Profiles In Cronyism: Brady Hoke Comment Count

Brian


Head Coach, Ball State
Age 48(?)
Exp. 5th year
Record 22-36
Previous Jobs
DL coach @ Michigan
1995-2002
DL coach @ Oregon State
1989-1994
LB Coach @ Toledo
1987-1988
DL Coach @ WMU
1984-1986
Playing Career
Four-year letterman and captain at Ball State as a defensive lineman.

For those of you who are not Jason Whitlock and thus know nothing about the Ball State football program, like all red-blooded Americans should, Brady Hoke is its head coach. In five years on the job, Hoke is 22-36 and has one winning season, this year's 7-5 campaign that will end when Rutgers houses the Cardinals in the International Bowl. Hoke's main accomplishments to date are

  • being the first coach to torch Johnny Sears and one of dozens to hang close with Michigan despite a massive talent deficit,
  • nearly beating the worst Nebraska team ever, and
  • being good friends with Lloyd Carr.

There isn't a power program in the country that could make Brady Hoke's candidacy for their head coaching job seem like anything other than a PR move designed to help a friend of the program... but remember the boats. The goddamn boats. Anything is possible.

Ball State's Stassen numbers for the decade preceding Hoke's arrival:


Rank
Team
Win Pct
66t Maryland 0.46491
68 San Diego State 0.45690
69 Ball State 0.45133
70 Northwestern 0.44397


Hoke's winning percentage? 38%. And he did not take over a program in disarray. Ball State had disastrous years in 1998 and 1999, going a combined 1-21, but recovered from the tailspin to go 16-18 the three years before Hoke arrived.

Hoke promptly put up records of 4-8, 2-9, 4-7, and 5-7 before his "breakthrough" 2007, when he finally got the program back to the level it was at when he arrived. Historically, Ball State has been one of the better programs in the MAC, their overall record above distorted by those two bombs; other than that the last time they won fewer than five games was 1987. The evidence suggests Hoke is outclassed in the MAC.

So let's make him Michigan's head coach!

Xs and Os Proficiency: Hoke has never been a coordinator on any level.

Recruiting: A N/A. It's Ball State.

Potential Catches: Potential "catches"? The whole damn thing is one big catch! Even in the realm of people who Michigan would approach after getting turned down by everyone -- EVERYONE -- there are vastly preferable candidates: Ron English. Mike Trgovic. Glen Mason. Jon Chait. Me. The Golden Retriever from "Air Bud: Golden Receiver." Mussolini, who is dead. Dick Vitale. Sigourney Weaver. Richard Nixon's penis. Sigourney Weaver's penis. All of these people and organs don't have a track record that suggests they are a below average MAC coach. It is in this way they are superior to Brady Hoke.

Relative Compensation: Hoke makes 170k per year, the third lowest in D-I. We'll probably offer him $120k.

Would He Take The Job? Yes.

Overall Attractiveness: Awful. Awful, awful, awful. The worst possible candidate. The mere idea this guy -- who's never even been a coordinator anywhere and has his MAC team performing at a level well below the program's historical baseline -- could get the job is infuriating. Only at Michigan could this happen, and if it does I guarantee you that Bo is going to haunt the mofo that signs the contract.

Better that Debord? No. Absolutely not better than Debord. The functional equivalent of Debord and a guy who would either keep Captain Failure or bring in Stan Parrish. If Hoke is hired there will be a riot, and with good reason.

Comments

sandiego

December 15th, 2008 at 10:44 PM ^

Hired at SDSU. As a Michigan alum/fan, living in SD, it would be nice to have a good local team to go and watch once in a while.

In all likelihood, this hiring will be the death of college football at SDSU. Once the chargers move to LA or somewhere, looks like I'll have my weekends free in the fall.

sandiego

June 24th, 2011 at 6:43 PM ^

I clicked back to this article from a Doc Sat link.   Um, where is the interweb erase key?  I'd like to erase my 3 year old post considering the success he had at SDSU, the fact that I nearly broke into tears during Hoke's intro press conference I was so fired up and he quite literally shit's solid gold 5* recruits at will.

/delete

UMICH1606

December 4th, 2010 at 12:50 PM ^

This Brady Hoke thing is starting to pick up a alot of steam on the premium boards. He seems to be a legit candidate to the throne, if a change is made. I honestly hope this isn't the case, but it does make a little sense. I heard a couple of months ago from an employee in the AD that Dave Brandon has a mancrush on Brady Hoke. At first I thought she was out of her mind and laughed it off until it started picking up steam on the premiums. I really do not know what to think anymore.

Gitback

February 2nd, 2012 at 10:15 AM ^

Brian's comments at the time he wrote them were dead on.  Now we're basking in the glow of an 11 win season and a BCS win with... BRADY HOKE?!?  at the helm.  Time, you are a fickle mistress...

BrokenRhino

August 28th, 2012 at 1:21 PM ^

We all should be able to go back and read what we wrote back in 2007 during the "The Search". With the terrible choice of Hoke or the lost phone while on a fishing trip. Then we end up with the savior in RichRod (that worked out well). Our posts were probably as wrong as possible.

Those trials lead us to where we are as a program that is firmly in Hoke's giant rainbow toteing hands. We would follow him anywhere, I doubt we would have in 2007. But we did follow RichRod for about four seconds and look where that got us. GERG!!!

User -not THAT user

December 2nd, 2014 at 10:54 AM ^

...Stevie Wonder could've seen this one coming.

As God is my witness I will never understand what the hell Brandon thought he was doing with that hire.  I'm sure he was struttin' like a ruttin' buck the morning after the Sugar Bowl in 2012, but honestly in what universe did this hire EVER make sense?

Gitback

May 21st, 2015 at 3:39 PM ^

Now... Here we are, May of 2015, basking in the glow of HARBAUGH, and Brian's 2007 words on Hoke went from "true" (and he wasn't hired) to "less true but still pretty much true" come 2011 (when he was hired), to "OMG you couldn't have been more wrong!" after the press conference, the recruiting and that first season to "man was Brian prophetic" now.

I will reiterate my own sentiments from when I posted here some four years ago, 

Time, you are a fickle mistress...