Mailbag: Recruiting Fallout, Kill For Kill, Fancy Metrics, Anti-Mascot For Michigan
Henry was not the same kind of risk Chris Barnett was [Bryan Fuller]
Fliers actually a good thing?
You mentioned in the last UV that "If Michigan hangs onto 8-10 guys
they could add a few fliers and be fine. The guys they hang onto are
actually touted recruits instead of the mess that was Rodriguez's last
class."
It seems like a large percentage of the big names on the team today
were fliers in the Hoke/RichRod class and Hoke's first class. Names
that immediately came to mind as late offers that panned out better
than expected are Norfleet, Morgan, Taylor and Henry. I wonder if
taking a few more chances on last-minute fliers wouldn't pay off for
this recruiting class?-Jon
There's a difference between late fliers you take after scouting them in secret for a while and the kind of late fliers Michigan took after Brady Hoke was hired and they needed to cram ten guys into Rodriguez's battered final class. Morgan was a Rich Rodriguez add after extensive scouting; Henry was a Hoke add after the same; Norfleet was a highly touted spread guy Michigan had room for on Signing Day; he was well known.
Here are the guys Michigan added after The Process concluded in early 2011 (minus Chris Bryant, because Bryant was on the verge of committing to Michigan for months beforehand):
- Chris Barnett (flamed out before fall camp)
- Frank Clark (check)
- Thomas Rawls (never played, now CMU feature back)
- Russell Bellomy (third string QB)
- Antonio Poole (pec injury forced retirement)
- Matt Wile (kicker)
- Keith Heitzman (backup to AJ Williams)
- Raymon Taylor (check)
- Tamani Carter (transferred after one year)
They got two players out of eight swings and they got one of those because Frank Clark went from 210 to 280 like guys who get drafted from MAC schools. That's not a great hit rate, and that hit rate was about as expected. Only Taylor, one of the two hits, had a recruiting profile even on the 3/4 star borderline. All others were fliers picked away from Vandy, Minnesota, Purdue, etc.
Now combine that with the rest of the class, which featured four more guys who didn't make it through year one (Greg Brown, Chris Rock, Kellen Jones, Tony Posada) and that's a 20 commitment class in a year you could have taken 25 that has way too many washouts.
This year is different. A guy coming in at the same time Hoke did last year would only need to add four or five guys and the guys already in the class aren't particularly likely to flame out, because that's the thing Hoke has been terrific at. They would not desperately need the the late flier guys to work out, and that's a good thing because they would not be likely to.
It shouldn't matter in a class that looks like it'll top out at 15. So I'm just sayin' if it's January 1 and Michigan has just installed a new AD I wouldn't necessarily think Hoke is safe.
[After THE JUMP: anti-mascot concept art]
Fancy metrics re-introduction.
Can you put short descriptions of FEI and S&P in this week's mailbag? I've seen a bunch of misinformation and confusion on the board recently. It could be time for a helpful reminder on how to interpret these numbers.
-eschaton811ydau
All right. They're both advanced metrics that try to account for pace of play and schedule strength when ranking teams. FEI is drive-oriented. From the description on Football Outsiders:
All drives are filtered to eliminate first-half clock-kills and end-of-game garbage drives and scores. A scoring rate analysis of the remaining possessions then determines the baseline possession efficiency expectations against which each team is measured. A team is rewarded for playing well against good teams, win or lose, and is punished more severely for playing poorly against bad teams than it is rewarded for playing well against bad teams.
This means than any 75 yard touchdown drive that isn't in garbage time means the same thing, as long as it's against the same level of defense.
S&P is play-oriented. It's based on "success rate," primarily. Success rate varies by down but it's pretty intuitive. If you get five yards on first down that's a success. If you get five yards on third and ten it's not. I prefer FEI most of the time because I like the idea that a point is a point is a point no matter how you get there, but I do understand the argument that blowing defenses up consistently is more predictive.
Both spit out some weird results from time to time. I don't mind because standard metrics also do that and I like the ability to control for tempo and opponent. FEI also has a special teams component that's really useful for determining what bits of a team's kicking components are any good—its main problem is that return touchdowns are so rare and distorting that they throw things out of whack.
The main things to keep in mind are:
They are schedule adjusted. Since standard stats aren't if you finish 30th in something you're probably pretty good. Being 30th in FEI or S&P means you're about average amongst power conference teams. Michigan checking in at 67th in FEI is abominable, but all you have to do is look at #68 Florida to know that.
They are tempo adjusted. Surprised that Michigan's seemingly good defense is ranked a bleah 44th in FEI despite being ninth in total yardage? Don't be: we're amongst the slowest teams in the country. Meanwhile, Oregon's "horrible" defense is 100th nationally in yards per game… and 27th on FEI.
