2009 Thought Process - A Referendum
In 2009 with Michigan coming off 4 straight losses and a 1-6 conference record, Rich Rodriguez was looking at the Ohio State game and turtling. Tate Forcier would end up throwing 4 INTs in The Game.
The next year Jim Harbaugh's Stanford sits with a 12-1 record including a dominating Andrew Luck-driven win shutting down the football program at Virginia Tech. Richard Sherman, Doug Baldwin, Zach Ertz, Coby Fleener, and Owen Marecic among others have words for the entire country that Stanford is legitimate.
A program can be built on effort. Michigan's monumentally heavy program would not be built without someone like Jim Harbaugh.
Brady Hoke is a Michigan Man and deserves credit for keeping the seat warm.
This group was started to build public sentiment but I'm just an internet guy with no sway. Brady Hoke is in sunny San Diego and I can't wait to see him around Ann Arbor for a future game. He kept us afloat and I'll cheer to that.
November 27th, 2023 at 11:49 PM ^
No typos, but still smells a little too strongly of the drink.
November 28th, 2023 at 1:38 AM ^
Well, there's the rambling, shapeless nature of the thing.
November 28th, 2023 at 2:05 AM ^
uh yeah i was promised both a thought process and a referendum
November 28th, 2023 at 3:05 AM ^
The prints that was promised.
November 28th, 2023 at 5:58 AM ^
I was confused just reading the title… and then I read the entire post. And then I read it again. WTF!?!?!?
November 27th, 2023 at 11:50 PM ^
Thanks for all your hard work coach. Hope to see you around AA soon! Congrats on your retirement.
November 27th, 2023 at 11:51 PM ^
... wtf?
November 27th, 2023 at 11:53 PM ^
Mmmm, ok then.
November 27th, 2023 at 11:55 PM ^
Rich Rod was a jerk and despite his reputation for offensive innovation, was actually pretty stodgy, set in his ways, and unable to adapt by the time he got to Michigan. Much like Chip Kelly, he turned out to be a gimmicky one trick pony.
Brady Hoke is a heck of a good guy, and the players clearly like him. But alas, he was not P5 head coach material. His Michigan teams experienced some moments of modest success, but things were going off the rails before Harbaugh came to town. I wish him nothing but the best out there at SDSU.
November 28th, 2023 at 12:18 AM ^
A bit late to wish Brady Hoke "the best out there at SDSU". He retired recently; last Saturday's win over Fresno State was his final game as head coach.
November 28th, 2023 at 2:04 AM ^
TIL Brady Hoke has retired. Thanks for the update.
November 28th, 2023 at 12:19 AM ^
Brady Hoke just coached his last game at SDSU this past Saturday and is retired now. I don't know if that was always the plan, but the team had cratered this season, so it made sense.
I think Brady Hoke was a victim of the Peter Principle. But I also don't think that was unforeseeable at the time. In fact, this blog prominently spoke out against it. It was a terrible hire coming from a bad place (a reaction against outsiders after Rich Rod) that really turned out about as well as one would expect.
November 28th, 2023 at 2:10 AM ^
Didn't realize he had retired until just now.
I remember people being highly circumspect about the Hoke hire. Everyone thought it was going to be Les Miles until he decided to stick at LSU. What reputable coach would have wanted to walk into the dumpster fire that was the Michigan program post Rich Rod?
November 28th, 2023 at 2:44 AM ^
Lots of coaches would have loved to continue to rebuild Michigan. Far fewer wanted to work under Dave Brandon.
I actually think Hoke would have been successful here if not for the loyalty he showed to the underqualified assistants he brought with him.
November 28th, 2023 at 6:45 AM ^
What reputable coach would have wanted to walk into the dumpster fire that was the Michigan program post Rich Rod?
Is that a serious question? That scenario would be very appealing to a confident coach. Expectations wouldn't be super-high right away. (Contrast that with someone taking over for Day at OSU now.) Indeed, a mediocre one (Hoke, bless his heart) managed to go 11-2 with the cupboard contents in 2011.
If we're going to question a "thought process," we should probably take a close took at Hoke's biggest fans leading up to his hire. He did a nice job at SDSU the first time around, but his Ball State record was distorted by his single lightning-in-a-bottle year.
November 28th, 2023 at 9:33 AM ^
What reputable coach would have wanted to walk into the dumpster fire that was the Michigan program post Rich Rod?
