When MSU head coach John L. Smith looks across the field tomorrow, he'll see more than the Idaho team.

He'll see Dennis Erickson, the coach who has been his mentor and friend for more than 25 years.

"He's probably my closest confidant in the coaching world — one guy I've always relied on," Smith said.

The two coaches began their relationship in the 1970s, when Smith was an assistant coach at Montana and Erickson was at Montana State. They battled for the same recruits, but developed a mutual respect.

During the next few years, the two left the state to take other coaching jobs. But their relationship didn't end.

While Erickson was at Fresno State and San Jose State, Smith often visited to learn from him. Then Erickson got the head coaching job at Idaho in 1981.

"He gets the Idaho job and called and said, 'Let's go.'" Smith said. "And I said, 'I'll be there before you.'"

Smith worked as Erickson's defensive coordinator at Idaho for four years. When Erickson took the head coaching position at Wyoming in 1986 and Washington State in 1987, Smith went with him.

Smith recalled a game in 1988 when Washington State was playing top-ranked UCLA and needed to stop quarterback Troy Aikman and the Bruins on fourth down to win.

"I told (Erickson) what I had called and said, 'What do you think?'" Smith said. "And he said, 'Hey, that's why I hired you,' and he turned and walked away."

The fourth-down pass fell incomplete, and Washington State won the game.

"We had a great relationship then, and I had tremendous trust in him," Erickson said on a conference call this week. "Those things still stand out in my career because those successes helped me do some of the things I did.

"Maybe I shouldn't thank him on some of that," Erickson added, joking about the 40-56 record he compiled during two stints as an NFL head coach in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Even as Erickson won national championships as head coach at Miami in 1989 and 1991, Smith still was using him as a coaching guide. Smith returned to Idaho as head coach in 1989 and took his entire coaching staff to Miami for a week to observe Erickson's coaching in 1991.

"That's the kind of appreciation we have for his football knowledge and how he runs a program," said MSU wide receivers coach Blaine Bennett, who was on Smith's Idaho staff for the trip to Miami.

Bennett also was a quarterback at Idaho in 1985 when both Smith and Erickson were on the staff, so he's seen the two coaches work together and is a firsthand witness to the coaches' relationship.

"They've been just very good friends," he said. "They have a lot of stories and wins between them."

Although the two head coaches haven't worked together since being at Washington State in 1988, they have stayed in touch over the years.

The phone calls were less frequent while Erickson was in the NFL, but Smith says he's received about two calls a week from Erickson since he was hired in February for a second stint as Idaho's head coach.

But this week, the phone calls won't be necessary.

Saturday's game, which was scheduled prior to Erickson's hiring, now takes on a new wrinkle as Smith faces a staff that includes several coaches he has worked with.

"I'm excited about the fact that even though were going to have to make a lot of adjustments ? we have a chance to play a team that's similar in regard to ourselves," Smith said.

But neither coach is too concerned that their familiarity with one another will affect the game. Smith knows Idaho will play the Spartans like any other team.

"We're very, very close friends," Erickson said, "but that stuff disappears for three hours on Saturday."