One of the godfathers of Big Sky Conference football is suddenly without a job.
On Thursday afternoon, Football Scoop reported that Idaho State head coach Mike Kramer had been dismissed at 2:14 p.m. Exactly 20 minutes later, Idaho State sent out a press release saying “Idaho State Football Coach Mike Kramer has retired effective immediately.”
At 5 p.m. Thursday afternoon, Idaho State athletic director Jeff Tingey met with the local and statewide media in a press conference that was streamed live online. He confirmed that Kramer would have been fired had he not decided to retire during a meeting staged between the two earlier on Thursday.
“The intention of our meeting earlier today was to improve the program,” Tingey said. “I had open possibilities in what could or could not happen. But a change in the program and a change in the leadership was at the forefront of that.
When asks if Kramer would have chosen not to retire, would he still be ISU’s head football coach, Tingey simply replied, “No.”
Kramer’s contract was set to expire after this season. An ISU representative said Kramer will continue to get paid through January of 2018. Tingey confirmed Kramer will be paid for eight months until January 21, 2018.
Kramer has been a part of Big Sky football since his days as an offensive lineman playing for Ed Troxel at Idaho from 1972 until 1975. The Colton, Washington native was a high school coach from 1976 until 1983, when he joined Dave Arnold’s staff as the defensive line coach ta Montana State, starting a stretch in which he spent most of the next 35 years in the league.
ISU head coach Mike Kramer
Tingey said the decision to let Kramer go “was a multi-faceted decision.”
“It wasn’t one I came up with in a silo,” Tingey said. “It involved athletic administration, some input from some other constituents. But I think all of that culminated in the decision today.”
Tingey said boosters and alumni were not involved in the decision but that his “open door policy to student-athletes” provided “another constituent.” Tingey said Idaho State is always looking for improvement and holds the same standard for his coaches in all sports. He said, “for us to get stagnant in any sport is not something we want to do. We are always looking for improvement.”
Tingey named wide receivers coach Rob Phenicie as the head coach. Matt Troxel, Idaho State’s former offensive coordinator, left ISU in December to take a job coaching receivers on Bob Stitt’s staff at Montana, Troxel’s alma mater. Phenicie was promoted to offensive coordinator. On Tuesday, Phenicie took an offensive assistant position at Northern Iowa. On Thursday, he was named ISU’s head coach. He will also serve as ISU’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
“We always want to have, don’t know if the right word is ace in the hole, but we want to make sure that we’ve got options, that we don’t get backed into a corner and don’t have anywhere to go,” Tingey said. Tingey invited Phenicie to come back, but that the coach and the school “are still in discussions” in terms of if it is an interim tag or permanent job and a timeline for signing a contract.
Idaho State scheduled to open spring ball on April 6. When asked why now for the decision, Tingey dodged the question, saying, ” I can’t go into too many of those things, this being a personnel action and privacy laws. I can just say that a decision was made through those things. It wasn’t just one event. It was a series of events, a series of terms that led us to this point.”
Idaho State head coach Mike Kramer/ by Brooks Nuanez
Kramer’s dismissal ends a six-year stint in Pocatello where Kramer helped resurrect a dormant program in some ways but failed to meet expectations in others. Kramer posted an 18-50 record at ISU but 2014’s 8-4 mark proved to be the best season by the Bengals in a generation.
Off the field, Kramer helped the program rectify its once-dismal Academic Progress Rating and helped the football team emerge from strict NCAA penalties. The football program has regularly boasted a GPA of 3.0 and 95 percent of his student-athletes have graduated, the ISU press release said.
“He raised the bar, raised the program to where it is now,” Tingey said. “He got us out of academic trouble, out of APR trouble because of his leadership style. I am very grateful for him and he has prepared us for the next step.”
Idaho State won six games in four seasons under John Zamberlin between 2007 and 2010 before Kramer took over in 2011. Kramer’s first three teams were strapped with practice time and scholarship limits and won just six games in three seasons, including just two in the Big Sky.
