Dennis Erickson
Dennis Brian Erickson is an American football coach who most recently served as the head coach for the Salt Lake Stallions of the Alliance of American Football league. He was also the head coach at the University of Idaho, the University of Wyoming, Washington State University, the University of Miami, Oregon State University, and Arizona State University. During his tenure at Miami, Erickson's teams won two national championships, in 1989 and 1991. A coach who won conference championships with four different programs, his record as a college football head coach is
Erickson was also the head coach of two teams in the National Football League, the Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers and tallied a mark of
Erickson first retired on December 30, 2016, after 47 years in coaching. In 2018, the AAF named Erickson as the head coach of the Salt Lake Stallions, bringing him out of retirement until the league disbanded after eight games of what was meant to be a ten-game season.
Early life
Erickson was raised in Ferndale, Washington, north of Seattle, and in Everett, north of Seattle. Robert "Pinky" Erickson, was the head football coach at Ferndale High School and later at Cascade High School Erickson played quarterback at the rival Everett High, coached by next-door neighbor, Bill Dunn. This "made for some quiet dinners on game day." As a junior, Dennis was the starting quarterback, beating out the former starter, senior Mike Price, another future collegePrice, the son of the head coach of Everett Junior College, was moved to defense as a safety. When Erickson left Washington State for Miami in 1989, he recommended Mike Price as his replacement, and Price rented Erickson's Pullman home. Erickson had beaten out Price for the Washington State job in 1987. Six years earlier in 1981, Price had beaten Erickson out for the job at Weber State College in Ogden, Utah. While at Idaho, Erickson in conference play against Price's Weber teams, and at Oregon State, he against Price's Washington State teams.
Erickson graduated from EHS in 1965 and accepted a football scholarship to Montana State in Bozeman to play for head coach and was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He was an effective undersized quarterback from 1966 to 1968, earning all-conference honors in the Big Sky. Immediately after his senior season, Erickson began his coaching career as a graduate assistant for the Bobcats in 1969. In 1970 at age 23, he was the head coach at Billings Central Catholic High School, staying for just a single season.
Assistant coaching
From 1971 to 1981 Erickson was a college assistant coach, working with the offense. Beginning at his alma mater MSU in 1971 under Sonny Holland, he became an offensive coordinator in 1974 at the University of Idaho under newly promoted head coach, Ed Troxel, and stayed in Moscow for two seasons.Erickson's college coach, Jim Sweeney, resigned from neighboring Washington State after the 1975 season, soon moved to Fresno State, and Erickson joined him as offensive coordinator for 1976. After two years, Sweeney left to become an assistant with the NFL's Oakland Raiders under John Madden, and Erickson continued at Fresno in 1978 under new head coach Bob Padilla.
When Jack Elway, a former Sweeney assistant at WSU, was hired at San Jose State in 1979, Erickson joined him for three seasons, again as the offensive coordinator. They instituted the spread offense, which Elway had picked up from his son John's high school head coach, Jack Neumeier. Erickson was a finalist for the Weber State job after the 1980 season, but lost out to high school teammate and friend Mike Price; he finally got his head coaching chance following the 1981 season.
Head coaching
College
Idaho
Erickson's head coaching career began at age 34 at the University of Idaho on December 11, 1981, succeeding Jerry Davitch, who had been fired nine days prior to his final game. A pre-season playoff pick in Davitch's fourth season, Idaho finished 1981 with six consecutive losses, winless in all seven games in the Big Sky. Erickson was hired by UI athletic director Bill Belknap and accepted a one-year contract at $38,001.Building on his reputation as an offensive innovator, Erickson became Idaho's all-time winningest head coach in just four seasons with the Vandals, taking them to the I-AA playoffs in his first and fourth seasons. In his first season of 1982, Erickson took an underachieving 3–8 team in 1981 and immediately turned it into an 8–3 playoff team, led by decathlete quarterback Ken Hobart. Erickson's overall record with the Vandals was 32–15, 31–13 in the regular season and 1–2 in post season. He went 4–0 in the rivalry game with Boise State, a team which had dominated the series by winning the previous five games.
His most notable recruits at Idaho were his quarterbacks – future NFL head coach Scott Linehan, who had future Oakland Raiders head coach Tom Cable blocking for him, and future College Football Hall of Famer John Friesz, who had Mark Schlereth blocking for him. Erickson revived Vandal football and quickly turned it into a top I-AA program, whose success was continued for another decade by former assistants Keith Gilbertson and John L. Smith.
Before 1982, the Vandals had posted only four winning seasons in over four decades, and had not had consecutive winning seasons since 1938. Idaho had three consecutive winning seasons only once, and never had four. With Erickson's arrival as head coach, the program embarked on 15 consecutive winning seasons, and eleven trips to the Division I-AA playoffs in fourteen seasons, including two appearances in the semifinals.
Erickson's compensation for his fourth and final year at Idaho in 1985 was $47,940.
In 2018, he was inducted into the University of Idaho Athletics Hall of Fame.
