Presented by BACON BOISE.
This Day In Sports…December 16, 2005, 20 years ago today:
Dan Hawkins ends the best coaching run in the history of Boise State football to that point when he is introduced as the new head coach at Colorado. Hawkins went 53-11 in five seasons at Boise State with four straight WAC championships and bowl appearances and three Top 15 finishes. Offensive coordinator Chris Petersen, who had long been reluctant to take a head coaching spot, was simultaneously announced as Hawkins’ replacement.
Ironically, it was that day Boise State first practiced in Hawkins’ pet project, the Broncos’ new indoor practice facility. The Caven-Williams complex is the crown jewel of the Hawkins era, a byproduct of the steamroller of a program he helped build. Inside, the Broncos were preparing for a date with Boston College in the MPC Computers Bowl (now the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl). Hawkins elected to coach the team in the bowl, a much-debated decision. But Petersen wanted him there, and the players did, too. (The Broncos would lose to BC 27-21 after a furious rally fell short.)
Hawkins had been promoted to head coach five years earlier after Dirk Koetter left Boise State for Arizona State. He had come from Willamette University in Oregon, where he went 40-11-1 and finished his stay there with a berth in the 1997 NAIA national championship game. One of his duties on Koetter’s staff was recruiting coordinator, and he drew future stars like Daryn Colledge, Ryan Dinwiddie and Quintin Mikell into the Broncos program.
It was Hawkins who positioned Boise State for everything that’s happened the past 25 years. Early on he talked about the Broncos becoming a top 25 team. Even with the Broncos coming off back-to-back Big West championships and Humanitarian Bowl wins in 1999-2000, he got some eye-rolls. Well, in his second season, Hawkins had Boise State in the top 25 for the first time. In 2003, that became top 15. And in 2004, it was top 10. It was largely Hawkins’ team that pulled off the upset of Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl in Petersen’s first year (not that Coach Pete didn’t later take it up a notch).
Hawkins coached at Colorado from 2006-10. It was a tough place to build the culture he envisioned, and it’s been that way since he was fired. What the Buffaloes have now is the Culture of Prime, and it remains to be seen whether that’s sustainable. Hawkins then had a cup of coffee with the Montreal Alouettes and spent some time coaching in Europe. In 2017 he landed back in college football with his alma mater, UC Davis, and went 44-31 with two FCS Playoff appearances. Hawkins stepped down after the 2023 season and has spent the past two years as Director of Player and Staff Development for his son Cody at Idaho State.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
