Bring Hoke Home
I haven't posted a thread here in a very long time..... but I will die on this hill if I'm alone here. Brady Hoke did and can and will continue to do one thing well.... that is scout, recruit, and coach defensive linemen into future pros. We all remember what happened last time Mattison left.... and we all know who coached the DL that season. Let's bring a true dyed in the wool Michigan man home where he belongs in the role that he belongs in...
January 8th, 2019 at 4:09 AM ^
Everywhere Hoke goes, the team collapses, whether it's Oregon, Tennessee, or the Panthers. He may be cursed and we don't need that. I think moving Al Washington to d line coach will be just fine.
January 8th, 2019 at 4:44 AM ^
Agreed. He has the stink of loser on him. Right now we are at least middling, he'll walk right in with the stench of loser - not sure our program can absorb that right now.
January 8th, 2019 at 5:01 AM ^
you don't think we have the stink of loser already?
January 8th, 2019 at 6:26 AM ^
Under RR and Hoke we definitely had the stench of loser.
Under Harbaugh we have more the stench of middling program that can't get over the hump with a shitty, delusional fanbase.
Breaking News: We're essentially back to where we were under the Bo and Carr years...except college football changed (it's more of a business now) and OSU built a football factory and Meyer had a 4 year head start on Harbaugh. Hence, the lack of success against OSU and other elite programs.
I'm still not sure if we are playing catch up or this will be the accepted ceiling for the program. If we want Bama, Clemson, OSU results I don't think our student athletes can spend half their time in class...time to accept that college football is the NFL development league (not to mention the "supplements", bagmen, and whatever other shenanigans go on that we probably aren't fully embracing). So do we go full blown football factory? - or do we accept our fate as similar to a Notre Dame or Stanford where top 5-10 is the ceiling.
January 8th, 2019 at 7:08 AM ^
We also just have the shit luck of being one of 2 teams that happens to be the rival of one of those 3 schools and thus expected to beat them. No one is expected to beat Clemson in ACC. LSU is the only close comparison with Alabama, and they are in the exact same position as us. The last time they even had a win over Saban, they had a rematch where they didn’t even cross the 50 yard line.
January 8th, 2019 at 7:17 AM ^
Georgia?
January 8th, 2019 at 8:38 AM ^
Auburn?
January 8th, 2019 at 8:01 AM ^
I'd argue that Meyer had more than a 4 year head start if you consider what he inherited compared to Harbaugh.
January 8th, 2019 at 10:27 AM ^
This. Tressel recruited to make a run and had no intentions of going anywhere. We all know what Harbaugh inherited. My concern with Harbaugh, among other things, is year 4 and he’s still yet to use a qb he recruited. Watching Clemson last night showed that you can win with a freshman and win big.
January 8th, 2019 at 10:34 AM ^
Idk...I’m constantly told on here how we can’t win with youth and inexperience and can only win when we have a team filled with 5th year seniors.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:27 AM ^
I think he recruited Shea pretty heavily.
January 8th, 2019 at 8:48 AM ^
I completely agree. Since most of the board about gave up on life or went to the hospital to be revived, only to realize they were DNR after the OSU game. IMHO the only way to cure that is to become a football factory. This the only way it will make our fanbase happy about our program.
January 8th, 2019 at 8:53 AM ^
I vote for football factory.
January 8th, 2019 at 9:09 AM ^
Me too. We're not a private institution like Stanford, ND or Northwestern.
OSU is still a respected academic institution. I think Harbaugh can pull off football factory with limited blowback so long as he isn't a full on scumbag like Meyer at UF or covering wife beatings.
The President, AD, Board of Regents, community, etc would have to be on board though - and we'd probably have a lot more shit (players missing classes, not being the best citizens) that would need to be kept quiet or at least disciplined less severely. I could stomach it so long as nobody is getting shot on campus and the players actually play a bit of school. We'd have to swallow our sanctimony and elitist crap though.
January 8th, 2019 at 9:29 AM ^
Wow! Your lack of integrity is astounding.