In 2014, Idaho State turned a corner. Behind the stellar play of Walter Payton Award finalist quarterback Justin Arias, Idaho State won six Big Sky games and eight games overall. A 44-39 loss at No. 12 Montana State likely cost ISU a berth in the FCS playoffs. Kramer was named Big Sky Coach of the Year for the fourth time in his career, a league record. ISU’s winning record was the program’s first since 2003.
The last two seasons, the Bengals have been ravaged by injuries across their lineup. Key players like linebacker Mario Jenkins, safety Taison Manu and a collection of offensive linemen forced the Bengals back to the Big Sky basement. ISU posted back-to-back 2-9 records, including 1-7 each of the last two years in conference play.
ISU head coach Mike Kramer in 2015/by Brooks Nuanez
Kramer has won 63 Big Sky Conference games and 95 games overall in his long career. After spending four seasons as an assistant at Montana State, he returned to the prep ranks, coaching at Stadium High in Tacoma, Washington in 1987 and 1988. He joined the Eastern Washington staff as a defensive line coach in 1989, a position he held until 1993.
The man known as “the Big Human” got his first head coaching job at Eastern Washington in 1994. His time in Cheney peaked in 1997 when he led the Eagles to 12 wins, a Big Sky Conference title and a berth in the semifinals of the Division I-AA playoffs. He earned his first Big Sky Coach of the Year honor that season.
Following the 1999 season, Kramer was lured from EWU to Montana State. He took over a stagnant MSU program that had not replicated the success it saw during Kramer’s days as an assistant in the mid-1980s. His first Bobcat team in 2000 posted an 0-11 record. By 2002, Kramer was again the Big Sky Coach of the Year after helping the Bobcats to a share of the Big Sky title. The season also included a 10-7 win over Montana in Missoula, MSU’s first over its hated rival after 16 straight losses.
That 2002 team was the first of three Kramer-coached Bobcat teams to share Big Sky titles and advance to the FCS playoffs. In 2006, Kramer led the Bobcats to a win over Furman in the first round of the postseason, MSU’s first playoff win since its 1984 national championship season.
The following spring, controversy consumed MSU football, resulting in Kramer’s abrupt firing. A slew of arrests of MSU athletes with ties to a local drug ring put Kramer under heat. The arrest of former football player John LeBrum and former basketball player Branden Miller on murder charges heightened the tension. Ricky Gatewood’s arrest in relation to cocaine purchased with scholarship money combined with APR issues resulted in Kramer’s firing in May of 2007.
Kramer’s career lay dormant for the rest of the decade as his wrongful termination lawsuit against the state of Montana drug on. In 2010, he took a quality control assistant position on Paul Wulff’s staff at Washington State.
In 2011, Kramer made his return to the Big Sky. He took over for Zamberlin and signed a contract that was set to expire after this season.
Former Idaho State offensive coordinator Rob Phenicie/by ISU Athletics
Phenicie came to Idaho State before the 2015 season as wide receivers coach. He was promoted to OC in January but left the program for two days earlier this week.
“We are building a program at ISU, and we don’t want a Band-Aid fix,” Tingey said. “Coach Phenicie brings with him a wealth of experience as an offensive coordinator at the Division I level. His experience with our players and knowledge of our program will be a big asset.”
Prior to Idaho State, Phenicie was the offensive coordinator at UNLV for two years, and he served as the offensive coordinator at the University of Montana from 2003-09 under head coach Bobby Hauck, helping the Griz to seven straight league titles.
During his time in Missoula, he guided the Montana offense to three appearances in the FCS National Championship game (2004, 2008 and 2009), and the team made the playoffs every year. In 2006, he was awarded the Mike Campbell Award for the top assistant coach in FCS football. Montana appeared in 18 playoff games during his time as the offensive coordinator.
“His experience at the University of Montana is very important,” Tingey said. “They have been very successful and they are a program we want to pattern ourselves after. They were successful for many years and those things don’t happen by accident. They happen on purpose, they happen with the right pieces. He was a part of that and we want to bring that same thing to Idaho State University.”
Phenicie also served as the co-offensive coordinator at University of Wyoming for one season. While at Cal State Northridge in 1997, Phenicie was the offensive coordinator for a unit that led the nation in total offense.
This story will be updated. Photos by Brooks Nuanez or noted. All Rights Reserved.
