Erickson’s teams always improve in second season

 When he was introduced as Arizona State’s football coach in December 2006, Dennis Erickson immediately stressed the importance of familiarity, citing the addition of Dan Cozzetto as an assistant coach. Cozzetto coached at ASU from 1992-99.

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“He’ll be able to show me where to park the car,” Erickson said.

The comment was a joke, but it reflected a chapter of Erickson’s coaching handbook that he takes seriously. It is exemplified in the group of assistants that has been with him for years and a game plan that rarely deviates from base plays that players master by running them over and over again.

For Erickson, familiarity breeds success, and some of the biggest rewards of that philosophy have been reaped in his second season at a school.

The Sun Devils begin the second year of the Erickson era today.

“If everything is equal, you should be better going into the second year,” said Erickson, whose team plays Northern Arizona today at Sun Devil Stadium. “You know what you are doing offensively, and the players are more familiar with each other. Our offensive line and running backs are more familiar with the protections and so forth, which makes a big difference.

“Same thing on defense. They have been in that system for a year, so it should be a lot simpler.”

In 1988, Erickson’s second season at Washington State, the Cougars went 9-3 and won a bowl for the first time in 57 years. In 2000, his second season at Oregon State, the Beavers were 11-1 and drilled Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.

Erickson’s combined first-year record at his seven college coaching stints is 50-34-1. In the second seasons, he is 38-9.

NAU coach Jerome Souers also subscribes to the second-year philosophy. The Lumberjacks won six games in his first season, 1999, then went 8-4 and made the Division I-AA playoffs the following year.

(NAU later forfeited four of its 2000 victories.)

“There should be no mystery going into the second year,” Souers said. “If you have a situation like Coach Erickson has been able to do, where he has had those assistant coaches together forever, it’s an even bigger factor.

“You don’t waste a lot of time. Many staffs need four or five years to get things going at a school, but those guys at ASU know what they are doing.”

There is not much victory-total room for improvement in Year 2 at ASU, as the Sun Devils went 10-3 and won a Pac-10 co-championship last season. But the school tapped Erickson, a winner of two national titles at Miami (Fla.), with much bigger aspirations in mind.

Whether they will be realized this year is to be determined. Quarterback Rudy Carpenter believes, however, that ASU is a better prepared team than at this time in 2007.

“I think we had to shorten a scrimmage last year because we were a little shaky on offense,” Carpenter said. “We weren’t ready to execute what we needed to. But now, we’re more sure of what we are doing. We’re more confident in the coaching staff because we’ve been through this with them one time. There’s a lot more confidence and sureness.”

The Sun Devils will need every minute of that preparation because of what is a key factor determining second-season success.

“The schedule has a lot to do with it,” Erickson said.

The 1988 Washington State team did not play Southern California, which won the Pac-10 title the year before. In 2000, Oregon State’s schedule included Eastern Washington, New Mexico and San Diego State, and Pete Carroll had not yet arrived at USC.

Starting with the Georgia game on Sept. 20, ASU faces five consecutive teams — California, USC, Oregon and Oregon State follow — that won a combined 47 games last season.

It adds up to a demanding slate. Fortunately for the Sun Devils, Erickson is familiar with the second-season drill.

“We all know each other,” Erickson said. “I feel a lot better going into this year because we all know what to expect from one another, and that makes a big difference.”

Dennis Erickson: The second season

*-Won national title in 1989 and '91