January 8th, 2019 at 9:45 AM ^
No thanks.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:17 AM ^
Why not just watch the NFL at that point?
January 8th, 2019 at 8:57 AM ^
It goes to show what a poor hire RR was and often forgotten the very bad hire of DB after a detached Bill Martin left. Martin was great at the building facilities part - I doubt any other AD could have renovated the Stadium while still using it and made it look like it was all part of a single build. Go look at some of the frankenstein monstrosities out there at other campuses and you'll see it: odd square/rectangles jutting out of curves with different masonary.
I have a soft spot of Brady Hoke because I do believe he was sincere and in the Bacon books it is clear that he really did try to help a lot of kids with their lives; he just honestly wasn't a great college or pro level coach - he probably would have been an awesome legendary high school coach that coaches for decades or a great college guy in the 1950-1960s, but time moved on. I don't lump his lack of success with that of RR. RR is undoubtedly very smart about offensive football and no doubt helped make college football what it is today with the spread attack but he is a terrible head coach.
January 8th, 2019 at 9:26 AM ^
It was a poor hire because RR wasn't encouraged to work within Michigan's existing culture and foundation, a successful backbone for 40 years. Instead the whole AD fell asleep and turned out the lights before a new coach was announced.
Imagine if when Meyer retired, Gene Smith went on vacation and assistants left for new jobs not knowing WTF would happen next. Gene Smith says, eh, we're Ohio State, we'll figure it out! Players would transfer and the new coach would start from scratch. They would stink.
January 8th, 2019 at 7:53 AM ^
100% agreed.
Will he send more kids out to play with concussions?
Will it take 6 years to build a D line?
If Clappy comes back, I'm out.
January 8th, 2019 at 9:18 AM ^
Weeeeellllll... I wasn't fully aware of the clapping.
January 8th, 2019 at 8:47 AM ^
I remember Will Carr came in as a GA. I believe it was Frank Clark who he told to never use a certain pass rush technique that he said was his go-to move. Next thing you knie, Clark went from an average player to an NFL prospect. That was a staff that already has a DL coach, Mattison and Hoke.
I don't want a guy coaching here who couldn't correct the technique of a guy that a GA was able to spot and fix immediately. One sure thing is you can take MSU's DL coach. They always have a great DL coach.
January 8th, 2019 at 9:43 AM ^
It doesn’t matter how much time has passed...certain people just can’t let RichRod or Hoke go. It would be a blessing if there was never a RichRod or Hoke post on this board again.
January 8th, 2019 at 9:45 AM ^
Hoke lost the 2014 team, ignored injuries, and put many players in position to fail.
And you will never convince me that Hoke had more to do with our DL competence than Mattison did.
My (unpopular) opinion is that Hoke is not only a bad coach but a bad person to put in charge of young men.
I don't want to read about how he needs to "hear football" or how he doesn't use email.
I don't want to find out at the end of the season that a guy was playing injured because Hoke "didn't want to know".
And I sure as shit don't want the guy giving his opinion to Harbaugh regarding offense.
January 8th, 2019 at 10:38 AM ^
Agree, except it seems like Washington isn't gonna stick around, so we still need a DL coach replacement.
January 8th, 2019 at 10:56 AM ^
I agree...lets let Mattison hire Hoke at OSU
January 8th, 2019 at 11:45 AM ^
Welp, this comment has aged well!
January 8th, 2019 at 7:21 PM ^
Isn't Washington gone?
January 8th, 2019 at 4:18 AM ^
As the previous poster mentioned, i prefer we keep a rising star in Al Washington and promote him to D Line.
But if he leaves...then i'm not opposed to the idea of bringing Hoke back.
January 8th, 2019 at 6:14 AM ^
Is moving from LB coach to DL a promotion? Still a position coach. But maybe give him a raise so he doesn't leave.
January 8th, 2019 at 7:39 AM ^
Don Brown is the primary LB coach. Washington was working with the rush ends. Taking over the DL would be a significant promotion in terms of responsibilities.