They dump garbage time. "Why is Michigan ranked at all then?" you waggishly inquire, you wag you.
They're not game based. This is good and bad. It's good if you're trying to use them to predict things; if a team ends up losing on some crazy stuff but wins a box score they'll generally be higher up than they would in a results-oriented poll. The bad part is that by discounting events that are generally pretty random they can miss teams like, oh say this year's Michigan team.
There is not much data. These systems do have a lot more input than the old dumb BCS computers that weren't even allowed to take final scores into account, but even seven games into a season there's a lot of wobble, and single very strong performances can overwhelm what looks like common sense. Arizona's currently #4 in FEI despite narrow escapes against UTA, Nevada, and Cal thanks in large part to their win over #1 Oregon. FEI in particular feels like it can overrate single games against top teams—IIRC Miami was way up on the offense list one year in a non-intuitive fashion, and the best I could guess was that one thunderous performance against VT was the reason.
The best course of action with these stats is to use them in conjunction with traditional stats and common sense. I didn't buy the Miami offense that one year but I do buy that Oregon's defense is a lot better than conventional statistics give them credit for. Etc.
Kill for Kill?
Obviously this came up in the press today, but I've been vaguely wondering for a while.
Why don't we take Jerry Kill seriously as a candidate for the nonexistent coaching opening?
Most importantly, he has succeeded 4 times in 4 places. He's 53 years old with 20 years as a head coach - good numbers. We could probably get him.Why isn't he more noticed in general? Well, he's coached in small places, he isn't an aggressive showman, and seems kind of pleasantly/won't-get-arrested boring.
Aren't these good things? Aren't they exactly the below-market-value features we should be looking for? Is he the John Beilein of football?
Yeah, I went there.Jeremy
The first and most important reason we cannot hire Jerry Kill is that it would be wrong to separate him from Minnesota and thus break up the closest match between coach and mascot in the history of college football*. There are lines men should not cross. This is one of them.
Kill does have a quality, Beilein-ish resume. He's been a head coach since 1994 at five different stops, finding success at Saginaw Valley, SIU, and NIU; he's also got Minnesota in great position for being Minnesota.
I'm not entirely sold, though. He has a Mullen thing going on with his wins. Last year's 8-5 record featured a win over #25 Nebraska and no other ranked teams; they played four horrible nonconference teams last year; the only quality nonconference game this year was a 30-7 shellacking against TCU. The difference: Mullen has been keeping his historically awful program's head above water much longer in a much tougher conference, and oh yeah he's got the #1 team in the country this year. Minnesota just beat Purdue by a point.
And then there is the seizure thing. After the Michigan win, Kill earnestly thanked a doctor from Grand Rapids for "saving his career." There was some discussion in the comments about whether it was fair to disqualify a guy based on that. I think it clearly is, because Jerry Kill just flat out said if things didn't get under control he'd have to retire. They are under control for now; the possibility of a recurrence is there.
If Kill had a truly gangbusters resume I would say it might be worth the risk. Since he's about on par with a bunch of other guys it's not.
*[Unless Ole Miss had a really racist coach for an uncomfortably long time.]
[jim mora playoffs voice] HOPE?
Hi Brian,
The last time Michigan football team beat both OSU and MSU was in 2003. Since then we've gone 8-12 against them (4-8 since 2008; soon to be 4-9, 4-10...). I can't recall any major FBS school did that poorly against its two major rivals within this 10-year period.
With that being said, what will be the next time Michigan beat both of them? Realistically I am looking at 2017. This is because, if we have a new head coach in two months, he ain't gonna beat MSU in 2015 since no Michigan HC ever beat MSU in his first year; and in 2016 both games will be on the road. So that is a whole freaking lot of despair between now and 2017.
Kefeng from Indianapolis
Despair? I will not despair if Michigan splits with two teams that are amongst the best in the league.
My despair goalposts are moving all the time. I no longer despair at the fact that we're 17 point underdogs to Michigan State. I despair at the possibility this state of affairs will not result in the swift excommunication of all adult-type substances involved with the impending face-punchin'. You have to dig through layers of tar to find my despair goalposts, and then actually kicking something through them requires an enormous drill, like an Ocean's 11 drill.
Also: basketball.
Media does not respond to stimuli
Hey Brian,
Was wondering your opinion on why Hoke is so, for lack of a better word, horrible to so many media members? Why does he choose to almost completely dismiss injury and other questions altogether as opposed to saying something as simple as "Player A is having some elbow pain, and we're keeping him out for precautionary reasons. Not sure on his prognosis yet but we'll keep you posted."?
It seems like in these types of positions (especially for someone who is obviously on the hot seat), where their perception is to some degree determined by media write-ups, that he'd want to be as respectful as he can.
