Early in the 2007 college football season, I identified three capable and experienced new first-year coaches brought in to rescue troubled programs: Nick Saban at Alabama, Dennis Erickson at Arizona State, and Mark Dantonio at Michigan State. Since the regular season is over, it’s time to evaluate your performance.
I created a new system to do it. Base is actual NCAA regular season team statistics for top 5 offensive categories and top 5 defensive categories. These are Score Attack, Total Attack, Attack per Run, Pass Attack, Pass Efficiency Attack, Scoring Defense, Total Defense, Run Defense, Pass Defense, and Pass Efficiency Defense.
A numerical value (1 to 5) was then assigned to the 119 Division 1A schools. The top 10 in each category earned an “Excellent” rating of 5, the next 20 earned a “Good” rating of 4, the next 59 an “Average” rating of 3, the next 20 a “Poor” rating of 2 and the bottom 10 a “Terrible” rating of 1. The Excellent and Good ratings represent the top 25% of schools, the Average rating represents the middle 50%, and the Poor and Terrible ratings represent the bottom 25% of schools .
Given this system, the best results were clearly produced by Dennis Erickson, followed by Mark Dantonio and then Nick Saban.
When Arizona State hired Dennis Erickson as head coach, the Sun Devils won the lottery. Erickson is arguably in the top 5 current college football coaches in the country, and he has the performance record to back up my claim. Before coming to the state of Arizona, Erickson had:
1) He led Miami (FL) to a 63-9 record (.875 winning percentage) over a 6-year stretch that produced two national championships in 1989 (11-1) and 1991 (12-0). Erickson posted 32 straight home wins, part of the longest home winning streak in college football history, as Miami won 58 straight from 1985-1994.
2) He produced one of the biggest turnarounds in college football history at Oregon State, leading a team that hadn’t had a winning season in 28 years to a 7-5 record in his first year and a mark of 11 -1 in his sophomore year, beating Notre Dame 41-9 in the Fiesta Bowl and finishing the year ranked #4 in the AP Poll. He was named the Pac 10 Coach of the Year and the Sporting News National Coach of the Year.
3) He inherited a pathetic Washington State team and went 9-3 his sophomore year, shocking UCLA and beating Houston 24-22 in the Aloha Bowl in 1988. The bowl victory was the first for Washington State. Washington in 57 years. He was named Pac 10 Coach of the Year.
4) He inherited a struggling Idaho program and instantly made it 4 straight winning seasons with a 32-15 record and two Division IAA playoff appearances.
5) Joined Lou Holtz as the only coaches in the past 20 seasons to win 3 games against teams ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll. He beat UCLA, Notre Dame (breaking a 23-game winning streak for the Fighting Irish) and Florida (breaking a 16-game winning streak for the Siminoles).
So how did Erickson fare in his first regular season at Arizona State? It’s not bad at all. He inherited a 7-6 team that had suffered an embarrassing 41-24 loss to Hawaii in the Hawaii Bowl, and quickly won his first 8 games, rising to No. 6 in the AP Poll before losing to Oregon.
The Sun Devils finished the season going 10-2 and being ranked #11 in the BCS rankings. Arizona State will face Texas (9-3) in the Holiday Bowl on December 27. He was selected again as the Pac 10 Coach of the Year this year, and also a nominee for the 2007 Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award.
Erickson started out with some talent, but the statistics highlight his coaching ability. On offense, the Sun Devils were no more than average in scoring offense, total offense, rushing offense, and passing offense and good in passing efficiency offense. On defense they were good at scoring defense, total defense, rush defense and pass efficiency defense and average at pass defense.
Erickson is known as an offensive innovator, but his greatest legacy is winning football games. The career record is currently 158-67-1. Dennis Erickson was a better coach than either Nick Saban or Mark Dantonio this year.
Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 of a 3-part series. Part 2 evaluates the performance of Mark Dantonio at Michigan State.
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
