’t hit it out of my shadow.”
He works out a couple of days a week with a personal trainer.
“That has really helped me out with my flexibility,” said the 5-9 Erickson, now down to about his college playing weight of 175 pounds. “I spend a lot of time working out. That keeps me busy.”
The last two football seasons, Erickson has visited a number of college programs during spring practice, staying for a week or so.
“I observe practice and spent time talking to coaches about what they’re doing on offense,” he said. “It’s fun if you can help guys improve, help a team improve. I don’t go in there with all the answers. If they ask questions, I answer them. But mostly, I keep my nose out of it.”
If an opportunity to coach at a small college should arise, Erickson would be interested. Or maybe in the USFL.
“I’ve had some opportunities,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind coaching or helping somewhere, as long as it was a good situation. It would be fun.”
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