Dan
It doesn't matter either way. Being super nice to the media didn't help Rich Rodriguez one iota, so to some extent they've brought this on themselves. Michigan was much looser under RR and the only thing that got him was guys in the department telling Snyder and Rosenberg which embarrassing documents to FOIA, plus avalanches of concerned columns about how RR was too mean to his players.
Hoke could spend every press conference throwing his own poop at the media and the only one who would notice is poor Nick Baumgardner. Hell, even after the incompetent handling of Shane Morris you had more local(-ish) guys piping up to chide fans for thinking Brady Hoke's a bad person—an assertion I literally did not see anyone with a platform make—than wondering if Hoke was too incompetent to be Michigan's coach.
And Michigan's done a standard job of answering questions without actually saying anything, so media members look petty if they complain. They either leave the beat as fast as possible or suck it up and get on with their jobs.
Thank you for the helpful label
Brian,
Why didn't we avoid the Noid? Was it the handsome suit jacket that threw us off?
Andrew
Class of 2000
This is a mascot I would support for Michigan. It could be our anti-mascot. Everyone would boo it and throw marshmallows at it. The cheerleaders would shame it publicly and maybe hurl it into the goalposts. #AntiMascot4Michigan
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:28 PM ^
Because I feel like you've been overly critical of the things that I'm trying to say. If so, I'm sorry, maybe you specifically haven't called him a moron. I don't think his philosophy is out-dated like I don't think the spread is the only way to win in modern football. I think he's failed for other reasons outside of philosophy, but I understand my thought process differs from many here, including and especially Brian.
I don't have the energy to sit here and defend a dead man walking, so I'm not going to. I think he has many of the tools necessary to be a good football coach. I think there are enough things that he has done and have happened to him that have lead to him failing at Michigan. We can argue why and how, but it really doesn't matter for most people who just want him gone. I've stated my case, people can listen to it and try to understand it or they can believe something different, it won't likely change the ultimate outcome either way.
October 23rd, 2014 at 10:31 PM ^
in clock management/game management?
This is always where a coach loses me for good and I find myself wondering just how sharp this knife is. Wannstadt did it, Zook did it, and it just is a damning sin in my book. Failing in moments that call for obvious management decisions would seem to be either incomptence or lack of mental capacity. Perhaps it's the former?
Hoke lost me for good in the PSU game last year. Only terrible management from the sidelines could have steered that game to a loss.
October 23rd, 2014 at 2:55 PM ^
I don't know nearly enough about football's details to understand why things don't work out. Even well learned football folks like you and Brian can struggle, just because you both have to make educated guesses on the play design to see who was responsible for what assignment. This makes me an average fan (I'd like to think I'm becoming slightly above average, because I read you, Brian, Seth, Mathlete etc., but that's really not true).
But that doesn't mean I can't think Hoke is doing a bad job at Michigan. I think I've seen you and other posters mention RR as a good coach before and after Michigan, but a bad coach here. If you can apply that to RR, then I think it's fair to apply it to Hoke. I think the frustration comes because I think games have been lost because Hoke (or someone on his team) is stubborn (call it dumb or whatever, it's a quantifiable results driven fireld Hoke works in).
I've seen plays that I know where the ball is going before the ball is snapped (jet sweeps with Norfleet last year). This is bad and dumb if I can see this. I've seen Denard put in as QB when I know he can't throw (OSU game with hurt sholder, I think he actually can throw well when healthy). This is bad and dumb if I can see this.
Yes Hoke doesn't deserve all of what is thrown at him, but he's also given very little for fans to grasp at. He talks about how they practice hard, and then throws 10 men out on the field (twice). he calls the fans fickle, yet rarely have I heard him thank the fans (which there are MANY) who show up to support and cheer for the team, even though there has been very little to cheer about.
He may be a good coach at other schools, but my question was about why he might be able to coach this team to a BIG championship. The very benchmark he gave us to evaluate him against. He has shown a decrease in wins as more and more of his players have come on, and has not won a championship anywhere he has been a head coach. It is fine that you and insiders see things differently, but it rings hollow when its tangential things, like I've had a beer with him, or i've seen him at practice, as these have little to do with his record and aren't things but a select few people Hoke allows into his inner circle.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:09 PM ^
To know that Hoke has failed at Michigan. The proof is in the results, that's really all you need to know. And even the most casual fan can see it now with this team.
I'll state it a thousand times that Rich Rod was a good coach before Michigan, he was a good coach after Michigan. In a lot of ways, he was still a good coach while at Michigan. But he failed at Michigan, and the culture turned toxic. He wasn't infallible, he had his own issues that he brought on himself as well, and he had a lot of crap thrown his way as well. That sucks but it's reality. And in many the same ways, it can be said for Hoke.