Wyoming
On December 2, 1985, Erickson was introduced as the head coach of the Wyoming Cowboys. His four-year contract included a base annual salary of $60,000 plus $20,000 from radio and television, and the rent-free use of a home in Laramie. The Division I-A Cowboys had just concluded 3–8 season in 1985, tied for seventh in the nine-team WAC.Erickson installed his "Air Express" form of the spread offense and led the Cowboys to 3–1 start in September, with road wins at Air Force and Wisconsin. Wyoming finished at 6–6 season in 1986, tied for fourth in the WAC with a 4–4 record. Erickson was approached by several teams during the winter. When the Washington State job opened up with Jim Walden accepting the head coaching job at Iowa State, Erickson decided to agree to join the Cougars in early January; the news broke out before Erickson could tell his players, which he later stated was among his big regrets.
Washington State
When introduced as the head coach of the Washington State Cougars of the Pac-10 on January 7, 1987, Erickson stated that it was his lifelong goal to be the head coach at WSU in 1987 was a five-year deal at an annual base salary of $70,000, with up to $30,000 from radio, television, and speaking to the Palouse after just 13 months in Wyoming, then led the Cougars to in his first year, the same record the Cougars had the year before under Jim Walden. Erickson turned around the Washington State program quickly, going in 1988 with a post-season victory in the Aloha Bowl, WSU's first bowl win since the 1916 Rose Bowl. Erickson's continued success led to his hiring by the University of Miami although a week before he stated he was not leaving WSU.Miami
Expectations were very high at Miami, as Erickson replaced the successful Jimmy Johnson, who had led the Hurricanes to ten or more wins each the previous four seasons and a national championship in 1987 before departing for the NFL's Dallas Cowboys. Erickson led Miami for six seasons, winning an undisputed national championship in 1989 and sharing the title with Washington in 1991. That gave Erickson more national championships than any other Miami coach. Erickson's.875 winning percentage at Miami remains the highest in the history of the program.Erickson's tenure crested with the 1991 shared title. A year later, the Hurricanes rolled through the regular season undefeated for the second year in a row behind Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Gino Torretta. They went into the 1993 Sugar Bowl, the first Bowl Coalition national title game, as heavy favorites against Alabama. However, Alabama routed Miami 34-13, ending Miami's 29-game winning streak dating to 1990. His 1993 team went 9–3, the first season with fewer than ten wins for Miami since 1985. That team was drubbed 29–0 by Arizona in the 1994 Fiesta Bowl. In September 1994, the Hurricanes lost, 38–20, to Washington at the Orange Bowl, snapping the Canes' NCAA record 58-game home win streak dating to 1985.
Moreover, in 1991 Miami self-reported rampant violations of NCAA rules dating back to 1985, Johnson's second year. However, when it emerged that an academic adviser had helped players fraudulently obtain Pell Grants, the federal government asked Miami to stop its probe so the Department of Education could conduct an investigation of its own. Ultimately, Miami was placed on three years' probation not long after Erickson left the school, banned from postseason play in 1995 and docked 31 scholarships over three years. Erickson himself was not implicated in wrongdoing.
In 2005, he was inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame. Erickson was interviewed about his time at the University of Miami for the documentary The U, which premiered December 12, 2009, on ESPN.
NFL
Seattle
After turning down offers from both the Denver Broncos and Philadelphia Eagles, Erickson accepted an offer to coach the Seattle Seahawks in January 1995 for about $1 million per year, compared to the estimated $700,000 in his final year at Miami. In his first season, he switched starting quarterbacks from the #2 overall pick in the 1993 NFL draft, Rick Mirer, and went to John Friesz, whom he recruited to Idaho in 1985. Friesz guided the Seahawks to their second biggest comeback win ever in a game, rallying from 20–0 down at the half after Mirer had started, and took the Seahawks to the final week of the season with an 8–7 record after starting 2–6 and a playoff berth on the line only to lose to Kansas City and finish 8–8. In 1996, the Seahawks finished 7–9, Erickson's worst record with the team. 1997 saw an ownership change in Seattle, in which Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen purchased the team from then owner Ken Behring and helped pass a referendum for a new stadium to be built; that season, the Seahawks had one of the best passing offenses in the league, only to finish 8–8 after an 0–2 start in which they were outscored 76–17 in two home losses. After the season, Erickson, who had been told by new owner Paul Allen that he would return in 1998, had to fire longtime friend and assistant the special teams coach Dave Arnold and replace him with Pete Rodriguez.With a revamped lineup led by 1997 passing leader Warren Moon, the Hawks flew out of the gate in 1998 with a three-game winning streak, but stumbled and lost their next three games. Later in the year, with the team playing at.500, he turned to Jon Kitna to lead the offense, and they responded with a close win at home against the Tennessee Oilers before going on the road to New York to play the Jets. In a hotly contested game that many viewed as the best combined offensive performances of 1998, the game came down to a blown call on a short touchdown run by Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde, which cost Seattle the game and Erickson his job. This game would be cited as one of the main reasons the NFL restored its instant replay review system following the season.
The final year of Erickson's NFL contract for 1999 was valued at $1.3 million.