Editor's Note: Dennis Erickson will be honored this Saturday, Oct. 19, with an NFF Hall of Fame On-Campus Salute, presented by Fidelity Investments, during Miami (FL)'s game against Georgia Tech in Miami Gardens, Florida. He was previously honored with Hall of Fame On-Campus Salutes at Oregon State and Washington State. He will be officially inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame during the 62nd NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 10 in New York City.

Dennis Erickson
Head Coach: 179-96-1 (65.0%)
University of Idaho (1982-85, 2006); University of Wyoming (1986); Washington State University (1987-88); University of Miami [FL] (1989-94); Oregon State University (1999-2002); Arizona State University (2007-11)

• Only Miami coach to lead the Canes to two national titles (1989, 1991).
• Boasts highest win percentage (87.5) in Miami history.
• Led teams to 12 bowl games and at least a share of seven conference titles.
• First coach to earn Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors at three different institutions.

He has been a college and NFL head coach nine different times at eight different locations, but Dennis Erickson never forgets where he got his first big break.

"If it wasn't for Idaho, I would have never had the chance to be a head coach," Erickson said. "I was an assistant for Jack Elway at San Jose State, and in 1982 he gave me an opportunity to become a head coach at the University of Idaho and we had a lot of success at the time I was there and moved on through coaching.

"But if it wasn't for the University of Idaho, Bill Belknap and a guy by the name of Dick Gibb, who was the president there at time, and those people there, I would've never had the success I've been able to have in coaching."

Erickson lives on a lake in Idaho now, after a brief stint as coach of the Salt Lake Stallions in the Alliance of American Football. He can reflect on a career that started as a family calling — his father, Robert "Pinky" Erickson, was a high school coach in Washington state — and ended up in the College Football Hall of Fame. In between, he was inspired by mentors near and far, from Elway at SJSU to coach Jim Sweeney at Montana State during his playing days.

He made the FCS playoffs twice at Idaho, took a 3-8 Wyoming program to 6-6 in his one year there, went 9-3 by Year 2 at Washington State and, of course, won a pair of national titles in six years at Miami after being hired by Hurricane Athletics Director Sam Jankovich who had been an assistant coach at Montana State when Erickson played there.

"Obviously it was a highlight of my career, no question about it," Erickson said. "Winning those national championships, two of them, was pretty unprecedented, and I'm pretty proud of that. But there are moments at any place. I look back at Washington State when I was there in '88 when we upset No. 1 UCLA in the Rose Bowl – that was a huge moment for me. And then at Oregon State in 2000 we went 11-1 and beat Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl."

Never one to back down from a challenge, Erickson spent six total years at the NFL level coaching the Seahawks and 49ers, sandwiching his run of three winning campaigns in four seasons at Oregon State.

He returned to Idaho in 2006 before embarking on a five-year run at Arizona State that featured a shared Pac-12 title in 2007.

Erickson won at least a share of seven conference titles during his 23-year run as a college head coach, and he became the first coach to win Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors at three different schools. His six seasons at Miami match Larry Coker as the most of any national title-winning coach in Coral Gables, and his 87.5 winning percentage with the Hurricanes remains the best in program history.

One of the quarterbacks from those national title teams, 1992 Heisman Trophy winner and 2010 College Football Hall of Fame inductee Gino Torretta, was recruited by Erickson when the coach was at Washington State, eventually following him to the other side of the country after being sold on Erickson's style, vision and personality.

Torretta redshirted on the 1989 championship team before winning it all in his first season as a starter in 1991.

"I look back at my time and I'm thrilled to death to obviously have had a chance to play for him," Toretta said. "He brought an offense that really nobody east of the Mississippi had ever seen before, the one-back offense and kind of spread that we ran.

"He went 63-9 here. It was a pretty damn remarkable run."