Now, Hoke hasn't had the success that Rich Rod has had. I'd argue that Rich Rod over the course of his career is a better head coach than Hoke. That doesn't refute anything I've said. Rich Rod failed at Michigan and was fired, Hoke could have honestly fit better with Michigan's capabilities and enviroments and been successful. He wasn't, it doesn't preclude the fact he may have been, as he first appeared in 2011.
I have no problem saying Hoke has not succeeded at Michigan up to expectations. I think people overstate the press conference stuff, so I won't even step in that direction. But this attitude that he's only an idiot, that he's completely incapable of being anything other than a DL coach in charge of 10 guys, and all these other claims made about him are idiotic.
The 3-3-5 can be successful in the B1G, Rich Rod didn't screw up by wanting a 3-3-5. He screwed up by surrounding himself with defensive coaches that were unsuccessful at coaching their positions and understanding the defense in enough depth. Hoke has done much the same on the other side of the ball. In doesn't make them ignorant on things that many fans know better about. It doesn't make them incapable of doing many of the basic things. But people are twisting everything into negatives now, it's tiring. And it's not reality, it's just the way a lot of people want to see it.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:25 PM ^
I think we are in agreement that Hoke has not been a good coach at Michigan.
He has made (or his team he assembled, it doesn't matter which) some dumb coaching decisions that have cost him games. I think you agree, based on the last statement.
He has an average coaching record outside of Michigan. No championships and under .500 record.
If this is what you believe, then what are the opinions on the board that are so different from yours that have made this board unbearable?
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:34 PM ^
He isn't a moron. Not everything he's done is wrong. Not everything he does is out-dated. Not everything he does is stubborn. Not everything he does is contrary to reason. Not everything he does deserves the reaction it gets around here because "GAH WE SUCK! OUT COACHES SUCK!" He isn't incapable of understanding common, high-level concepts. He isn't incapable of judging all the talent. He isn't the only person to burn redshirts. He isn't the only person that has players make position swtiches. I don't care if he talks about playing hard in practice. Execution is a real problem. Scheme is overblown. Guys that have won national championships at their current positions as coaches haven't suddenly become completely incapable of doing their jobs. He does coach on the sideline. He does yell at players in practice. He does coach in practice, even if it's not well enough. He does make adjustments. He isn't just a cheerleader.
I mean, I guess I could go through more threads and write more things, but I think you get the point.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:44 PM ^
I understand your position.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:51 PM ^
So your problem is really that people are over the top in their criticism? But here's my question. What has this coaching staff done to prove its competence at Michigan? Sure, Mattison co-coordinated a national championship team and Nussmeier didn't crater a national championship offense, but what have they, the assistants, and Hoke done that shows competence for this program with the current players? All we've seen is play getting worse and worse when talent is supposed to be getting better and better with more players that fit the desired system.
I get why you're frustrated about people that have no real understanding of what coaches do giving specific criticisms abou coaching. But, shit, man, you've spent two-three years telling us how this coaching staff obviously knows what it's doing but there just isn't execution, when our eyes have consistently told us that this team isn't good. Give people a little leeway. They may be unable to tell you exactly why the coaching has sucked, but at least they're the ones in the conversation recognizing shitty coaching.
October 23rd, 2014 at 5:00 PM ^
Exactly. That's the issue. The are failing to coach the players to consistently perform their assignments and technique to the point where they can win enough football games. It isn't that the coaches don't know the proper ways to beat a Cover 4. It isn't that they don't know how someone is supposed to block. It isn't that they don't know what a bubble screen is, and all that great stuff people latch on to and talk about.
The fact that people don't understand the specific criticisms but still feel compelled to make very specific criticisms is part of what is frustrating. "But execution is just a meme, a way of putting it on the players." No, it's on the coaching staff, and that's where they've failed. I've said that dating back to last year. Mattison didn't forget how to be a DC because he was the co-DC of a nation title team and then a DC in theNFL. Nussmeier didn't forget how to be an OC that was very good at Washington and very good at Alabama. They aren't failing to see the things I sit at my TV and see immediately, but people act like they do and feel validated by making such criticisms.
They've failed because the teaching aspect of football is hard and they haven't been able to get through to these players. The schemes and X's and O's, that stuff isn't the difficult part. It's all there, it's on TV, it's at coaching clinics, it's in playbooks and online and on film. That stuff isn't hard, and the coaches know how to do that stuff. I've said it a hundred times why I think this staff has failed and people still say I never say why they failed. They aren't completely shitty, they aren't the worst ever, they aren't worse than a bunch of high school coaches, all things that have pretty much been said. You call it splitting hairs, but I think there is a big difference between being "shitty" and simply failing at your job. Rich Rod wasn't a shitty coach at Michigan despite failing at Michigan. They can have failed and not be God awful. They failed, they will likely be gone after the year because of it. They've failed because they've failed to produce a good team, not because they don't understand the basics.