January 8th, 2019 at 9:28 AM ^
Al Washington currently makes $350,000 in Year 1 and $375,000 in Year 2. Greg Mattison was making $525,000. So there's definitely more money available to pay the assistants.
January 8th, 2019 at 9:54 AM ^
Wow! I mean that's a lot of money to the common man, but in the world of college football, that seems like peanuts. The DC from Clemson is making $2mill+. If UM's not willing to overpay, we'll probably lose more guys
January 8th, 2019 at 10:05 AM ^
The DC from Clemson has two National titles. Sabo is a CEO coach. The DC and OC run team.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:15 PM ^
Who's Sabo?
January 8th, 2019 at 10:12 AM ^
Clemson’s limebacker coach makes $350,000. Ohio State does however pay their assistants a total of nearly $1,500,000 more than we do.
January 8th, 2019 at 9:58 AM ^
I suppose this is probably a better idea but as you said it may prove difficult to retain him. Can't even bring myself to respond to most of the trash above your post though. Should've realized theres still a lot of misplaced hate and vitriol for a coach who gave his all but was promoted past his point of competence.
January 8th, 2019 at 7:27 PM ^
Mostly because he almost got Shane Morris seriously injured sending him in when he almost couldn't stand up by himself. So actually, pretty well placed disgust.
And then when the idiot got fired, the infamous "it takes 6 years to build a program " excuse. No, Clappy, it doesn't. You just suck as a coach.
January 8th, 2019 at 4:59 AM ^
If nothing else he will guarantee a win against Ohio state.
January 8th, 2019 at 8:20 AM ^
You mean 'Ohio'?
January 8th, 2019 at 5:02 AM ^
Just because you say, you haven't posted in a long time, doesn't mean you can throw this crap out here. I agree wit something someone else said in another post. No more retreads. Let's get a dynamic younger guy who can recruit his ass off. Hoke was fine finding diamonds in the rough, but he wasn't consistently pulling in top rated guys. We need huge athletic guys for our interior line.
January 8th, 2019 at 6:13 AM ^
You had me until your last sentence. Peppers, Jake Butt, JD, even had Damien Harris committed before the house started burning down. He brought in the talent and 2016 showed it. I believe following that year was the most players we ever had selected in a single NFL Draft. The thing he did best was recruit. Especially since you mention interior guys, he helped bring in the best DT we had in years in Mo Hurst.
January 8th, 2019 at 6:29 AM ^
Indeed, you nailed it. Hoke pulled in some top notch classes. Unfortunately, he only managed to develop the D-line well, which is why we are even having this discussion.
O-line and QB recruiting vs. development were just brutal under Hoke, but getting them to Ann Arbor was never his problem.
January 8th, 2019 at 6:44 AM ^
Can we stop this mantra? He had some good recruits, but his overall classes were not very good. He signed 25 players in 2012, and 9 were contributors. He signed 27 in 2013 and 10 were contributors. In 2014 he signed 17 and 8 were contributors. So either he wasn't a very good recruiter, or he he wasn't very good at developing talent, and either way, we don't need him now.
January 8th, 2019 at 7:16 AM ^
Reading comprehension is your friend...try it.
Reread text, notice "he wasn't very good at developing talent" is a main point of my comment, and then process. Rinse, Wash, Repeat.
January 8th, 2019 at 7:27 AM ^
You also said he pulled in top notch classes, so follow your own instructions. He did a shitty job of developing the (d-line talent?)
January 8th, 2019 at 8:47 AM ^
You are not very smart.
January 8th, 2019 at 7:56 AM ^
The 2012 class only had 9 contributors?????? You are nuts. Post your list of names.
10 of them are currently in the NFL. Others were multi-year starters and still more were solid rotational players and/or started as seniors, There were a few washouts to be sure. Try to find a 25 player class anywhere that doesn't have some.
https://247sports.com/college/michigan/Season/2012-Football/Commits/
January 8th, 2019 at 8:29 AM ^
Harbaugh hasn’t developed a QB or the O line either ..