Brady Hoke's Intricately Rendered Sculptures

about facts and hypotheticals is very RCMB

I agree that some super fortuitous occurrences have put Hoke further down the road than many expected, but I think you're selling him short on Mattison.  Sure the Ravens might have said "see ya" once he got offered by Hoke, but it wasn't like they fired him.  He's also been quoted many times saying he wouldn't have come back to college for anyone else but Hoke. While the answer probably lies somewhere in between, I don't think your post gives him enough due on that hire. 

dat started out talkin bout shiat, would get shiaty.

and, uh, magnus is making fair points and is not taking sides.

Hoke shits gold?  GIF'D

This thread delivers the lolz.

they could eat peanuts off our players heads!

it tickled me pink!

To the theory that all roads lead to poo.

It also reminds one of the famous French Flatulist (professional farter) Le Petomane who performed at Moulon Rouge from 1892 on.  Wikipedia has a wonderful summary of this artist's incredible career.

I think I would classify landing Mattison as a lot more than "not screwing up". Letting the media tickle his belly and feed him berries while providing no fodder to change their tune is not screwing up.

Also dahblue and his like-minded-friends need to move on just like it appears Brian is actually doing. Things looked pretty bleak for awhile and it was easy to get overly dramatic. But as already pointed out, Hoke's story at Michigan is only about 5% written, so to expect Brian to come out and say he was completely wrong doesn't make sense. There is still unfortunately a reasonable chance that Hoke/Borges will screw up an offense featuring perhaps the most dynamic player in college football. We shall see.

I don't think Hoke, by himself, is that great of a coach or a coaching genius.  His record / C.V. just doesn't scream anything special.  What I am hoping for, is a CEO type of coach.  His strategy is this:

1) Hire great people around you (OC, DC, etc.)

2) Recruit like hell.

3) ???

4) Profit.

Why do people fixate on Hoke's career record without noticing that he his early record was quite bad, but he significantly improved more recently? Why don't they notice that RR hasn't been able to score points against good teams, hire a defensive coordinator, find a running back or two thirds of a special team. When I look at the evidence of the last three years, there is much more doubt that RR could succeed here than there is that Hoke can.

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,

And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;

Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,

Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.

 

Alexander Pope

 

Expected better of you Mr. Cook.

and was especially not a fan of the process. 

It appeared to me that the DB faction just wanted one of their old cronies at the helm.  Worse than that, it appeared that this was the decision all along and that "search" stuff was just more PR spin to pat us dumb fans on the head.  I felt that if this is your guy, then man-up and declare it in December.  Don't do in January what you were going to do in November and then turn around and insult me. 

But none of that kept me from hoping for the best for Brady Hoke.  I said at the time "You may not think much of the pilot that's about to fly the plane you are on, but when that door closes and the thing takes off, you've got to root for him with all your heart."

So I've been rooting for him with all my heart, and I can say for the record that I was wrong.  Brady Hoke was a good hire for Michigan, process be damned.

I also don't think it is fair to try and save face by implying that he's just magically Forrest Gumped his way into a lucky situation.  He knows what he is doing and will be successful whether Tressel, Dantonio, etc. implode or not,

4 times you wrote this article

I am thisisme08 and I agree with this (Brians) post.

Maybe we initial hire haters should have given Hoke a little more credit, so far he has been pretty frackin good. 

200+ comments for just an offseason sort of op-ed type piece just shows how ridiculously popular this website is. Kudos.

While I like the positivity towards Hoke's early returns, and a lot of it has to do with random chance (OSU in deep shit and a great Ohio class of recruiting prospects we can cherry pick from), you really need to get off the RR thing.  It's over.  Why always rehash what went wrong, spread and shred dreams, etc.  Again, the spread is cool, but the idea of what RR would be and what played out (for a myriad of reasons both in his control and outside of it) translated to disastrous results.  Why continue to rationalize, apologize, or eve analyze the situation unbiasedly at this point. 

You can have the sweetest spread offense in the world, but if you can't tackle and can't block you will suck.  Our O-line was good between the 20's but we could not smash it in for TD's, and we all know about the defense.  Simply improving the fundamentals of the team will at least get us to competitive status.  Hoke has exceeded expectations thus far, but the wins are how we will judge his progress...As for you, time to progress past the RR era.

If the general point of this post is that Hoke has done a good job at the helm, I agree.  I do think the point and the article would have been better made without the non-sensical first paragraph.  

feel bad for ya man.  Relax and let's hope Michigan does well this year. 

Part of what makes a good leader a good leader is knowing your own strengths and weaknesses.  Hoke appears to know what he knows and knows what he is good at, and what he is not good at.   That is a great stength for a man who is, in essence,  the CEO of Michigan football.....

I was just starting to regain some faith in our fanbase.

And then I read this thread.  And I am once again saddened.

Did ANYONE think Hoke would be this aggressive in recruiting? Did ANYONE imagine he'd basically wrap up the state and produce a "best-in-conference" class this early? When was the last time we had the best class in the big 10 at any point of any recruiting cycle?

I was open-minded and willing to give the guy a chance, and even I had no idea he'd do this much, this quickly.

Of course, he DOES have to coach games to really show us what he's got. We are still 0-0 under Hoke. But if anyone is honest with themselves, they'll admit the offseason has gone far better than anticipated, and that Hoke's determined, aggressive and single-minded approach bodes well for his coaching career here.