October 23rd, 2014 at 6:07 PM ^
October 23rd, 2014 at 8:12 PM ^
Could it be possible that the reason that they cannot get through to these kids is because they are too emotionally involved with these kids - my 115 sons ? When the staff came in they were tough on the players and did not care whether or not they dropped out of the program, they were there to teach and to win, and that was that, without the emotional attachment. After recruiting these kids, and knowing their families, and essentially "adopting" these kids, perhaps that has caused them to subconsciencely ease up, and treat them with "kid gloves" rather than "balls to the walls" coaching.
All coaches have an interest and attachment for the players they coach, but perhaps this staff is too emotionally close to the players they recruited to coach them as hard as they need to in order to get through to them ?
I may be all wet, but I am curious if you think that is a possible explanation.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:44 PM ^
When a coach calls a play on 4th and 1 and succeeds, he a genius; when it fails, he's a fool. And on a larger scale, that's how most of us understand coaches: so if Hoke has failed in the past 20 games, he's a fool and incapable of being a good coach, but in the first 13 games at Michigan he was a genius. When the fact is that history and human endeavor are unpredictable and the world is enormously complex. So I think SC agrees that Hoke has overall been a failure but disagrees that Hoke is incapable of succeeding and that he was doomed to failure at Michigan. Very few things are inevitable.
I agree with all that, but at this point it's splitting hairs.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:48 PM ^
And a nice, concise summary of my feelings. Thank you.
October 23rd, 2014 at 4:29 PM ^
I also think its splitting hairs. Hoke has been a failure no matter what reasoning you put behind it (I still don't know why SC thinks he failed. He only states why he is a good coach who failed here and doens't give examples about why he thinks he failed here).
I also think that the Hoke is a a genius in the beginning is a little over stated. There was a lot of people that thought he was lucky (Hoke pooping gold meme). Going for 4th down was the right call, but how he converted it was more lucky than not a lot of the time.
October 23rd, 2014 at 4:49 PM ^
Maybe not, but in contrast to the Rodriguez situation, can anyone identify any outside forces that might have contributed to Hoke's failure at Michigan? He's had ample support from the AD, former and current players, the media, and fans, he's been given a full four years to get "his guys" on the field, he's been permitted to hire and pay assistant coaches with quality pedigrees -- and we've got what we've got in year four. Looks to me like Hoke had every chance to succeed and he has failed.
Or here's another way to look at it -- does anyone see any Power 5 conference team, or even an up-and-coming smaller program, hiring Hoke as its head coach after Michigan fires him? He looks a lot more like a former Lions coach -- shouldn't have been hired in the first place, and nobody will give him anything like a comparable job in the future.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:28 PM ^
1) Each of Hoke's first four years at Ball State was worse than each of the last three years of his predecessor (Bill Lynch). Even his fifth year was only half a game better. Making something worse for four years is not a turnaround. One good season (in his sixth year) in not a turnaround. The next year he capitalized on a very fortunate position with Nate Davis as his QB and 3 senior linemen who were starters all four years and ended up in the NFL. After parlaying his good fortune into the SDSU job, the next year Ball State won 2 games. (And they won 4 the year after.) A program turned around could sustain success. See, e.g., Stanford and Harbaugh. Hoke had one very fortunate year.
2) Football coaches are graded on a curve. Your point echoes that of Dantonio when asked about Hoke: "I think, basically what I'm trying to say is, I don't think there's a bad football coach out there." As a football coach, however, he is not being judged against a postal worker or a tv repairman who does not have the basic football knowledge and experience to run a DI program. He is paid $4 million a year and he is being judged against 100+ DI FBS coaches (and a small number of smaller division coaches that will make a leap). In that context, not every coach can be good. There are better and worse coaches. Not every child can be above average. Among DI coaches, Hoke has never been elite. He does not have much sustained success suggesting that he is very good.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:39 PM ^
You don't turn around Ball St and SDSU being an idiot that has no clue.
...and what exactly does that have to do with Brady Hoke?
Brady Hoke COACHED at both Ball St. and SDSU. Brady Hoke in no way turned around either Ball St. or SDSU.
Ball State all time winning percentage: 52.4%
Ball St. under Brady Hoke: 30-39, 43.4%
SDSU all time winning percentage: 53.6%
SDSU under Brady Hoke: 13-12, 52.0%
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:56 PM ^
and turned it into a very good football team in 1 year.... Also leaving the place in fine shape for his replacement - Rocky Long. Yours should win an award for most misleading use of statistics.
October 23rd, 2014 at 4:56 PM ^
Hoke had 1 bad year before posting a very good year and left good recruits for Rock Long to work with. It's called a turnaround. We're not talking about reviving Michigan or Notre Dame or USC where you have a name brand to recruit to. We're talking about making a shitty program good. Using Hoke's poor first year against him is ridiculous. This is in no way supporting our retention of Brady Hoke. He's been bad. But what he did in San Diego was admirable.
