“We have a very good list of candidates and I'm very excited about who the next head football coach is going to be,” Spear said in a teleconference Monday, less than two hours after former Idaho coach Dennis Erickson was introduced as Arizona State's new head coach.
Whomever is chosen will have to accept a larger buyout clause than the $150,000 Erickson will pay to get out of his Idaho contract, Spear said.
Erickson left for ASU just 10 months after returning to Idaho, the school that gave him his first head coaching job in 1982.
Spear said he told Idaho's assistant coaches who are staying to sell prospective athletes on the school's positive attributes. With a “dead week” in recruiting coming up, it is important to have a new coach hired before recruiting reopens, he said.
“We need to do it fairly quickly. We would like to have the position filled as early as we can,” Spear said.
Erickson's replacement will be someone who can rebuild the Vandals program, “take us forward and be successful,” Spear said.
Once the list of candidates is narrowed to two or three, Spear said he planned to bring the top candidates to campus for interviews.
He would not name any candidates, but had high praise for Montana State coach and former Idaho player Mike Kramer.
“Mike's a tremendous coach,” Spear said. “He's very passionate about coaching. He's very passionate about the University of Idaho.”
Spear asked his counterpart at Montana State on Sunday for permission to talk to Kramer, the Great Falls Tribune reported Monday.
MSU Athletic Director Peter Fields did not immediately return a call for comment.
Kramer led the Bobcats to an 8-5 record and the national playoffs this season. In seven years at Bozeman, Kramer's teams have a 29-22 Big Sky Conference record.
Kramer, a former Eastern Washington coach, was an applicant for the Idaho job last year that was given to Erickson.
Under Erickson, the Vandals went 4-8 this season, 3-5 in the Western Athletic Conference.
Spear reiterated he“allowed myself about one minute to be disappointed” that Erickson left before beginning the task of hiring a replacement.
Vandals fans weren't so easily placated, he said.
“It is accurate that people are angry and irritated,” he said. “We went in with the expectation he would be here longer than 10 months, but he left early.”
Erickson coached the Vandals to two more wins than they got in 2005 under Nick Holt, who left after two seasons and a 5-18 record to return to Southern California as an assistant.
The Vandals haven't had a winning season since 1999, when the team went 7-4 under Chris Tormey.
Vandals senior linebacker David Vobora told the Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune that rumors swirling around the Vandals locker room include Kramer, former Idaho coach John L. Smith, who resigned at Michigan State, and former Boise State coach Dirk Koetter, whose firing at ASU opened the door for Erickson.
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