Collins structures his program after Tjeerdsma’s model

By Editor | May 11, 2017 |

Lido Vizzutti/Associated Press
Northern Colorado football coach Earnest Collins is seen on the sideline during the second half of in 2014 game against Montana in Missoula, Montana.

Each day that Earnest Collins Jr. heads into work at Northern Colorado, he is living a dream.

A native of Denver, he has spent the past six years as the football coach of his alma mater and just wrapped up spring football last week in advance of year No. 7 at the helm.

Collins has a lot of ties to Northern Colorado, from being a defensive back for the Bears, from 1991 to 1994, to two stints as an assistant coach.

However, he knows he may not be where he is now if it wasn’t for a decision to come to Maryville more than 20 years ago.

The exact events that led to Collins coming to work at Northwest Missouri State University are a little hazy. But he recalls this — that one of his coaches at Northern Colorado was on a plane and that coach talked with Northwest’s coach Mel Tjeerdsma and then-defensive coordinator Scott Bostwick.

The Northern Colorado coach learned that the Bearcats were looking for a graduate assistant to coach defensive backs. Collins had spent the 1995 season as a volunteer coach at Northern Colorado after his playing eligibility ran out.

“My coach didn’t think I would want to go to a smaller town,” Collins recalled. “It was an opportunity to get my master’s paid for and work for Coach Tjeerdsma. It seemed like a good deal.”

He came to Northwest at the start of what is one of the greatest runs in Division II football history.

Tjeerdsma, who arrived in 1994, had a 6-16 record as the Bearcats coach when Collins became a graduate assistant. His first year on campus, his past would intersect with his present when the Bearcats went 11-2 in 1996.

Northwest won in the first round of the playoffs that year, beating Nebraska-Omaha, before falling to Northern Colorado in the second round of the playoffs. Collins’ alma mater would go on to win the national title.

The next year, the Bearcats got one game better, sporting a 12-1 mark. The playoffs beckoned again but for the second straight year, Northern Colorado defeated Northwest in the second round of the playoffs on the way to a national championship.

“Earnest is a first-class individual all the way,” Tjeerdsma said. “He is a real gentleman and he is knowledgeable about football, but he is a good human and that is the place I go first.

“It was great for us to have someone from outside of the program join. Most of the GA’s played for us and it was good to have some outside perspective. The fact he came from Northern Colorado carried a lot of weight since we lost to them in ’96 and ’97 and they won the national championship. It gave him credibility.”

After earning his master’s degree, Collins was hired as a physical education teacher at Horace Mann Laboratory School. He held that job for the next two years making the short trek from the K-6 building to Bearcat Stadium.

He was the secondary coach and was assistant special teams coach his final two years with the Bearcats, when current Northwest coach Rich Wright was serving as a graduate assistant himself.

Northwest flipped the script on Northern Colorado the next two years. The Bearcats went 15-0 in 1998 and beat Northern Colorado on the way to the first national championship. Next year, the Bearcats repeated as national champions and again beat Northern Colorado in the playoffs.

Collins still recalls his second national championship in 1999, when Northwest won 58-52 in four overtimes against Carson-Newman.

“I came at the right time,” Collins said. “It was pretty special to be a part of. I came in not knowing what to expect. It was really welcoming and I never felt out of place because of the family atmosphere.”

Northwest went 52-4 and won four MIAA titles during his time in Maryville.

The lessons he learned as a young coach are ones that stick with him to this day.

Collins spoke at length on the impact of Tjeerdsma and the late Bostwick, who oversaw Collins’ work his four years in Maryville.

“I take pride and I’m grateful that Mel allowed me to be part of it,” Collins said. “It is a blessing. In my coaching, I still model things that Mel did in terms of education and off-the-field stuff. FCS has different rules, but Northwest is a program that I base my program off of.

“They were huge influences on my life and my coaching career. I can’t say enough good things about Coach Tjeerdsma. Coach Bostwick was a passionate man when it came to coaching, but also with his son and daughter. He was a great father and he was a great family man. He’d give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. Not very often did I drive by his house on the corner and not see a yard full of people. You always knew you were welcome.”

Collins returned to Maryville for the first time in years back in 2011 to attend Bostwick’s funeral.

Collins left Maryville after the 1999 championship season, returning to Northern Colorado where he was hired as the secondary coach and special teams coordinator.

He left Greeley after the 2002 season — when Northern Colorado made the Division II semifinals — for his first stop at Division I.

He was hired to be the cornerback coach at Kansas under Mark Mangino. In 2005, he added duties as special teams coordinator and began recruiting the Dallas area.

The Jayhawks went to two bowl games in the three years Collins coached in Lawrence, Kansas.

Collins’ next stop took him to Orlando, Florida, in 2007 to coach with George O’Leary at Central Florida. The Knights went 10-4 and played in the Liberty Bowl.

Collins went to Alcorn State in 2008 to serve as the defensive coordinator and added the title of associate head coach.

He had the job for a year and then got promoted to the head coach after Ernest Jones was fired. Jones filed a lawsuit against the school for firing seven of his assistant coaches, but the assistant coach firings were later reversed, but Jones lost his job.

“He worked his way up and got the opportunity,” Tjeerdsma said of Collins. “I remember he had the opportunity at Alcorn State and we talked about the program, it wasn’t the best program but he had the opportunity to go back to Northern Colorado and it’s a great fit.”

He was hired at Northern Colorado as the 16th head coach following the 2010 season. Incidentally, he interviewed for that job his last year at Kansas, but someone else was hired.

Collins’ first year at Northern Colorado ended with 0-11 record. He turned the team around to 5-6 in year two — very similar to Tjeerdsma’s turnaround at Northwest the first two years.

Two losing seasons followed — 1-11 and 3-8 — before Collins posted his first winning season at the helm in 2015 at 6-5. That became the first winning season in 12 years for the Bears.

This year, the Bears were again 6-5 and one of the victories came against Abilene Christian — now coached by former Bearcats coach Adam Dorrel. Collins admitted that he tried to bring Dorrel to Greeley in 2011 to join his coaching staff before Dorrel was promoted to the head coach at Northwest.

Collins is looking for bigger things this year at Northern Colorado, which went 4-4 in Big Sky Conference play. Of the five teams that finished above them in the league standings, four made the FCS playoffs and Eastern Washington advanced to the semifinals.

Northern Colorado didn’t have a single winning season since moving from Division II to Division I in 2004 until the back-to-back 6-5 records.

The success led to Collins getting a contract extension through 2021.

Collins says he models a lot of his coaching pattern from what he learned from Tjeerdsma. One of many coaches from the ‘Tjeerdsma Tree,’ Collins still talks with his mentor.

“I have worked for a few guys now and Mel is a guy I saw do it the right way,” Collins said. “You see a lot of guys take it where you have to grind and you can’t have a family. Mel is the total opposite. You can enjoy business and win, but you can also be successful as a husband, as a father, and as a man of God. That, for me, showed you can do it all. You don’t have to sacrifice. Mel is a great father and a great teacher of men and a heck of a football coach.”