October 23rd, 2014 at 5:43 PM ^
they sucked for 3 years prior to Hoke.....
Yes - Chuck Long was a significantly worse coach than Brady Hoke. In fact he was the worst coach EVER at SDSU.
Hoke had 1 bad year before posting a very good year
Hoke went 4-8 his first year, and 9-4 his second year.
Now 9-4 isn't bad, but it isn't great either. It is in a tie for the 11th best year (of 46) ever at SDSU.
We're talking about making a shitty program good.
No, we're largely talking about making a 47% winning team into a 50% winning team.
Using Hoke's poor first year against him is ridiculous.
I'm not using it against him - I'm disagreeing with the assertion "Hoke took a tire fire at SDSU.... and turned it into a very good football team in 1 year"
He didn't.
Hoke took a tire fire and turned it into a mediocre football team in 2 years.
October 23rd, 2014 at 9:46 PM ^
I don't think this is fair. To go from 2-10 to 9-4 in two years is impressive no matter who's doing it.
The problem with Hoke is that he hasn't ever demonstrated he can sustain success, though. He's had one good year at each of his three stops and that's it.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:56 PM ^
Ball St. had one of its best seasons in history under Hoke, and showed noticeable improvement while there. Witness the fact the team kinda cratered when he left and it took 4-5 years to get back.
SDSU had gone 3-9, 4-8, 2-10 before Hoke arrived. After going 4-8, and went 9-4 and then came to Michigan.
Neither team was a massive trainwreck and perhaps Hoke didn't "save them" and make them juggernauts, but to discredit what he did at the two stops before him isn't a valid argument. You can fire Hoke because he hasn't been good at UM, but you can't retroactively try to ignore that he was competent at other stops.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:51 PM ^
Good to see you post again.
Yeah, it becomes an echo chamber in here. You can count me as one of the guys who thinks Hoke is incompetent, but not so much as a football coach (he absolutely knows more about football than basically anyone on this site), but I do think he has proven incompetent holistically for the position he is in. In other words, he's failed at instilling a sustainable, repeatable culture and gameplan. OSU and MSU have an identity and their coaches teach the players to fit those roles; Hoke has had 4 years to do the same and the team feels like it is always trotting out something new and the players seem to always be a step behind. There are pockets of competence; I think the defensive line has been very strong this year, and at times the offensive line has looked like it is making strides. But at the same time, you have a secondary that has breakdowns against every decent QB who gets a little time, a running game that has "improved" to fewer TFLs per game, and a QB depth chart that hasn't improved noticeably in 3 years. Oh yeah, and he continues to punt like a dinosaur despite virtually nobody else in college doing it that way.
So it isn't that Hoke is incompetent as a coach from a tactical standpoint; I'm sure you could ask him to diagram Play X or Formation Y and he could do it in his sleep and give you a nuanced rationale for why it will work. But as a HC, he needs to be able to run the team like a corporation with a single vision, and right now he seems to have a bunch of mismatched parts and uncertainty that is tampering with whatever good he could have on the field.
October 23rd, 2014 at 4:39 PM ^
as someone stated above, you guys are splitting hairs. You keep saying he is not a failure as a coach (because he knows a lot about football) yet you then list off a bunch of his failures (punt formation, getting players to execute the game plan) that others have been saying make him a bad coach. I am on the bad coach train, because getting your players to execute the x's and o's is one of the main distinguishing factors of what makes one a good coach. Like he "coaches" his players to understand and execute.
October 23rd, 2014 at 4:45 PM ^
But the argument being made is that he is bad at coaching football, which historically isn't true. The simple fact he is a college coach at multiple programs refutes that. RR was a "bad coach" at UM, yet he's won over 100 games in his career and has been a "winner" everywhere else. Yet people around here bitched him out as a guy who didn't know how to coach in the "big leagues". UM fans, like most fans, think the world begins and ends with their team, and your history and future is irrelevant based on how you perform here. I absolutely expect Hoke to be gone at the end of this year and some day find himself as an HC again, and I'm guessing he'll do fine there. At some point. Michigan becomes your problem more than a parade of coaches not knowing how to do the job they've done everywhere else.
And (a) splitting hairs is what the internet was made for, and (b) splitting hairs and discussing a nuanced situation are all in the eye of the beholder.
October 23rd, 2014 at 4:55 PM ^
I doubt that. I think most folks will look at his Michigan experience, see a guy who was set up for success but failed, and figure if it couldn't work there, how will it work here? He'll end up as an assistant somewhere, just like most everyone else in the Lloyd Carr "coaching tree."
October 23rd, 2014 at 5:02 PM ^
New Mexico is letting Bob Davie head coach their football team.
