Erickson introduced at ASU

TEMPE, Ariz. – The allure of another Pac-10 job was too much for Dennis Erickson to pass up.

Arizona State turned to the well-traveled coach Monday, introducing Erickson as the man to lead the Sun Devils’ football program out of mediocrity.

The hiring marks the third Pac-10 coaching job for Erickson. He had stints at Washington State and Oregon State.

“It’s exciting for me to have an opportunity to come to Arizona State and compete for the BCS championship, to compete for the Pac-10,” Erickson said. “I’m looking forward to elevating the program.”

Erickson, 59, has a 149-64-1 record in 18 seasons that, in addition to the two Pac-10 schools, included stops at Idaho (twice), Wyoming and Miami. He also coached six years in the NFL, four with Seattle and two with San Francisco. He had signed a five-year contract with Idaho a year ago but left after 10 months.

Terms of his Arizona State contract were not revealed, pending ratification by the state board of regents.

After a 4-8 season at Idaho, he said the move to a higher-profile program was an opportunity he didn’t want to pass up.

“Every move that I’ve made has been to meet a challenge in the business that I’m in, which is college football,” Erickson said. “When I went to the University of Idaho, I wasn’t planning on leaving. Sometimes in this business opportunities come at different times, and that just happened. To have an opportunity to come here, whether I was there a year or five years, was something that I wanted to do, so that’s why I made that decision.”

He replaces Dirk Koetter, who was fired after six seasons.

Erickson’s biggest success came at Miami, where the Hurricanes were 63-9 in six seasons and won national championships in 1989 and 1991. He left Miami for the NFL’s Seahawks, where he was 31-33 from 1995 through 1998 before being fired.

His best coaching performance might have been at Oregon State. Erickson took over in 1999, when OSU had an NCAA Division I-record streak of 28 consecutive losing seasons. His first team went 7-5 and appeared in the Oahu Bowl. His second Oregon State team capped an 11-1 season with a 41-9 Fiesta Bowl rout of Notre Dame.

“Those four years at Oregon State were the proudest years of my life,” Erickson said.

Erickson left the Beavers in 2003, accepting a five-year, $12.5 million contract with the 49ers. He was fired after the 2004 season and out of coaching in 2005.

“He’s not only a big-game coach, he is a big-season coach and he is a big-program builder, which we are seeking,” athletic director Lisa Love said.

His career, while highly successful, has been clouded at times. Miami faced NCAA sanctions after his stint there. His players, especially at Miami, were known for their overly aggressive and sometimes undisciplined behavior.

“You talk about discipline,” Erickson said. “I see it happen sometimes but I don’t see that’s something that has happened regularly in Dennis Erickson’s program at all. We play hard, we play with a passion, and we play the game the way I think it should be played.”

Love said she looked into all the reported problems he had and talked to compliance officers at schools where he coached.

“We found that they gave him excellent marks of being very, very much involved and very committed to rule compliance,” Love said.

Love said she was not concerned about the possibility Erickson would jump to another opportunity from Arizona State.

“Ambition does not bother me at all,” she said.

Koetter’s teams earned bowl appearances each of the last three seasons, but he was 21-28 overall in the conference and 0-10 against Pac-10 teams in California. He will coach ASU through the Hawaii Bowl on Dec. 24 against Hawaii.