INLANDER: Tell me about those early days coaching at San Jose State. Did you know your tinkering would wind up sparking an offensive football revolution?
ERICKSON: I went to San Jose State with Jack Elway, and we just kind of started out of split backs. Jack had done quite a bit with one back by then and got a lot of it from Jack Neumeier — he was really, really innovative. So we'd start with two backs, then send one in motion. If the linebacker moved, we'd hand it off. If he didn't, then we'd go ahead and throw the ball. It loosened up the box. Then we thought, "Why don't we just do this with one back, then with three wide receivers?" It's about mismatches in football — it still is.
And you kept fine-tuning this system as you moved through your career...
Jack went up to Stanford [to coach his son John Elway], and I went to Idaho in 1982, and that's when we really started to open it up. One back, running him in motion, empty backfield. At that time, we were the only one-back teams around.
Did you guys know you had something special going on?
We knew it was different, yeah, yet we weren't sure of it. It was fun to coach it — to see it progress. When I was at Idaho, we had coaches from all over come visit to take a look. At San Jose State, Mike Price, he had just gotten the Weber State job. He came down, and then he brought it to the Big Sky.
Then you moved to Wyoming and back to the Palouse for the WSU job, where you paired up with a quarterback who could really run the system in Timm Rosenbach.
We had some great players at WSU: good receivers and tight ends, Timm. Beating UCLA down there in the Rose Bowl [in 1988], it didn't get any better than that for me.
College realignment and the demise of the Pac-12 have been the talk of the West Coast. You've coached at four Pac-12 schools and two NFL teams — you've seen it all. What are your thoughts on where college football is headed?
It's just a sad time. College football, with the transfer portal and the NIL, it's all down to who has the money. There are no rules right now. The presidents, the NCAA, they need to get some rules in there. As coaches, when we're talking about academics, about doing this right, it's hard when the bottom line, right now, is all about money.
One guy who's doing a really good job is Jonathan Smith at Oregon State. He was my quarterback when I coached there. They're doing it the right way — sure, they're doing some in the portal, but they're about culture, about getting guys who want to be there. Just like in Pullman, they're in shock in Corvallis, too. Oregon State just finished a new side of their stadium. I just don't know what's going to happen.
Now you're a resident of Coeur d'Alene, with pretty good proximity to some of your old college towns. Do you make it out for some game days?
Oh yeah, I go to watch the Cougars, I go down to OSU. I love to go to [my alma mater] Montana State, and down to Idaho. My son Bryce, he's coaching at Montana. I love the Big Sky — the rivalries. The purest football right now, in my opinion, is in the Big Sky.
And full circle, the guy who replaced you at WSU, Mike Price — he's your neighbor on the lake.
Mike, we grew up together, went to high school together; I've known Mike since we were little kids in Everett. Both our dads were in coaching.
When I was at Idaho the first time, we got to know this area. We left, then came back, and we always knew we wanted to end up here. It doesn't get any better than right here.
— INTERVIEW BY TED S. McGREGOR JR.
