Dave Arnold (born September 17, 1944) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

coach. He served as the head football coach at Montana State University team from 1983 to 1986, compiling a record of 18–29. Arnold led his 1984 Montana State Bobcats team to a 12–2 record, a

Big Sky Conference The Big Sky Conference (BSC) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I with football competing in the Football Championship Subdivision. Member institutions are located in the western United States in the eig ...

title, and the

NCAA Division I-AA Football Championship The NCAA Division I Football Championship is an annual post-season college football game, played since 2006, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). From 1978 to 2005, the game was k ...

. For his effort, he was named the AFCA Division I-AA Coach of the Year that season. The 1984 championship run followed a season in 1983 in which the Bobcats finished 1–10 and last in the conference, but defeated their in-state rival, the

University of Montana The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. UM reported 10,962 undergraduate and graduate students in the fa ...

Grizzlies in their sole win. The 11-game turnaround is one of the largest in college football history. Arnold worked as an assistant coach under

Dennis Erickson Dennis Brian Erickson (born March 24, 1947) is an American football coach who most recently served as the head coach for the Salt Lake Stallions of the Alliance of American Football league. He was also the head coach at the University of Idaho ...

Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant uni ...

and

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the ...

and then in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL), coordinating the

special teams In American football, the specific role that a player takes on the field is referred to as their "position". Under the modern rules of American football, both teams are allowed 11 players on the field at one time and have "unlimited free substitu ...

for the Seattle Seahawks from 1995 through 1997. With the Seahawks, he coached with

Rick Tuten Richard Lamar Tuten (January 5, 1965 – June 13, 2017) was an American football punter in the National Football League who played most of his career with the Seattle Seahawks. He punted the ball 108 times in 1992, tied for fourth-most in a seas ...

when he led the NFL in yards per punt in 1995. Kicker

Todd Peterson Joseph Todd Peterson (born February 4, 1970) is a former American football placekicker. He was drafted by the New York Giants from the University of Georgia with the ninth pick of the seventh round (177th overall) in the 1993 NFL Draft. Peter ...

made over 82 percent of his field goals in 1995 and 1996.

Head coaching record

College

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arnold, Dave 1944 births Living people Albion Britons football coaches Colorado State Rams football coaches Miami Hurricanes football coaches Michigan State Spartans football coaches Montana State Bobcats football coaches Seattle Seahawks coaches Washington State Cougars football coaches High school football coaches in Michigan