By Anthony Gimino
FOXSportsArizona.com
TUCSON -- Arizona coach Mike Stoops has been where Arizona State coach Dennis Erickson is: the hot seat.
Near the end of Stoops' fourth season at Arizona, he hadn't been to a bowl game and was skating on thin ice with a 2-6 record. A fourth-quarter rally at Washington fueled a three-game winning streak and saved his bacon, although the Wildcats were shut out of the postseason because of a loss at ASU in the regular-season finale.
Erickson is at the end of his fourth season, and it will be his third in a row without a bowl game. But, like with Arizona at the end of the 2007 season, the Sun Devils are showing progress.
Athletic director Lisa Love is on record as saying Erickson will be back for a fifth season, which -- it might be worth noting -- is when Arizona began to take off under Stoops.
"Dennis is a good friend, a good person and a good football coach," Stoops said. "He's won championships at the highest level in college. He's coached the best players that are out there. ...
"All I know is he has been good and fair to me. That's all I go by."
So much for the heated Arizona-Arizona State rivalry. At least among the head coaches.
Stoops said the chatter about other coaches being on the hot seat is "hard to get away from."
"He has been in this business a long, long time, and I don't think it fazes him," Stoops said of Erickson. "He goes out and does his job the best he can."
Stoops' memory might be a bit fuzzy about the details, but he remembers a time early in his coaching career (he was a graduate assistant and a volunteer coach after his playing days with Iowa) when Erickson had just won a national title with Miami. This could have been after the 1989 or 1991 season.
The setup to this story is that Stoops said he has never been to a coaching clinic held by Erickson ... except for that day 20 years ago or so when they crossed paths.
"I think he came in after winning the national championship, and he put on a clinic in the lobby. I guess I heard a few words here and there, but that was a different style of clinic," Stoops said with a grin. "We had a good time.
"I remember I was kind of in awe of him. I was just trying to move up in this profession. And now we're coaching against these Hall of Fame guys."
Even more than that. Erickson, Stoops, older brother Bob Stoops (the head coach at Oklahoma) and South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier played a round of golf together last spring.
Did Stoops beat Erickson that day?
Stoops smiled.
"Of course," he said.
MILLER'S TIME
The Arizona player who has emerged the most late in the season is sophomore receiver Terrence Miller.
He had only four catches through the first eight games. Then he had three catches against Stanford. And then he really took off -- seven catches for 116 yards against USC and eight catches for 96 yards at Oregon.
He's a 6-foot-4 slot receiver, so he's functioning as the over-the-middle tight end the Wildcats have been missing since Rob Gronkowski last put on an Arizona uniform in the 2008 season.
And with slot receiver Bug Wright still out -- Stoops said the junior's indefinite suspension for a violation of team rules will continue through the ASU game -- Miller should have another big role Thursday night against the Sun Devils.
"I'm pretty much going to stay humble, because next week (Nick Foles) might not throw my way at all," Miller said. "I'm just going to keep working hard in practice, make every catch and show him I'm ready."