October 23rd, 2014 at 6:33 PM ^
As noted below, Bob Davie found a job. Charlie F*ing Weiss got multiple chances, including HC at another Power 5 conference. Hoke can recruit and (outside of UM) his teams have shown some competence and consistent growth.
As I noted before, at some point fans are going to need to look at the culture of this school and the football team and wonder if part of these coaches' struggles are outside their control.
October 23rd, 2014 at 5:53 PM ^
RR was a "bad coach" at UM, yet he's won over 100 games in his career and has been a "winner" everywhere else.
There is a HUGE difference between the career of Rodriguez minus Michigan and Hoke minus Michigan.
Rodriguez:
WVU - 70.1% win percentage vs. 59.7% historical for school (+10.4%)
Arizona - 65.6% win percentage vs. 53.9% historical for school (+11.7%)
Hoke:
Ball St. - 43.4% win percentage vs. 52.4% historical for school (-9%)
SDSU - 52.0% win percentage vs. 53.6% historical for school (-1.6%)
October 23rd, 2014 at 6:43 PM ^
These winning percentages are misleading - you are comparing a relatively small sample size (especially with respect to Hoke at SDSU) with long histories of programs, many of which don't have much relevance to the current era of college football. I mean, Gary Moeller won 6 games at Illinois, then when he took over at UM he won at a 73% clip.
Also, you are helping my argument that maybe something is up with Michigan and these coaches. RR has been GREAT everywhere else, yet he goes to UM and can barely pull them above .500 for one year. And Hoke's record at Ball St. was hurt by a couple of weak early years. He was trending upward even though that 11-2 years was probably an abberation.
My point has been that Hoke isn't a bad coach objectively; he's been a bad coach at UM objectively as well. People acting like he's a mouth-breathing idiot who "lucked" his way into three coaching positions are the ones I'm taking issue with.
October 24th, 2014 at 8:10 AM ^
These winning percentages are misleading - you are comparing a relatively small sample size (especially with respect to Hoke at SDSU) with long histories of programs, many of which don't have much relevance to the current era of college football.
You get basically the same results if you only look at the 10 years before each coach took the job instead of all-time.
Hoke basically kept both schools at their historical norm. Rich Rod did much better.
And Hoke's record at Ball St. was hurt by a couple of weak early years. He was trending upward even though that 11-2 years was probably an abberation.
He was not trending upward. He was treading water at .500 and had one aberration of a year.
Ball St. in 3 years prior to Brady Hoke:
2000: 5-6
2001: 5-6
2002: 6-6
Ball St. under Brady Hoke:
2003: 4-8
2004: 2-9
2005: 4-7
2006: 5-7
2007: 7-6
2008: 12-2
Hoke may not be a bad coach objectively, but he's at best a mediocre one.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:59 PM ^
Space, you spend a lot of pixels to draw a distinction with little difference for the average Michigan fan.
"Hoke is too dumb / incompetent to be the coach!" and "Hoke has consistently failed to demonstrate sufficient competence to be considered successful at Michigan" are clearly not identical statements, but practically speaking, are they different enough to warrant several thousand words of handwringing about the state of fandom?
And you have to consider that most of us speak in relative terms. "Hoke is dumb" may not be true, but what about "Hoke is not as 'smart' as Urban Meyer"? In results based charting land, all signs point to yes, for all practical purposes. Frankly, nobody here gives a damn whether Hoke has more football smarts than 99% of people who coach competitive football. Nor should they; we care whether he's "smarter" than the guys he lines up against. And sure, "smart" is a shorthand for a lot of other complexity, but it's not useless short hand. Do you really expect everybody to preface, "Man, Hoke sucks!" with "Even though I'm sure he's gathered a lot of football knowlege over the years and is probably better at coaching than a lot of guys at lower levels..."?
I'm pretty sure you don't mean it this way, but a lot of your responses can come off as "Hoke's not dumb, you all are just too stupid to understand how smart he really is". And that gets old. "Fan" is short for "fanatic", and frankly, some fans find it cathartic to indulge in a bit of fanaticism and get ornery when the Space Police warp in to scold them for it. "Sulking" about that fact does not make you a better, more intelligent fan: it makes you a pedant.
October 23rd, 2014 at 5:17 PM ^
I appreciate your opinion and your perspective around here is invaluable (Space Coyote), and I truly mean that.
Howeva, Brady Hoke is almost completely responsible for the "culture turning toxic on him." With all due respect, the guy has repeatedly scoffed superior schemes in favor of things that haven't been in vogue or worked as well in a decade at least. Add in his role in the Gibbons situation and the Morris situation and I think it's fair to question the guy.
