5 Most Winning Oregon State Head Coaches
This article is written by Steve Tolleson, a BeaversEdge.com subscriber. He broke down the history of Oregon State head football coaches. Check it out below.
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Five Beaver fans are sitting at Block 15 after a win. The topic of the winningest coach in all of Beaver football history comes up, and pretty soon, the whole bar is participating! Prothro, Erickson and Riley all are names that come up, but who really is the winningest coach in Beaver Football?
Because I love history and because I love OSU Football, here is a perspective. We always talk about which coach has won more so I decided to take a look at it. I also looked at Oregon State Football in two separate eras, which will become more apparent as you read.
Because of the eras they coached, the winningest coaches in the history can't be compare by wins and losses. The best way is by winning percentage. That way we don't have to consider other factors like the era they played in, etc., and it makes the comparison easier.
For my comparison I want back to 1916 since this is the beginning of the Pacific Coast Conference that would later become the Pac-8, Pac 10 and the Pac 12. Before 1916 there was a lot of different conferences including the Northwest Intercollegiate Association, and OSU also played as an independent school. I have excluded Gary Andersen since he is still actively coaching and his total record would skew the analysis.
From 1916-2014 the total record for the program was 405-472-27 for a winning percentage of 46.2%. Keep in mind this is not the total record but a snapshot of the years listed.
Now let’s take a look at our winningest coaches!
The winningest coaches by percentage are:
1. Tommy Prothro - 1956-64 56-34-4 66.6%
2. Dennis Erickson - 1999-2002 31-17 64.6%
3. Paul Schissler - 1924-32 48-30-2 60%
4. Lon Stiner - 1933-48 74-45-14 55%d (NOTE: There was no team in 1943-44 due to WW II and for Stiner who was on a significant upward trend. He could have been the winningest coach if he had a team during 43-44)
5. Mike Riley - 1997-97, 2003-14 53.8% for all his tenure.
And no Top 5 would be complete without looking at your bottom 5:
1. Craig Fertig - 1976-79 8-36 18.2%
2. Joe Avezzano 1980-1984 12-47-2 20.3%
3. Dave Kragthorpe - 1985-1990 14-48-2 22.6%
4. Kip Taylor – 1949-1955 20-36 35.7%
5. Dee Andros - 1965-1975 32-54d 37.2% (Note: The Great Pumpkin had his most wins years 2-4 and then it went downhill fast)
The Two Eras of Beaver Football
Going UP!! From 1916 - 1964, 48 years, the combined record was 212-128-21 for a winning percentage of .624%. We are on our way to being a storied program! Paul Schissler and Lon Stiner really put the Footbal program into a good place with a great foundation. Kip Taylor didn’t fare well from 1949 to 1955, then Tommy Prothro came next and had some of the best years of Beaver Football! Tommy left for UCLA in 1965 and then Dee Andros took over the program. The next 49 years proved to be a downward spiral that the program is still lingering from even today.
Going DOWN! I think by now if you look at the bottom 5 you see the trend. From 1965 on the program trended down with only one "up" tick from 1999-2014. The record of the Football team was 86-251-7 for a winning percentage of .251%. What a difference. So how is this part problem that we are still suffering from today? Let’s focus on 1965 to 1999.
The average age for a college graduate was 22 years at graduation in 1965. So if you graduated in 1965, got married and had a child that went to OSU that would be around 1984. And if that child graduated and had a child that went to OSU then that is around 2007.
Why is this important? Because that means that is 2 generations don't know what a winning football program looks like, and the people that had a winning football tradition are now probably not attending football games (with the exception of "Jumpdrive" of course). That's part of the culture that is going to take time and winning to change.
During this time, I looked bit found scant data on facility upgrades for the football program. If anyone has such data let me know. My guess is during this time Football was not a focus because it was so bad. Now let's look at athletic directors during this 1965-1999 period.
Slats Gill was the Athletic Director and passed in 1966. Jim Barratt became the Athletic Director then and hired Dee Andros as the Football coach. There is not a lot of information here except that at the time, the Athletic Director job appeared to be much more administrational than it is today. There was some fundraising but it was extremely limited.
Barratt remained until 1975 when he retired and Dee Andros took over the AD job where he remained for 10 years. Unfortunately I was unable to find a lot of information about his time as AD. Andros retired in 1985 and was succeeded by Lynn Snyder in 1985. I found record of a testimony that he gave to a legislative committee indicating that the athletic department at Oregon State had an "operational deficit" but no figures are given. At this point, I think we know that because the football team wasn't driving attendance that revenue was down. Snyder's contract was not renewed in 1990 and Dutch Baughman took over the AD position. At his hire, he was tasked with fixing the "2.5 million dollar deficit" which calculated in today's dollars would be about $4,689,234. This was a quote I found from the Oregon Journal when Baughman took over.
Unfortunately, this deficit was never fixed and in 1998 Mitch Barnhart replaced Baughman. Again, finding objective numbers is very difficult here, but I found another two sentence group discussing the significant operational deficit of the Football program. Again no numbers are given, but I get the sense it was not small or it would not have been mentioned. So we have a football program in deep debt and a Then in 2002, Bob DeCarolis took over as AD. Bob is credited with the largest ever facility fundraising campaign which produced the first remodel of Reser Stadium.
So What Happened? Here are some thoughts
1. As the football program got worse, revenues fell, attendance fell, and it wasn't until 1999 that this really began to change. Although attendance during the time period fluctuated wildly from as little as 12,000 (November 1, 1975) to capacity. But the lightly attended games started to outnumber the sold out games and revenues had annual shortfalls year after year after year. The problems began to spiral out of control, and Oregon State faded into football obscurity. That 34 years of losing that put Oregon State significantly behind in terms of facility investment and upgrades.
2. While the investments in Truax and Reser were great for their time, given the lack of continued investment and support of the program from much earlier, they did not keep pace with the rest of the conference. The AD cannot let a period like this happen again. I don’t think it could happen in this era, but you never know. Hiring the right people and holding them accountable in the future will be the key.
3. The AD and Head Football Coach positions are now tethered together more than ever. The AD must push the envelope in driving revenue by building partnerships with the surrounding community and alumni. Then the Football team must put a product on the field that gets people to attend.
4. Winning football in the modern era of football requires a balance of constant facility growth, investment, but also investment in people. By people I mean the alumni athletes, the people who work at OSU, and especially the alumni who are needed to attend the games!
1999 – The Future
The program took a significant turn back up again with Dennis Erickson’s brief tenure. After some years, Erickson stated that he should have stayed at Oregon State instead of taking the San Francisco 49ers coaching job, but that is hindsight. After Erickson left, Mike Riley came back and had success in the beginning but it tapered out toward the end of his tenure. During his coaching run Riley had some great bowl wins and an overall 6-2 bowl record. The next steps that the program will take are crucial as Scott Barnes and Gary Andersen look to change a culture that for many years has been used to disappointment. The fans will need to show up to games, the facilities will continue to need upgrades, and of course the completion of Reser looms as the future comes.
Now you know who the winningest Beaver Football coaches are of all time. You can also see the two very different eras in Beaver football that have brought the program to Gary Andersen and today. Winning won't solve all the problems, but it will help to forge partnerships that will make the future better. These partnerships can be the foundation of the new Oregon State Football where the next 48 years are more like those of Tommy Prothro, Lon Stiner and Dennis Erickson!
