11 Warriors Article on diff. between Hoke & RR

 It's more of a preemptive strike.  Some  here foolishly believe by pointing out how tired the schtick in question is, the less likely they will be to have to scroll through the same 5 page essay to get to the interesting comments/lolcats.

Although I would gladly deal with this in every single thread if it meant I never had to see Rojo, Dee Hart, Stefon Diggs, Kris Frost, Demar Dorsey, etc "jokes" again. They are beyond old.

Illinois + fans? Does .... not ... compute!

And now I can't edit & fix it. C'est la Vie.

Maybe to some extent, but I think Hoke is just a really likeable guy. He's the type who you would want to sit down and have a six pack with.

Well he didn't win 11 games in one season, he won 15 games in 3 seasons, pathetic at the winningest program in history. I don't care what DC he woulda brought in, people assume that if we only coulda hired Casteel that everything would've been hunky-dory, I just didn't believe it then nor now. My insincts indicated to me during the middle of the 2008 season that we were in for a brutal era w/RR and I was hoping I was wrong but I'm usually accurate with these things.

I've been keeping this to myself for a couple years but I feel now is the time to share this:

-RR created a feeling of paranoia on the team, in 2009 a player who was not able to play anymore and was made a team mgr was ordered by RR and Staff to report on guys for smoking weed and stuff like that and narced on Tate Forcier and another player and players didn't know who they could trust anymore.

-RR had people perusing blogs to see if they could filter out who was talking shit about him or the rest of the the Staff, I bet Hoke doesn't worry about this sort of thing.

-During the practice week of that infamous 67-65 OT win over the Illini in 2010, Tate was running the 1st team in practice and hurt his ankle on a play and was trying to tell RR that he tweaked his ankle and should have it looked at, RR kept screaming at him and not believing Tate was hurt and when Tate finally could barely walk and they took off his cleat and saw how black and blue the ankle was, RR says to Tate "hey you gonna be alright by game time"? Well thank god he was cause he came in to that game and saved our asses and we luckily had a winning record that year, finally!

These are things I heard from the family, I'm not making it up and don't know the exact validity of them, however, the results and overall mood of the program suggest they were true, so make of it what you will.

I bet if it was Rich Rod coaching last year and won 11 games, then he would have gotten close to 19 yes.

This is kind of a chicken/egg thing. Do players like the coach because the team wins, or does the team win because the players like the coach and want to play their hardest for him? It may be a little of both.

But if you look at it from the other perspective, only eight of 19 could give an unqualified "yes."  And these were last year's seniors - the guys who stuck it out through three years of Rodriguez and one of Hoke.  This survey doesn't sample the opinions of all the guys who left the program early.

But anyhow, to me the most telling bit of info is that all 19 seniors gave Hoke a "Yes," despite the fact that none were recruited by him.  That's an incredible endorsement.  It seems almost too good to believe.

I think that Mattison and Borges and Hoke are also very intense, but they are directed, and not yelling all the time, from what little I've heard.

I'll never forget the Michigan - OSU game this past year when punter Will Hagerup fumbled the snap.  Hoke's treatment of Hagerup was calm and aimed at getting Hagerup's mind back to the game, not on the mistake.  Hoke was disappointed, no doubt, but he did not let that rule his reaction.

But that is the way a lot of the most successful coaches got and get results. Bo and Woody were very intense and difficult to play for AND world class screamers and yellers.