"This is Michigan, for God's sake."
November 28th, 2023 at 9:37 AM ^
Les Miles wanted to come to Michigan, but things didn't work out behind the scenes...
November 28th, 2023 at 10:42 AM ^
"Les Miles wanted to come to Michigan, but things didn't work out behind the scenes..."
Yeah, Les absolutely burned his bridges here. He was never going to be hired no matter what the fanbase wanted. And probably rightly so. There would have been a meltdown on State Street.
November 28th, 2023 at 7:06 AM ^
The biggest thing RR failed to understand was that this wasn't supposed to be a massive reclamation project. Carr had won 20 games in his last two seasons. People wanted to see him take that foundation and tweak it a bit. He approached it as a total rebuild and stripped everything to the core.
The irony is that Les Miles, the man we couldn't hire for various reasons, probably would have given us a much smoother transition and 2008 wouldn't have been such a disaster. But then, if we had hired Les we may have never hired Harbaugh, so...
November 28th, 2023 at 8:12 AM ^
RichRod's situational awareness was pretty awful.
November 28th, 2023 at 9:05 AM ^
On so many different levels:
1. Didn't ever (not at Ariz) appreciate the need to have a defense.
2. His offensive scheme is attritional - on his QB. He needed an annual replacement of another QB. Ever coaching he he has found that one guy but he was just one guy. Once that guy got hurt, the offense spurted.
3. His understanding of how to related to the alumni, admin, and greater community was poor (see John U Bacon's Three and Out)
November 28th, 2023 at 9:44 AM ^
Brady Hoke has always seemed like the kind of guy where you could meet him at a sports bar, share a pitcher or two of beer, swap some stories with him and walk out 3-4 hours later feeling like you just had an absolute blast with the guy. Ever since he mentioned his "I drank all the beer in Muncie, Indiana" quote back when he was starting at Michigan, he just seemed like a really cool, jovial guy who's probably got some great stories to share. Very easy to see why he related so well with recruits.
I harbor no ill will towards the guy. The job was too big for him, and it shouldn't have been offered to him, but no one should ever blame him for taking it when it was offered. He did the best he could, never cheated Michigan out of a single day of work, and at the end of the day that's all you can truly ask for.
November 27th, 2023 at 11:55 PM ^
I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say here.
November 28th, 2023 at 5:33 AM ^
If Weird Al wrote it, it might still be less coherent than Smells Like Nirvana.
November 28th, 2023 at 12:03 AM ^
Alanis Morrisette wrote a song called "Ironic" that has no actual irony in it.
Isn't it ironic?
November 28th, 2023 at 6:30 AM ^
I always wondered how she could write that entire song without looking up the definition of irony.
That’s kind of…. ironic.
November 28th, 2023 at 6:37 AM ^
You play three chords and they sound nice together. Then you start to hum. Pretty soon you've got the makings of verse or chorus. Then you try inserting words. . .
November 28th, 2023 at 12:04 AM ^
Is this alcohol or something else? I need to know what's out there these days.
November 28th, 2023 at 7:32 AM ^
Some folks I see every M-F morning were talking yesterday about a THC drink. Never heard of it but one said that she got her aging mom 'stoned' with it over Thanksgiving weekend and her mom went from complainer to no worries in the world. Might have to look into that stuff a bit further.
November 28th, 2023 at 12:04 AM ^
Coach Hoke was coach for 3 of my years at Michigan and I'll always have a special place in my heart for him for that!
November 28th, 2023 at 12:42 AM ^
JFC! He's been coaching since the 30's!? He looks good for his age. He definitely deserves a nice retirement.
November 28th, 2023 at 12:10 AM ^
someone’s victory drinking went a little too far
November 28th, 2023 at 12:15 AM ^
A Brady Hoke fan here, no doubt! He restored my hope after the RichRod debacle, and I'll forever be thankful for that. Since he's retiring, I'd love to see him as an honorary captain at a game next year.
November 28th, 2023 at 12:20 AM ^
If this is how your 'thought process' usually looks, I sure hope you don't have a degree from the University of Michigan. It would have been a terrible waste of money.
November 28th, 2023 at 12:51 AM ^
OK - 2008 was actually the worst but 2009 left me rather disgusted that we couldn't qualify for a bowl. As for the season, expectations were high after the WMU win and then ND win with Tate looking like JJ (for a few games). Going from 4-0 to 5-7 (win over small college Del State) was brutal.