People get to caught up in the moment (myself included) to see the forest for the trees. The 11-2 season was fool's gold. It turns out Rodriguez was better at developing players (especially offensively) than he ever got credit for and the character of the guys he recruited made 11-2 possible. Since then things have gone steadily downhill, and if people still want to defend the guy responsible, that's their prerogative I guess.
Hoke only has Hoke to blame. He has not succeeded in spite of having more support than RR ever got until it became obvious he was terrible at his job. Great coaches get the most out of what little they have and then continually get better with sustained success.. Hoke is so far from great that he needs a telescope to see it. I'm glad the fans are vocal and active. It's what separates us from other places stuck with mediocrity for long periods of time because no one cares beyond "support the troops."
October 23rd, 2014 at 1:34 PM ^
A commentor objects that he finds "it slightly offensive that you would compare Hoke (passionate, in over his head) with Lennie (mentally challenged, likely due to chemical inbalances in brain)\" and then you pull out John L. Smith as less offensive alternative? As if JLS's idiosynchracies were not likely due to chemical imbalances in his brain ... .
October 23rd, 2014 at 9:48 PM ^
JLS gets unfairly lampooned for the slap. He actually was mocking Charlie Weis for falsely claiming that he (or one of his players, I forget) got slapped during their game.
October 23rd, 2014 at 1:15 PM ^
One question and one question only: were you this passionate about saying RichRod was a nice guy or are you a freaking hypocrite that because Hoke is your guy you have to keep saying he's such a nice guy? That nice guy part is irrelevant to whether he is competent at coaching NCAA football.
Anyway, this isn't meant to single you out but it gets tiring when the same people who tore RichRod apart try to prop up a coach who is arguably inferior to his predecessor.
October 23rd, 2014 at 1:24 PM ^
Answer: I was not a posting member of the board when RR needed apologists.
October 23rd, 2014 at 2:07 PM ^
Ah, so you're admitting you're a Hoke apologist?
October 23rd, 2014 at 2:20 PM ^
I have done so numerous times, yes. I do understand this makes me unlikable and obnoxious, so I try not to get overly worked up over my internet reputation.
Additionally, I look forward to when I can argue with people about whether Drake Harris or Freddy Canteen is a more effective WR rather than whether or not Brady Hoke deserves to keep his job.
October 23rd, 2014 at 3:37 PM ^
Disagree that this makes you unlikeable. I do think it makes you somewhat of a hypocrite but you seem likeable enough.
Anyway, I also want what's best for Michigan. If it's Hoke I'm all for him. The evidence is rapidly showing he is not the guy to bring us to the top of the football world.
October 23rd, 2014 at 2:38 PM ^
I was uncomfortable with RR as our head coach from Day 1. That said, I figured he would be successful here because every coach since Bump was successful here and I'd grow to like him as the wins stacked up and he adjusted to life in the upper Midwest. Well he didn't win here and I lost patience. Had I liked him I may have had more patience, but I didn't. The whole thing is rendered pretty much moot by the fact that I have 0 input on Michigan's coaching decisions and Josh Groban.
As for Hoke, I do like the guy. I'm more patient with him. The whole thing is rendered pretty much moot by the fact that I have 0 input on Michigan's coaching decisions and we suck.
No hypocrisy to be found. Just honest disagreements as to who should coach M.
October 23rd, 2014 at 1:26 PM ^
The jig is up, now get the heck outta here.
If you can't see the difference between someone saying a person is incompetent and someone saying a person is an evil person who would actively try and hurt his players either your undertsanding of the english language isn't up to scratch or your are just looking for a fight. I don't know which it is honestly...
October 23rd, 2014 at 1:26 PM ^
itchy trigger finger.
October 23rd, 2014 at 1:12 PM ^
Someone can be a good person but still terrible at their job.
October 23rd, 2014 at 1:14 PM ^
Did you finish reading the sentence? This is not backtracking "—than wondering if Hoke was too incompetent to be Michigan's coach."
October 23rd, 2014 at 1:21 PM ^
The quote you use from "This is Not Michigan" just says Hoke is too incompetent to be the coach. It never says Hoke is a bad person. Am I missing something?
October 23rd, 2014 at 1:35 PM ^
That is EXACTLY the way I remember it. Hard to believe what I am reading today.
October 23rd, 2014 at 7:15 PM ^
Bad person = Putin
Incompetent = Matt Millen
Putin is an incredibly competent Czar - he's consolidated power and made himself the richest man in the world. Russians perceive that he has made Russia Stronk again. Putin is a horrble dirtbag of a human being.
Matt Millen seems like a nice guy. Hell, he was one of the most prominent Penn State voices who was publicly disgusted by the whole Sandusky scandal. He was a horribly incompetent GM. He has other competencies, like playing linebacker.
The media can get away being lazy enough to write pieces about how Hoke is a nice guy when NO ONE has said that because people are dumb enough to not know the difference between criticism of one's character and their performance.
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