What bothered me most that year was going 4-0 and somehow tying Sparty (pending XP) with two seconds left and not going for 2PT right there. Lose and you lose. Instead we throw a pick in OT and give up an ugly running TD in OT and then the crash and burn happens.
I've never heard much about what actually happened to Tate, hope he got his act together in his personal life. Heard a few stories about his descent and was worried he may end up in a bad place. Hope for the best for a guy who for about 4 weeks was king of A2.
As for RR, I wanted Miles, then Schiano, but was happy we got RR. But his insistence on running 3-3-5 D in B1g at the time was madness. Then, the crap that came out after the affair where RR's wife was on the sideline and separated from his mistress.
As for Brady, yes, comeback next year please as an honorary captain.
November 28th, 2023 at 12:54 AM ^
I like Brady Hoke as a person too, but he kept us afloat? He lost more games every year he was here (the exact opposite of Rich Rod). If we didn't fire Hoke we would have drowned.
November 28th, 2023 at 11:09 AM ^
I don't know if Rich Rod would have ever found a good DC. But if he had, then I think it's realistic to see Michigan going about 8-4, 9-3 on a consistent basis through like 2010-2015. M probably avoids some of the real pain of the Hoke years, but runs a bigger risk of settling into a longer-term okay-but-not-great form of mediocrity along the lines of Penn State or Bo Pelini era Nebraska. Hard to say whether M would have stuck with it and hope Rich Rod could someday break through, or would have tired of remaining second-fiddle to OSU and eventually made a change.
I thought Hoke was a disastrous hire at the time, but he quickly impressed me by bringing in Mattison and then going 11-2 with the talent Rich Rod left over rather than insisting on running a Lloyd Carr offense. So then I was okay with him, even though I wasn't convinced he could really compete with Urban Meyer. But 2013 was a disastrous season and the wheels totally came off in 2014. I lost all faith in Hoke when he benched Gardner for the Minnesota game that year, and then lost respect for him when he let a clearly-concussed Shane Morris go back into that game totally unable to protect himself.
At least he got Dave Brandon fired.
November 28th, 2023 at 2:02 AM ^
I get why people hated RichRod. I had some sympathy towards him, as he did not get off on the right foot, and quickly ended up in over his head. He did get us Denard which should count for something. And he handed over the program in good enough shape to (barely) win a BCS bowl. But there’s no question his tenure was a failure.
I cannot understand why there are any Brady Hoke defenders here. People say he’s a good guy. That may be true. RichRod may be as well. But what Hoke did to Devin Gardner AND to Shane Morris in that Minnesota game is just unconscionable. And furthermore what he did to the program. Yes, he had a horrific boss (RichRod had the same boss, btw), which surely didn’t help. But he’s the only coach we’ve ever had that made me not want to watch the games. MOON. 42 for 42. Losing to Rutgers. Apologizing to MSU for a stake in the ground. You wanna have a beer with him? Go for it. But he did a ton of damage to Michigan football. Not out of malice, to be sure, but out of incompetence.
November 28th, 2023 at 6:43 AM ^
He was a bad coach but he was a good recruiter. With the exception of QB, Harbaugh had some pretty good fixings for 2015-16.
The MSU apology should not have happened but the stake was stupid. We were going to get murdered in that game and it was a stupid thing to do.
The Shane Morris incident was overblown. He played exactly one real play after he got drilled. Yes he should have come out sooner for being bad but Hoke had just made the switch and did not want to waiver.
He wasn’t great but he beat OSU, was bowl eligible 3 of 4 years and won a BCS game, and he won national coach of the year in his first year. That’s not awful.
November 28th, 2023 at 6:49 AM ^
I think Hoke had a good eye for talent. His lows (2013 O-line class) were offset by other good choices around the field IMO.
November 28th, 2023 at 7:11 AM ^
Hoke may have been a nice guy, but as they say, “the road the hell is paved with good intentions.”
I find your whitewashing of the Morris incident downright baffling. Hoke seems to have been the only person in the stadium, not to mention the TV viewing public, who was not outraged that Morris was still on the field. It was one of the most stunning displays of coaching malpractice I’ve ever seen and for it to come from a MICHIGAN MAN is shameful.
Whatever else he may have been, all evidence points definitively to “fool” and “coward” among his attributes, and I expect these factored heavily into him getting the job under Brandon (who else would DB want but a pushover? And who else but a pushover would work for DB?) Ultimately a “not very good coach” on the whole.
November 28th, 2023 at 8:18 AM ^
you have to be on the sidelines in actual games to get how something like that can be missed without the slightest ill-intent or even negligence.
i don't know what hoke saw and i don't remember what he said about it, i am only chiming in to say that on the sidelines you can miss something like that very easily. you're not staring at the big screen between plays, your view is not elevated and there are substitutions, refs, other coaches and players either in your way or drawing your immediate, intense attention to calling the next play or figuring the next personnel package.
November 28th, 2023 at 9:35 AM ^
I appreciate that, yet ultimately it is his responsibility, whatever the root cause for the awareness breakdown may have been. Tens of thousands of people saw it and he didn't. Given the complexities you cite, assuring that critical information is flowing accurately and thoroughly to the people involved in decision-making is top priority.
Not to make it sound easy - it's a very tough job, one that I'm not cut out for; Hoke was better suited for the role than the vast majority of humans, but given the circumstances of Michigan football at that particular point in time, it appears that he cracked under the pressure, resulting in decisions being made that were deleterious to the program and player health.
November 28th, 2023 at 8:18 AM ^
That is revisionist. Morris did something to his ankle that was limiting mobility, it was clear there was something but it wasn’t serious. He rolled out and got smashed on the targeting play. This was right around the time that head injuries were starting to be focused on to a much larger degree. It was not unusual at that time for a player to get popped and stay in the game. He should have been taken out, I agree. But he played one more play before Gardner was put in. Gardner’s helmet popped off and Morris ran out for one more play, an obvious handoff, when Gardner was required to come out for a play.
I’m not “whitewashing” it, it simply was not that big of a deal. If you want to say that Morris should never have been playing or should have been taken out much sooner in the game, I probably agree. He was ineffective and his teammates weren’t playing for him. (And Gardner had not spoken to him all game). But that one moment was overblown. The color guy went nuts about it and it was an oversight, but it was more used as the answer to the question “can we fire this guy yet” than some major egregious atrocity. In a vacuum it is nothing a coach would have ever lost their job over.
November 28th, 2023 at 9:02 AM ^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1mIcYz-DM8\
I had to watch the video because for some reason I had a memory of Russ Bellamy trying to find a helmet, putting on several and then taking them off, while Morris stumbled around out there. Did I Mandela Effect myself? What am I remembering?
November 28th, 2023 at 9:09 AM ^
Yes, that’s correct. Bellamy rightly assumed after the Nebraska game in 2012 that he would never be asked to play in a football game again. As such, he did not know where his helmet was. He tried to run out on the field wearing a comically oversized OL helmet, and probably should have, but was held back. Morris popped off the bench (no stumble) and ran regularly back in the game to hand the ball off.
Everybody wanted Hoke gone, and that was a good last straw, but people talk about like he was solely responsible for the murder of Shane Morris. If anything, the finger should be pointed at the OL and Devin Funchess for quitting on Morris, and Gardner for pouting the entire game and not offering any support or input to Morris.
November 28th, 2023 at 9:17 AM ^
Thanks! I had to go into a meeting right before Bellamy would have been trying on the helmets so I missed that part of the clip.
I get not expecting to play, but it always made me laugh that he literally couldn't find his helmet. And then yeah, the OL helmet, he looked like Dark Helmet in Spaceballs.
November 28th, 2023 at 9:28 AM ^
My dude, I recall the stadium was roaring with BOOs in real-time as it happened. That's not revisionist. Later I found out the TV announcers called it out, as well. Again, during the time of the event. Not revisionist.
November 28th, 2023 at 10:33 AM ^
They were not booing that specific play, my dude. Michigan was getting humiliated in the game and a lot of the crowd had already left the game. The crowd was booing before that, during that, and after that.
People do not recall how recently the heavy focus on concussions and head injuries has come about. The film "Concussion" had not even been released in 2014. Michigan did not have a hard and fast protocol because the issue was just now coming into focus. It was the second year of the targeting rule.
That season was a disaster, and Hoke deserved to get fired. However, in my opinion, people make far too big of a deal out of the specific sequence. Michigan was getting blown out by a bad team, and the crowd was pissed. The Morris sequence did not help but he was taken out of the game almost immediately, one play later.